Shetland (from
etland; Old Norse ; Faroese ; Old Gaelic ; )
is an archipelago in Scotland
, off the
northeast coast. The islands lie to the northeast of Orkney
, from the
Faroe
Islands
and form part of the division between the Atlantic Ocean
to the west and the North Sea
to the east. The total area is approximately
. Administratively, the area is one of the 32
council areas of Scotland for which the
now-archaic spelling
Zetland was used until 1970.
The
islands' administrative centre and only burgh
is Lerwick
.
The
largest island, known as "Mainland
," has an
area of , making it the third-largest Scottish island and the fifth-largest of the
British
Isles
.
Shetland
is also a lieutenancy
area, comprises the Shetland
constituency of the Scottish Parliament
, and was formerly a county.
History
Prehistory
Firm
geological evidence shows that at around 6100 BC a tsunami caused by the Storegga Slides
hit Shetland, as well as the rest of the east coast
of Scotland, and may have washed over some of the Shetland Islands
completely. Shetland has been populated since at least 3400
BC. The early people subsisted on cattle-farming and agriculture.
During the
Bronze Age, around 2000 BC,
the climate cooled and the population moved to the coast. During
the
Iron Age, many stone fortresses were
erected, some ruins of which remain today. Around A.D.
297, Roman sources
describe a people known as the Picts who ruled
much of north Scotland, and
Shetland eventually became part of the Pictish kingdom.
Shetland's Picts were later conquered by the
Vikings.
Due to the practice, dating to at least the
early Neolithic, of building in stone on the virtually tree-less
islands, Shetland is extremely rich in physical remains of all
these periods, though Shetland is less rich in material remains
than Orkney.
The artifacts of all the eras of Shetland's past can be studied at
the newly built (2007) Shetland Museum in Lerwick.
Scandinavian colonisation
By the end of the ninth century the Vikings shifted their attention
from plundering to invasion, mainly due to the overpopulation of
Scandinavia in comparison to resources
and arable land available there.
Vikings colonised much of northern Europe,
including Normandy, England, Scotland, Shetland, Orkney, the
Hebrides
, the Isle of
Man
, the Faroe Islands, Iceland
and Greenland
, and subsequently North
America. People from what today is Norway tended to
follow a northern route to the islands and less populous places
whereas the Danes went to more
populated areas such as England
and France
, and the
Swedes went east.
Hjaltland was colonised by Norsemen in the 9th century,
the fate of the existing indigenous population being uncertain. The
colonisers gave it that name and established their laws and
language. That language evolved into the
West
Nordic language
Norn, which
survived into the 1800s.
After
Harald Finehair took control
of all Norway, many of his opponents fled, some to Orkney and
Shetland. From the
Northern Isles
they continued to raid Scotland and Norway, prompting Harald
Hårfagre to raise a large fleet which he sailed to the islands. In
about 875 he and his forces took control of Shetland and Orkney.
Ragnvald, Earl of Møre received
Orkney and Shetland as an earldom from the king as reparation for
his son's being killed in battle in Scotland. Ragnvald gave the
earldom to his brother
Sigurd the
Mighty.
Shetland was
Christianised in the tenth
century.
Conflict with Norway
In 1194 when king
Sverre
Sigurdsson (ca 1145 - 1202) ruled Norway and
Harald Maddadsson was Earl of Orkney and
Shetland, the Lendmann Hallkjell Jonsson and the Earl's
brother-in-law Olav raised an army called the
eyjarskeggjar on Orkney and sailed for
Norway. Their pretender king was Olav's young foster son
Sigurd, son of king
Magnus Erlingsson.
The
eyjarskeggjar were beaten in the Battle of Florvåg near Bergen
. The
body of Sigurd Magnusson was displayed for the king in Bergen in
order for him to be sure of the death of his enemy, but he also
demanded that Harald Maddadsson (Harald jarl) answer for his part
in the uprising. In 1195 the earl sailed to Norway to reconcile
with King Sverre. As a punishment the king placed the earldom of
Shetland under the direct rule of the king, from which it was
probably never returned.
Increased Scottish interest
When
Alexander III of
Scotland turned twenty-one in 1262 and became of age he
declared his intention of continuing the aggressive policy his
father had begun towards the western and northern isles. This had
been put on hold when his father had died thirteen years earlier.
Alexander sent a formal demand to the Norwegian King
Håkon Håkonsson.
After decades of civil war, Norway had achieved stability and grown
to be a substantial nation with influence in Europe and the
potential to be a powerful force in war. With this as a background,
King Håkon rejected all demands from the Scots. The Norwegians
regarded all the islands in the North Sea as part of the Norwegian
realm. To add weight to his answer, King Håkon activated the
leidang and set off from Norway in
a fleet which is said to have been the largest ever assembled in
Norway.
