A Description of the Western Isles

It is three hundred years since Martin Martin's great journey around the Western Isles, Orkneys and Shetlands. The first and one of the greatest of all travellers in Scotland, Martin is also unique in being the only native Gaelic speaker amongst them.

A Description of the Wester Isles is a unique and authoritative resonance which makes it, even today, a mine of information on the history, customs, traditions and life of the Hebrides. It also casts light on the islands during a crucial period of history when the old structures of society still held sway before Jacobite rebellions altered society irrevocably.