With spectacular white beaches and an abundance of wildlife, the island of Taransay has seen pagan Celtic settlers, a massacre involving warring medieval clans and in 2000 was made famous by the BBC reality television series Castaway.
Now the owners of one of the largest Scottish islands in private hands plan to return it to its natural condition and into a survival retreat.
“Our vision is to take the island back into pre-intensive grazing, back to the bronze age. It will be covered by Atlantic rainforest. We are not talking about the Scottish straight pine – we are talking about myriad deciduous trees that thrived in the past,” owner Adam Kelliher told the Times.
The BBC series transformed Taransay from a little-known holiday destination into one of the most recognised Scottish islands. Up to 9 million viewers watched for a year as an initial group of 36 “castaways” tried to survive unaided in the harsh landscape and grow their own food.
The island, one of the least spoilt and most beautiful places in the Outer Hebrides, was sold to Adam and Cathra Kelliher only a fortnight after going on the market for £2m in 2011. The island was put up for sale by locally raised brothers Angus and Norman MacKay, who live on neighbouring island Harris. Their father, John MacKay, bought Taransay in 1967.
“When we took all the sheep off in 2019, there was an immediate explosion of flowers and wildlife, but then massive grasses started to smother that wildlife because there were not the mammals there to eat the grass,” Cathra told the Times.
“If we left it without helping it along by reintroducing mammals, then it would not necessarily turn out nicely. It is not just about leaving it; it is about undoing the damage we have done.”
In 2011, John Bound, from the selling agent CKD Galbraith, told the Guardian the new owners had no plans to change Taransay’s current use, mainly for sheep farming and as a destination for self-catering holidaymakers.
The couple have since enlisted the services of Tim Coles, founder of Operation Wallacea, an organisation leading scientific conservation expeditions according to the Times, and Eliza Brown, founder of Rvival.
The company, which offers tailored survival experiences on Taransay as an “escape to your own uninhabited private island”, said it was “opening the shores of an exclusive selection of private uninhabited islands to a new generation of castaways”.
In 2011, the best known of the original castaways, the television presenter Ben Fogle, said on X that he was “gutted” by the sale of Taransay. Fogle had been fundraising to buy the island and said he had reached £1.5m.