The fleet met up in Breideyarsund
in Shetland (probably today's Bressay
Sound) before the king and his men sailed for
Scotland and made landfall on Arran
. The
aim was to conduct negotiations with the army as a backup.
Alexander III drew out the negotiations while he patiently waited
for the autumn storms to set in. Finally, after tiresome diplomatic
talks, King Håkon lost his patience and decided to attack. At the
same time a large storm set in which destroyed several of his ships
and kept others from making landfall.
The Battle of
Largs
in October 1263 was not decisive and both parties
claimed victory, but King Håkon Håkonsson's position was
hopeless. On 5 October, he returned to Orkney with a
discontented army, and there he died of a fever on 17 December
1263. His death halted any further Norwegian expansion in
Scotland.
King
Magnus Lagabøte broke with
his father's expansion policy and started negotiations with
Alexander III.
In the Treaty of
Perth of 1266 he surrendered his furthest Norwegian possessions
including Man and the
Sudreyar (Hebrides) to Scotland in return for 4,000 marks sterling and an annuity of 100
marks. The Scots also recognised Norwegian sovereignty over
Orkney and Shetland.
One of the main reasons behind the Norwegian desire for peace with
Scotland was that trade with England was suffering from the
constant state of war. In the new trade agreement between England
and Norway in 1223 the English demanded Norway make peace with
Scotland. In 1269, this agreement was expanded to include mutual
free trade.
Pawned to Scotland
In the 14th century Norway still treated Orkney and Shetland as a
Norwegian province, but Scottish influence was growing, and in 1379
the Scottish earl
Henry Sinclair took
control of Orkney on behalf of the Norwegian king
Håkon VI Magnusson. In 1348 Norway
was severely weakened by the
Black
Plague and in 1397 it entered the
Kalmar Union.
With time Norway came increasingly under
Danish
control. King
Christian
I of Denmark and Norway was in financial trouble and, when his
daughter Margaret became engaged to
James III of Scotland in 1468, he
needed money to pay her
dowry. Apparently
without the knowledge of the Norwegian
Riksråd (Council of the Realm) he entered into
a contract on 8 September 1468 with the King of Scots in which he
pawned Orkney for 50,000 Rhenish
guilders.
On 28 May the next year he also pawned Shetland for 8,000 Rhenish
guilders. He secured a clause in the contract which gave future
kings of Norway the right to redeem the islands for a fixed sum of
of gold or of silver. Several attempts were made during the 17th
and 18th centuries to redeem the islands, without success.
Following a legal dispute with
William, Earl of
Morton, who held the estates of Orkney and Shetland,
Charles II ratified the pawning
document by a Scottish
Act
of Parliament on 27 December 1669 which officially made the
islands a
Crown dependency and
exempt from any "dissolution of His Majesty’s lands". In 1742 a
further Act of Parliament returned the estates to a later Earl of
Morton, although the original Act of Parliament specifically ruled
that any future act regarding the islands status would be
"considered null, void and of no effect".
James III and Margaret, whose
betrothal led to Shetland passing from Norway to Scotland
The Hansa era
After the decline of the Vikings, four centuries followed where the
Shetlanders sold their goods through the
Hanseatic League of German merchantmen. The
Hansa would buy shiploads of salted
cod
and
ling. In return, the island
population received cash,
grain,
cloth,
beer and other goods. The
trade with the North German towns lasted until the 1707
Act of Union prohibited the German
merchants from trading with Shetland. Shetland then went into an
economic depression as the Scottish and local traders were not as
skilled in trading with salted fish. However, some local
merchant-lairds took up where the German merchants had left off,
and fitted out their own ships to export fish from Shetland to the
Continent. For the independent farmers of Shetland this had
negative consequences, as they now had to fish for these
merchant-lairds. With the passing of the
Crofters' Holdings Act
1886 the
Liberal prime
minister
William Ewart
Gladstone emancipated crofters from the rule of the landlords.
The Act enabled those who had effectively been landowners' serfs to
become owner-occupiers of their own small farms.
Napoleonic wars
Some 3000 Shetlanders served in the
Royal
Navy during the
Napoleonic wars
from 1800 to 1815.
World War II
During
World War II a Norwegian naval unit
nicknamed the "Shetland Bus" was
established by the Special
Operations Executive Norwegian Section in the autumn of 1940
with a base first at Lunna and later in Scalloway
in order to conduct operations on the coast of
Norway. About 30 fishing vessels used by Norwegian refugees
were gathered in Shetland. Many of these vessels were rented, and
Norwegian fishermen were recruited as volunteers to operate
them.
