The Harris Tweed® Journal

Àirigh

30th June

From the land, comes the cloth, comes the language…

Àirigh (/aːrʲɪ/)
“Shieling”

Transhumance was practised in the Outer Hebrides until the 1950s, or in some cases the 1960s, with livestock being taken to moorland shielings from early May until early August. Summer days on the moorland shielings are often recalled as the happiest of people’s lives.

Our Gaelic Moorland Word of the Week comes from Rathad an Isein, The Bird’s Road: a Lewis Moorland Glossary, a compilation by Anne Campbell.

Photo by Janet Miles

airigh moorland sheiling

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