Islay Events Videos

Various things happen on Islay all the time. There are specific events which either happen once or regularly over a longer time period. There are longer term projects which bring change to Islay.

On this page I will aim to show videos of shows and other events I attended as well as videos about longer term projects taking place on Islay. Almost like a ‘Reporting Islay’ section.

Many people will remember the sad sight of the old Islay Hotel in Port Ellen. After it had closed the building hadn't been maintained and over the years the wind and water had taken their toll. Certainly over the last 10 years of its existence it had started to turn into an eyesore, even though some developed romantic views about the building.

After many problems including securing sufficient water supplies Roland Worthington-Eyre was finally able to kick off the project to rebuild the hotel in summer 2007. Demolition of the old building was completed in September 2007 and building of the new hotel could begin.

This video aims to document the progress of the project with a tour around the hotel in July 2008. Many thanks to Roland and Peter for taking me around the hotel and explaining the various features. I've combined footage from two different days to create the tour, so don't be surprised if the weather changes several times during the tour.

A run at the annual sheep dog trials at Whin Park Bridgend on the Isle of Islay. Apologies for the wind noise, but it was a quite windy day and I tried to capture the commands of the dog owner for the dog.

The dog is called ‘Jaff’, run by Ian McConnell.

It's much better when you're actually there, but if you can't be this video hopefully captures at least some of the atmosphere during Norma Munro's performance of the classic Westering Home during the Islay Visitor Welcome Evening on the 13th of April 2009.

It was a packed event and many of the guests as well as another musician (unfortunately I don't know his name) joined in. A moving experience.

Apologies for the video quality, it was fairly dark in the room.

I hope you enjoyed the videos, if you did feel free to embed them on your website using the code provided by YouTube.