The Shetland Bus sailed in covert operations between Norway and
Shetland, carrying men from
Company
Linge, intelligence agents, refugees, instructors for the
resistance, and military supplies. Many people on the run from the
Germans, and much important information on German activity in
Norway, were brought back to the Allies this way. Some mines were
laid and direct action against German ships was also taken. At the
start the unit was under a British command, but later Norwegians
joined in the command.
The fishing vessels made 80 trips across the sea. German attacks
and bad weather caused the loss of 10 boats, 44 crewmen, and 60
refugees. Because of the high losses it was decided to procure
faster vessels.
The Americans
gave the unit the use of three submarine chasers
(HNoMS Hessa, HNoMS Hitra and HNoMS Vigra). None of the trips
with these vessels incurred loss of life or equipment.
The Shetland Bus made over 200 trips across the sea and the most
famous of the men,
Leif Andreas
Larsen (Shetlands-Larsen) made 52 of them.
Shetland today
In the early 1970s, oil and gas were found off Shetland.
The
East
Shetland Basin
is one of the largest petroleum sedimentary basins
in Europe and the oil extracted there is sent to the terminal at
Sullom Voe (Norse:
Solheimavagr). Sullom Voe terminal opened in 1978 and is
the largest oil export harbour in the United Kingdom
with a volume of 25 million tons per
year.
Income from oil, and the improved economic state that oil-related
development has brought, has resulted in reduced emigration and
vastly improved infrastructure throughout Shetland, leading to an
improved quality of life.
As a result of the oil revenue and the cultural links with Norway,
a small independence movement developed briefly within Shetland.
It saw as
its model the Isle of
Man, as well as its closest neighbour, the Faroe Islands, an autonomous dependency of Denmark.
Sheep farming also plays a big part in Shetland today. Fishing is
also important, but not as much as it used to be.
Timeline
Culture
A map showing the modern day Shetland
Islands.
The main cultural influences on Shetland are Scandinavian
(especially Norwegian) and British (especially Scottish) but North
Sea and North Atlantic commerce have ensured various other
influences. Shetland's fiddle music is a blend of ancient Norwegian
folk music, Scots reels, jigs and slow airs, and tunes brought home
by sailors from Ireland, Germany, North America and even Greenland.
Notable exponents of Shetland folk music include
fiddle players, the late
Tom Anderson and
Aly Bain, and the
guitarist,
the late
Peerie Willie Johnson
(see
:Category:Shetland
music).
The landscape and the light found in Shetland have been an
inspiration to many
artists in the fields of
painting, drawing and sculpturing, both local and from elsewhere.
There are several local art galleries. As with other Scottish
dialects, the Shetland dialect, a mixture of old English, Scots and
Norse words, was actively discouraged in schools, churches and
civic life until the late twentieth century, but has since then
been restored as a language of culture. It is used both in local
radio and dialect writing, and kept alive by the
Shetland Folk Society and the
quarterly
New Shetlander
magazine.
Up Helly Aa is one of a variety of fire
festivals held in Shetland annually in the middle of winter. The
festival is just over 100 years old in its present, highly
organised form. Originally a
temperance
festival held to break up the long nights of winter the festival
has become one celebrating the isles heritage and includes a
procession of men dressed as Vikings, the burning of a replica
longship and copious amounts of alcohol.
The main Up Helly Aa in Lerwick bars women from taking part in the
processions of guizers. Instead, women prepare food for the big
night.
Shetland competes in the bi-annual
Island Games, which
it hosted in 2005.
Language
The
Pictish language died out
during the Viking occupation to be replaced by
Old Norse, which in turn evolved into
Norn. This remains the most prominent
remnant of Norse culture on the islands. Almost every place name in
use there can be traced back to the Vikings. Norn continued to be
spoken until the 18th century when it was replaced by an insular
dialect of
Scots also known as
Shetlandic, which in turn is being
replaced by
Scottish English.
Although Norn was spoken for hundreds of years it is now extinct
and few written sources remain.
Example of the
Lord's Prayer in
Shetland Norn:
Shetland Norn
- Fy vor or er i Chimeri.
- Halaght vara nam dit.
- La Konungdum din cumma.
- La vill din vera guerde
- i vrildin sin da er i chimeri.
- Gav vus dagh u dagloght brau.
- Forgive sindorwara sin vi forgiva gem ao sinda gainst
wus.
- Lia wus ikè o vera tempa, but delivra wus fro adlu
idlu.
- For do i ir Kongungdum, u puri, u glori, Amen
Translation to modern Norwegian
- Far vår som er i himmelen!
- Heilagt skal namnet ditt vera.
- Lat kongedømet ditt koma.
