page_title: Islay
section_title: Name
hierarchical_section_title: Islay / Name
caption_attribution_description: Port Charlotte, Islay.
context_page_description: Islay is the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Known as "The Queen of the Hebrides", it lies in Argyll just south west of Jura and around 40 kilometres north of the Northern Irish coast. The island's capital is Bowmore where the distinctive round Kilarrow Parish Church and a distillery are located. Port Ellen is the main port.
  Islay is the fifth-largest Scottish island and the eighth-largest island of the British Isles, with a total area of almost 620 square kilometres. There is ample evidence of the prehistoric settlement of Islay and the first written reference may have come in the 1st century AD. The island had become part of the Gaelic Kingdom of Dál Riata during the Early Middle Ages before being absorbed into the Norse Kingdom of the Isles. The later medieval period marked a "cultural high point" with the transfer of the Hebrides to the Kingdom of Scotland and the emergence of the Clan Donald Lordship of the Isles, originally centred at Finlaggan. During the 17th century the Clan Donald star waned, but improvements to agriculture and transport led to a rising population, which peaked in the mid-19th century.
context_section_description: Islay was probably recorded by Ptolemy as Epidion, the use of the "p" suggesting a Brittonic or Pictish tribal name. In the seventh century Adomnán referred to the island as Ilea and the name occurs in early Irish records as Ile and as Íl in Old Norse. The root is not Gaelic and of unknown origin.  In seventeenth-century maps the spelling appears as "Yla" or "Ila", a form still used in the name of the whisky Caol Ila. In poetic language Islay is known as Banrìgh Innse Gall, or Banrìgh nan Eilean usually translated as "Queen of the Hebrides" and  Eilean uaine Ìle – the "green isle of Islay" A native of Islay is called an Ìleach, pronounced [ˈiːləx].
  The obliteration of pre-Norse names is almost total and place names on the island are a mixture of Norse and later Gaelic and English influences. Port Askaig is from the Norse ask-vík, meaning "ash tree bay" and the common suffix -bus is from the Norse bólstaðr, meaning "farm". Gaelic names, or their anglicised versions such as Ardnave Point, from Àird an Naoimh, "height of the saint" are very common. Several of the villages were developed in the 18th and 19th centuries and English is a stronger influence in their names as a result. Port Charlotte for example, was named after Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of 5th Duke of Argyll, and wife of the island's then owner, Col John Campbell (1770–1809) of Shawfield and Islay.
caption: Port Charlotte, founded in 1828[14]
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