North Ronaldsay
Template: Infobox Island / Maintenance / height missing
North Ronaldsay is the easternmost island of Orkney. It lies about 60 km away from Kirkwall, the main town of the archipelago. It has an area of 6.9 square kilometers with a maximum length ( north-south) of four kilometers and a width of three and a half kilometers.
The residents spoke in the 19th century Norn, as this Norse language was already extinct on the other islands. In everyday language, some peculiarities were given until today: So you "no" instead of saying "not", "ye " instead of " you" or "to be" instead of " to have". The island name is pronounced today than Rinnalsay, which some linguists and place-name researchers (but also the local folklore ) a reference to " Ringan " - the Holy St. Ninian - see, for which there is also another of the northern Orkney covers.
The approximately 70 residents live mainly from tourism, and sheep, or they work in the oil industry. Ronald Says North Island center is surrounded by dry stone walls over 1.5 m high and a total of 19 km of dikes sheep (Sheep Dyke ). They were built from the year 1832, when the Seetangmarkt collapsed.
The dike keeps the sheep from the agricultural area far. The roughly 4000 hardy North Ronaldsay sheep, a native of small stature, only about 20 -kg sheep breed, live freely outside of the dike on the so-called Ness. The animals eat mostly algae and are rounded only to shear. During lambing ewes are fed for three or four months on grass surfaces. Eleven jointly maintained Sheep punds ( cone-shaped cairn with a small, walled plateau ) around the beach give the sheep shelter if the beaches are flooded. The eleven Sheep punds stand for the areas of the eleven democratically elected "Sheep righteous " who watch all the families of the island on the buoyancy of the animals to shear and the equitable distribution of the animals and the income from the Schur. This institution dates back to the early Middle Ages and represents one of the oldest democratic constitution farming communities in Western Europe ( conditionally comparable to the East Frisian landscape and its original tasks, but not with the much more far-reaching that they met today).
Most farms on the island are very flat on small artificial mounds ( the mounds on the Frisian coast comparable, but not so high ).
Tang was used in the country in large quantities as a fertilizer. It is especially useful on sandy soils and helps in storing water during dry periods. During the kelp boom in the 18th and early 19th century North Ronaldsay benefited from the many seaweed that has been washed up on its shallow beaches of the big Seetangbetten. 60,000 tonnes of seaweed were dried on Orkney ( Stronsay Stronsay and Papa ) and in kilns ( Kilns and Kelp Kelp Chimneys ) or pits burned to Kelpasche. 150 km far should then have been to smell the stench. Buyers were the soda and Alaunfabriken. The pits are still visible in many places.
Attractions
As the island's attractions, Holland House are with the Stan Stane. In the northeast of the 1789 built of fieldstone old lighthouse Dennis Head Beacon, 1854 by the new Lighthouse North Ronaldsay Lighthouse - was replaced in its function and on the top carries a stone ball - with 41 m one of the highest in the British Isles. In the south of the ruins of the Broch of Burrian. Received field boundaries from the first millennium BC are the matches Dyke and the Muckle Gairsty. The walls divide the island into three areas. Part of the Muckle Gairsty is about two meters high and 10 meters wide. Little is known about the function of these walls.
Traffic
Daily ferry connections with modern ro-ro ferries exist from Kirkwall, which may be disturbed particularly in the winter months due to severe weather or adverse tides but. There are also, however, possible to reach the island with a ( subsidized) scheduled flight from Mainland from.