- Lat viljen din verta gjort
- på jorda som i himmelen.
- Gjev oss i dag vårt daglege brød.
- Forlat syndene våre, som vi òg forlèt dei som har synda mot
oss.
- Lei oss ikkje ut i freisting, men frels oss frå alt
ille.
- For kongedømet er ditt, og makta og æra i all æve.
Amen.
Translation to modern Norwegian
- Fader vår, du som er i himmelen!
- La ditt navn være hellig.
- La ditt rike komme.
- La din vilje skje
- på jorden som i himmelen.
- Gi oss i dag vårt daglige brød.
- Forlat oss våre synder, som vi óg forlater våre
syndere.
- Led oss ikke inn i fristelse, men frels oss fra det
onde.
- For riket er ditt, og makten og æren i evighet.
Amen.
Old Norse version
- Faþer vár es ert í himenríki,
- verði nafn þitt hæilagt
- Til kome ríke þitt,
- værði vili þin
- sva an iarðu sem í himnum.
- Gef oss í dag brauð vort dagligt
- Ok fyr gefþu oss synþer órar,
- sem vér fyr gefom þeim er viþ oss hafa misgert
- Leiðd oss eigi í freistni,
- heldr leys þv oss frá öllu illu.
English version (not literal translation)
- Our Father in heaven,
- Hallowed be your name,
- Your kingdom come,
- Your will be done,
- On earth as in heaven.
- Give us today our daily bread.
- Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against
us.
- Save us from the time of trial,
- And deliver us from evil.
- For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are
yours,
- Now and forever. Amen.
Etymology
The original Norse name for Shetland was
Hjaltland.
Hjalt in
Old Norse meaning the
hilt or cross
guard of a sword. As with all western
dialects of Norse, the stressed 'a' shifts to 'e' and so the
ja became
je as with Norse hjalpa which became
hjelpa. Then the pronunciation of the combination of the letters
hj changed to
sh.
This is also found in some Norwegian
dialects in for instance the word hjå (with) and the place names
Hjerkinn
and Sjoa
(from
*Hjó). Lastly the
l before the
t
disappeared.
As Norn was gradually replaced by Scots
Shetland became
etland (the initial letter being the
Middle Scots letter,
yogh (which can also be found in the name
Menzies). This sounded almost identical to the
original Norn sound, /hj/). When the letter
yogh was
discontinued, it was often replaced by the similar-looking letter
'
z', hence
Zetland, the mis
pronounced form used to describe the pre-1975
county
council.
In early Irish literature, Shetland is referred to as
Inse
Catt - "the Isles of Cats". This is considered to represent
the pre-Norse name for the islands.
The Cat tribe also occupied parts of the
northern Scottish mainland - they can be found in the name of
Caithness
, and in the Gaelic name for Sutherland
(Cataibh, meaning "among the
Cats").
Norse names
The old Norse names of the principal islands were:
- Hjaltland (Mainland)
- Jell (Yell) - might be pre-Norse Pictish
- Unst - might be pre-Norse Pictish
- Fetlar - might be pre-Norse Pictish
- Hvalsey (Whalsay) - "whale island" (Hvalsøy/Kvalsøy in modern
Norwegian)
- Breiðey (Bressay) - "broad island"
- Fugley (Foula) - "bird island" (Fugløy in modern
Norwegian)
- Frjóey (Fair Isle) - "fertile island" (Froøy/Fræøy in modern
Norwegian)
Shetland on film
Michael Powell made The Edge of the World in 1937, a
dramatisation based on the true story of the evacuation of the last
36 inhabitants of the remote island of St
Kilda
on 29 August 1930. St Kilda lies in the
Atlantic
Ocean, 64 kilometres west-northwest of North Uist
in the Outer Hebrides; the inhabitants spoke Gaelic. Powell was unable to
get permission to film on St. Kilda.
Undaunted, he made
the film over four months during the summer of 1936 on the island
of Foula
, in the
Shetland Isles. The film transposes these events to one of
the islands of Shetland. 40 years later, the documentary
Return To
The Edge Of The World (1978) was filmed, capturing a
reunion of cast and crew of the film as they revisited the
island.
A number of other films have been made on or about Shetland:
Shetland in literature
- Walter Scott's 1822 novel
The Pirate is set in "a
remote part of Shetland", and was inspired by his 1814 visit to the
islands.
- Hugh MacDiarmid, the Scots poet
and writer lived in Whalsay from the mid-1930s through 1942, and
wrote many poems there, including a number that directly address or
reflect the Shetland environment (e.g. "On A Raised Beach").
