Norse Settlement in the Southern Hebrides: The Place-name Evidence from Islay

This chapter suggests we rethink assumptions about weaker landnám in the southern Hebrides, and on Islay in particular, given prominent Old Norse nature generics, the survival of Old Norse place-names on prime land throughout Islay, and the virtual absence of a pre-Old Norse onomastic stratum. Since at least the 19th century, scholars have attempted to understand Scandinavian settlement in the Hebrides amid the fog of a post-Viking-Age resurgence and northern expansion of Gaelic over areas with an Old Norse-speaking interlude. Key questions centre on the linguistic border of Gaelic and Pictish before Old Norse speakers settled in the first half of the 9th century, how extensive the settlement of Old Norse speakers was and whether there were distinct north-western and south-eastern sociolinguistic regions in the Hebrides. The research outlined in this chapter concludes that the initial impact of Viking settlement in the southern, Inner Hebrides, was very similar to that in the north.