- The first section of Raman
Mundair's 2007 book A Choreographer's Cartography is
"60 degrees north" - a series of poems, some in the Shetland
dialect, that reflect the poet's experiences of Shetland and offers
a unique British Asian perspective on the landscape.
The English mystery writer Ann Cleeves has written a series of
three novels set in the Shetland Islands and featuring the
detective Jimmy Perez (supposedly descended from a survivor of a
shipwreck during the battle with the Spanish Armada which had been
blown off course during a storm) The novels ("Raven Black," "White
Nights," and "Red Bones") include beautiful and detailed
descriptions of the islands, their landscapes and their
people.
Churches
There are churches of many different denominations in Shetland,
with the largest variety found in Lerwick. Unlike much of Scotland,
the
Methodist
Church has a relatively high membership in Shetland. Shetland
comprises a District of the Methodist Church (the rest of Scotland
comprises a separate District).
The Church of Scotland
has a Presbytery
of Shetland; the largest church is Lerwick and
Bressay Parish Church
.
Flag
Roy Grönneberg founded the local chapter of the
Scottish National Party in 1966 and
was active in the struggle for Shetland
autonomy. In 1969 he designed the flag of Shetland
in cooperation with Bill Adams to mark the 500 year anniversary of
the transfer of Shetland from Norway to Scotland.
The reasons behind the design was the desire to illustrate the
Shetland had been a part of Norway for 500 years and a part of
Scotland for 500 years. The colours are identical to the ones in
Flag of Scotland, but shaped in the
Nordic cross and is the same design
Icelandic republicans used in the early 20th century known in
Iceland as Hvítbláinn, the white-blue.
In 1975 when the new Shetland Islands Council came into being
Grönneberg wanted his proposed flag to become the official flag of
Shetland, but was unsuccessful. A plebiscite in 1985 also failed to
give it official status. Finally, in 2005 the
Lord Lyon King of Arms approved the
flag as the official flag of Shetland.
Geography
Out of the approximately 100 islands, only 15 are inhabited.
The main
island of the group is known as Mainland. The other inhabited islands are: Bressay, Burra, Fetlar
, Muckle Roe
, Papa
Stour
, Trondra
, Vaila
, Unst
, Whalsay
, Yell
in the main
Shetland group, plus Foula to the
south-west, Fair
Isle
to the south, and Housay
and
Bruray
in the
Out
Skerries
to the east
(see below).
Fair Isle lies approximately halfway between Shetland and
Orkney, but it is administered as part of Shetland.
The
Out
Skerries lie east of
the main group. Due to the islands'
latitude, on clear winter nights the
aurora borealis or "northern lights" can
sometimes be seen in the sky, while in summer there is almost
perpetual daylight, a state of affairs known locally as the "simmer
dim".
Climate
Shetland has a
Maritime Subarctic
climate (Koppen
Cfc), with long but mild winters and
short, cool summers. The climate all year round is moderate due to
the influence of the relative warmth of the surrounding seas, the
surface temperature of which falls to in early March and peaks at
in late August. However, summers are cool and temperatures over are
rare. The warmest month on record was August 1947, when the average
maximum temperature was .
The general character of the climate is windy and cloudy with at
least of rain falling on about 200 days a year. Average yearly
precipitation at Lerwick
is , with November and December the wettest months, together
receiving about a quarter of annual precipitation. Snowfall can
occur at any time from July to early June although it seldom lies
on the ground for more than a day. Less rain falls from April to
August although no month receives less than .
Fog is common in the east of the islands during summer
due to the cooling effect of the sea on mild southerly
airflows.
There is a wide variation in day length during the course of the
year due the islands' northerly location. On the shortest day at
the
winter solstice sunlight lasts 3
hours and 45 minutes and this stretches to 23 hours at the summer
solstice, with twilight occupying the remainder of the time.
However, the remoteness of the islands from warm and dry airflows
means that all months are cloudy. Annual sunshine hours average
1065 hours so sunny days are rare and overcast days are common.
| Average maximum temperature coldest month |
(February) |
| Average maximum temperature warmest month |
(August) |
| Number of days with air frost |
33 days |
| Annual precipitation |
|
| Number of days a year with snowfall |
60 days |
| Number of days a year with rain or showers |
285 days |
Flora
The landscape in Shetland is marked by the grazing of
sheep and the rarity of
trees. The
flora is dominated by Arctic-alpine plants, wild flowers,
moss and
lichen.
Shetland Mouse-ear (
Cerastium
nigrescens) is an
endemic plant found
only in Shetland. It was first recorded in 1837 by
botanist Thomas
Edmondston. Although reported from two other sites in the 19th
century, it currently grows only on two
serpentine hills on the island of Unst.
Fauna
Shetland is the site of one of the largest bird colonies in the
North Atlantic, home to more than one million birds.
Most birds are found
in colonies on Hermaness
, Foula, Mousa
, Noss
, Sumburgh Head
and Fair
Isle. Some of the birds found on the islands are
Atlantic Puffin,
Storm-petrel,
Northern Lapwing and
Winter Wren.Many
arctic
birds spend the winter on Shetland and among those are
Whooper Swan and
Great Northern Diver.The Shetland Isles
are also the home of the
Shetland
Sheepdog or 'Sheltie' which is a small, robust and graceful
dog.
The geographical isolation and recent glacial history of Shetland
have resulted in a depleted mammalian fauna. The Wood Mouse
(
Apodemus sylvaticus
L.), along with the Brown Rat (
Rattus norvegicus Berkenhout) and the
House Mouse (
Mus musculus
domesticus), are the only recorded types of rodent present on
the island.
Based largely on morphological studies of
epigenetic variations, the source of the
original founding population has been attributed to Norway
with the
most obvious date of introduction being presumed to be around the
9th century AD with the arrival of the Vikings. However, archaeological evidence now
suggests that this species was present during the Middle Iron Age (around 200 BC - AD 400), and one theory
proposes that Apodemus was in fact introduced from
Orkney where a population had existed since at the least
the Bronze Age.
Notable places and buildings
Subdivisions
Shetland is subdivided into 22
parishes or
ward that no longer have
administrative significance but are used for statistical
purposes:
1.
Sound
2.
Clickimin
3. North Central
4.
Breiwick
5. South Central
6.
Harbour and Bressay
7. North
8.
Upper Sound,
Gulberwick and
Quarff
9.
Unst and Island
of Fetlar
10.
Yell
11.
Northmavine
, Muckle
Roe and Busta
12.
Delting West
13.
Delting East and
Lunnasting
14.
Nesting
, Whiteness
, Girlsta and Gott
15.
Scalloway
16.
Whalsay/Skerries also known as Out Skerries
17.
Sandsting
, Aithsting and Weisdale
18.
Walls
, Sandness
and Clousta
19.
Burra/Trondra
20.
Cunningsburgh
and Sandwick
21.
Sandwick, Levenwick
and Bigton
22.
Dunrossness
Economy
Fishing has been an integral part of Shetland's economy since
prehistory and it remains central to the islands' economy even
today. It was also important in bringing in commerce from outside
the isles, for example the 17th century Hanseatic traders and
Victorian-era herring activities.
The main revenue producers in Shetland today are agriculture,
aquaculture,
fishing and the
petroleum
industry (
crude oil and
natural gas production). Farming is mostly
concerned with the raising of
Shetland
sheep, known for their unusually fine wool. Crops raised
include oats and barley; however, the cold, windswept islands make
for a harsh environment for most plants.
Crofting, the farming of small plots of land on a
legally restricted tenancy basis, is still practiced and viewed as
a key Shetland tradition as well as important source of income. The
Shetland Pony is another important
aspect of the Shetland farming tradition.
North Sea oil rig
More recently, oil reserves discovered in the 20th century out to
sea have provided a much needed alternative source of income for
the islands.
The East Shetland Basin is one of Europe's largest
oil fields. Oil produced there is landed at the
Sullom Voe terminal in Shetland. Taxes from the
oil have increased spending on social welfare, art, sport,
environmental measures and financial development. Three quarters of
the islands work force is employed in the service sector. Even
though oil makes up 15% of the islands' economy, (£116 million a
year), the fish-related industry generates twice as much income and
employs three times as many workers. The oil revenue allows
increased expenditure by the Shetland Islands Council, which alone
accounted for 27.9% of employment in 2003.
For the last 25 years unemployment has been under 5% and as of 2004
was 2%, but the fluctuations in the market for farmed
salmon and
trawled
white fish leads to seasonal changes in unemployment.
In January 2007, the
Shetland
Islands Council signed a partnership agreement with
Scottish and Southern Energy
for a 200-turbine
wind farm and subsea
cable. The
renewable energy project
would produce about 600 megawatts and contribute about £20 million
to the Shetland economy per year. The plan is meeting significant
opposition within the islands, primarily resulting from the
anticipated visual impact of the development.
Media
Shetland is served by a weekly local newspaper,
The Shetland Times (one of the first
UK newspapers to publish on the internet), two monthly magazines,
Shetland Life and
i'i' Shetland and a news
website,
www.shetland-news.co.uk.
Radio service is provided by
BBC
Radio Shetland (the local opt-out of
BBC Radio Scotland) and
SIBC, a commercial radio station.
Transport
Transport between islands is primarily by ferry.
Shetland is served by
a domestic ferry connection from Lerwick to the mainland, operated
by Northlink Ferries to Aberdeen
.
Loganair aircraft on Fair Isle,
midway between Orkney and Shetland
Sumburgh
Airport
, the main airport on Shetland, is located close to
Sumburgh, south of Lerwick. Loganair operates flights for
FlyBe to other parts of the British Isles seven times
a day.
The destinations are Kirkwall
, Aberdeen, Inverness
, Glasgow
and Edinburgh
. In the summer months, there are also flights
to London
Stansted
and the Faeroes operated by the Faeroese airliner
Atlantic Airways.
Inter-Island flights from the Shetland
Mainland to Fair Isle, Foula, Papa Stour, and Out Skerries are
operated from Tingwall
Airport
11 km west of Lerwick, by Directflight Ltd.,
using Islander aircraft owned by the Shetland Islands
Council.
There are
frequent charter flights from Aberdeen to Scatsta
(near Sullom Voe), which
are used to transport oilfield workers.
Public services
The
Shetland Islands
Council provide services in the areas of Environmental Health,
Roads, Social Work, Community Development, Organisational
Development, Economic Development, Building Standards, Trading
Standards, Housing, Waste, Education, Burial Grounds, Fire Service,
Port and Harbours and others.
The political composition of the Council is 22
Independents.
In Shetland there are a total of 34 schools: two High Schools,
seven Junior High Schools with primary and nursery departments, and
25 Primary Schools.
The High Schools are Anderson
High School
and Brae High School.
Shetland is also home to the
North Atlantic Fisheries
College.
The Shetland NHS is the local Scottish health service in the
Shetland Islands.
People
It is believed that the island group had an original population
about which little is known who were replaced or assimilated by the
Picts. Historical, archaeological, place-name
and linguistic evidence indicates Norse cultural dominance of
Shetland during the Viking period. A few place names might have
Pictish origin, but this is disputed. Several genetic studies have
been conducted investigating the genetic makeup of the islands'
population today in order to establish its origin. Shetlanders are
less than half Scandinavian in origin. They have almost identical
proportions of Scandinavian matrilineal and patrilineal ancestry
(ca 44%), suggesting that the islands were settled by both men and
women, as seems to have been the case in Orkney and the northern
and western coastline of Scotland, but areas of the British Isles
further away from Scandinavia show signs of being colonised
primarily by males who found local wives. After the islands were
transferred to Scotland thousands of Scots families emigrated to
Shetland in the 16th and 17th centuries. Contacts with Germany and
the Netherlands through the fishing trade brought smaller numbers
of immigrants from those countries.
World
War II and the oil industry have also contributed to population
increase through immigration.
Population development
The population development on Shetland has through the times been
affected by deaths at sea and epidemics.
Smallpox afflicted the islands in the 17th and 18th
centuries, but as vaccines became common after 1760 the population
increased to 40,000 in 1861. The population increase led to a lack
of food and many young men went away to serve in the British
merchant fleet. 100 years later the islands' population was more
than halved. This decrease was mainly caused by the large number of
Shetlandic men being lost at sea during the two world wars and the
waves of emigration in the 1920s and 1930s.
Now more people of
Shetlandic background live in Canada
, Australia and New Zealand
than in Shetland.
| District |
Population 1961 |
Population 1971 |
Population 1981 |
Population 1991 |
Population 2001 |
Bound Skerry (& Grunay ) |
3 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Bressay |
269 |
248 |
334 |
352 |
384 |
| Bruray |
34 |
35 |
33 |
27 |
26 |
East
Burra |
92 |
64 |
78 |
72 |
66 |
| Fair
Isle |
64 |
65 |
58 |
67 |
69 |
| Fetlar |
127 |
88 |
101 |
90 |
86 |
| Foula |
54 |
33 |
39 |
40 |
31 |
| Housay |
71 |
63 |
49 |
58 |
50 |
Mainland |
13,282 |
12,944 |
17,722 |
17,562 |
17,550 |
Muckle Flugga |
3 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Muckle
Roe |
103 |
94 |
99 |
115 |
104 |
| Noss |
0 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Papa
Stour |
55 |
24 |
33 |
33 |
25 |
| Trondra |
20 |
17 |
93 |
117 |
133 |
| Unst |
1,148 |
1,124 |
1,140 |
1,055 |
720 |
| Vaila |
9 |
5 |
0 |
7 |
2 |
West
Burra |
561 |
501 |
767 |
817 |
753 |
| Whalsay |
764 |
870 |
1,031 |
1,041 |
1,589 |
| Yell |
1,155 |
1,143 |
1,191 |
1,075 |
957 |
| Total |
17,814 |
17,327 |
22,768 |
22,522 |
22,990 |
See also:
List of Shetland
islands
See also
References
Notes
- "Zetland_County_Council" shetlopedia.com. Retrieved 16
July 2009.
- Smith, David "Tsunami hazards". Fettes.com. Retrieved 5 February
2008.
- The Scourd of Brouster site in Walls
includes a cluster of six or seven walled fields and three stone
circular houses that contains the earliest hoe-blades found so far in
Scotland. See Fleming (2005) p. 47 quoting Clarke, P.A. (1995)
Observations of Social Change in Prehistoric Orkney and
Shetland based on a Study of the Types and Context of Coarse Stone
Artefacts. M. Litt. thesis. University of Glasgow.
- Turner (1998) p. 18 states that there are over 5,000
archaeological sites all told.
- James Graham-Campbell: Cultural Atlas of the Viking World,
1999. Page 38. ISBN 0816030049
- Julian Richards, Vikingblod, page 235, Hermon Forlag,
ISBN 8283200165
- Acquisition of Orkney and Shetland 1468-9
- University Library, University in Bergen: Article
on Shetland
- Universitas, Norsken som døde (Norwegian article on the
history of the islands)
- Visit Shetland history page
- "A History of Shetland" visitshetland.com.
Retrieved 12 October 2008.
- McLean, Duncan (20 September 1998) "Getting on the Map". London. The
Independent. Retrieved 12 October 2008.
- Ursula Smith" Shetlopedia. Retrieved 12 October
2008.
- University in Bergen, Historical institute page on
the Shetland Gang
- Kulturnett Hordaland page on
Shetlands-Larsen
- New Statesman - Independence thinking
- Breeze, David J. "The ancient geography of Scotland" in Ballin
Smith and Banks (2002) pp. 12–13.
- Visit Shetland page on culture
- Visit Shetland page on Up Helly Aa
- Julian Richards, Vikingblod, page 236, Hermon Forlag,
ISBN 8283200165
- Norwegian language council: Placenames with -a,
hjalt, Leirvik, vin in placenames
- Watson, William J. (2005) The Celtic
Place-names of Scotland. Edinburgh. Birlinn. ISBN
1841583235.
- "The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric" IMDb. Retrieved
12 October 2008.
- "A Crofter's Life in Shetland" screenonline.org.uk.
Retrieved 12 October 2008.
- Mundair, Raman (2007) A Choreographer's Cartography.
Leeds. Peepal Tree Press. ISBN 9781845230517
- "Lerwick and Bressay Parish Church, St Columba's,
" shetland-museum. Retrieved 12 October 2008. "It... is the
largest church in Shetland... affectionately known as "the Big
Kirk" ".
- Flags of the Worlds page on the flag of
Shetland
- UK Meteorological Office, www.meto.gov.uk
- Shetlands tourist agency climate page.
visitshetland.com. Retrieved 19 April 2007
- Scott, W. & Palmer, R. (1987) The Flowering Plants and
Ferns of the Shetland Islands. Shetland Times. Lerwick.
- Scott, W. Harvey, P., Riddington, R. & Fisher, M. (2002)
Rare Plants of Shetland. Shetland Amenity Trust.
Lerwick.
- Nicholson, R.A., Barber, P., and Bond, J.M. (2005). New
Evidence for the Date of Introduction of the House Mouse, Mus
musculus domesticus Schwartz & Schwartz, and the Field
Mouse, Apodemus sylvaticus (L.) to Shetland.
Environmental Archaeology 10 (2):
143-151
- Shetland sheep
- Visit Shetland's economy page
- Shetland Islands Council. "Shetland In Statistics 2005".
- BBC News 'Powering on with Island wind plan', 19
January 2007
- Jones G. (1984) A History of the Vikings Oxford University
Press: Oxford.
- Article: Genetic evidence for a family-based
Scandinavian settlement of Shetland and Orkney during the Viking
periods
- Visit Shetland page on the people
Bibliography
- Ballin Smith, B. and Banks, I. (eds) (2002) In the Shadow
of the Brochs, the Iron Age in Scotland. Stroud. Tempus. ISBN
075242517X
- Fleming, Andrew (2005) St. Kilda and the Wider World: Tales
of an Iconic Island. Windgather Press ISBN 1905119003
- Nicolson, James R. (1972) Shetland. Newton Abbott.
David & Charles.
- Turner, Val (1998) Ancient Shetland. London. B. T.
Batsford/Historic Scotland. ISBN 0713480009
External links
.jpg/140px-Faroe_stamp_047_europe_(jakob_jakobsen).jpg)
archaeological site
the most northerly castle in the United
Kingdom
archaeological site
the most
northerly settlement in the United Kingdom
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