solaseigethelightofeigg.org

EIGG CHURCH NOW IN COMMUNITY HANDS

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 04:15:32 -0700

AS FROM 27 FEBRUARY 2026, SOLAS EIGE SCIO IS NOW THE PROUD OWNER OF ST COLUMBA'S CHURCH! There was a week of anxious waiting for the updated deeds of servitude to arrive from Stornoway to Eigg for more signatures, but the paperwork was lodged in time for the Scottish Land Funds monies to arrive in our bank account and come out again to pay for the church and land by the due date of 27 February! A huge sigh of relief was had all around when the purchase was confirmed: reaching this milestone at the end of February gaves us just enough time to order all the necessary equipment, confirm the contractors and make a start on all the work which has to be concluded by Mid April. We are now delighted to report earth was broken on the vehicular access road on Monday 9 March. A wee celebration was had on Friday 13 March at Galmisdale Bay Cafe with the community to raise a glass to this momentous achievement!

WE ARE VERY CLOSE TO OWNERSHIP OF THE CHURCH!

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 17:51:53 -0800

Hi everyone!

Updating of Deeds of Servitude is now done, Insurance quote updated, supply of hard core for our vehicular access road granted by the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust, exact sites for water tank, biorock septic tank and pipe runs are identified. We just need to sign the acquisition papers on the dotted line, and we are ready to start of the final part of our preparotory phase!

We even managed to convince the historical environment officer in Highland Council to allow us to do our own archaeological watching brief during all that preparatory work. We are now calling to our Solas Eige members to come along and help take photographs : we might have to take turn about as the slow scraping of the ground commences, 10 cm by 10 cm! Just crossing our fingers we won't encounter any archaeology as this was a hay field for Sandaveg farm for the last few centuries (See map above, the green field above the word "close". ) and not much else than pasture ground since, but you never know....

The BIG DAY is expected to be sometime in mid February, so we re getting ready to pop the champagne cork and raise a dram!

Happy New Year

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 14:50:13 -0800

Happy New Year From Snowy Eigg! The island's overnight transformation into winter wonderland truly closed our Eigg festive period with a magical touch! Another magical touch were the carols and winter songs performed by the Eigg singing group and friends in St Columba's church on Saturday 20 December. Candles lit up the building, showing its beautiful architecture, and joyful voices made it ring with the happiness of the season. Mince pies and mulled wine concluded the evening which was enjoyed by the 30 or so people who came along under a starlit sky to take part in this atmospheric community singing. Meanwhile Solas Eige has received a great Christmas present: its plans for water access, vehicular access and waste water disposals have been passed! We are now awaiting the conclusion of the paper work for the acquitision to take place and we will be ready to go with road and water works!

COP30@Eigg: raising awareness of current climate challenges

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 10:46:03 -0800

As we at Solas Eige SCIO are getting on with all the paperwork dealing with the acquisition of the church by Solas Eige - a long and slow process, we took the opportunity to mount an exhibition on COP30 to respond to the plea of the Wampi nation representatives who visited Eigg last June. The visit of Pamuk (president) Teofilo Kukush Pati and director of Justice, Tsanim Evaristo Wajai Asamat, was to raise awareness of illegal logging of balsa wood by Chinese campanies supplying the windfarm industry throughout the UK. The extremely strong but light wood is used to manufacture wind turbine blades. The Wampi represenatives came to Eigg to discuss how the island community conducting its resistance dutring the years leading to the 1997 community buy-out and seek inspiration. Their plight touched the island community and as we heard Pamuk and Tsanim were involved in the COP 30 discussion in Belem, in the heart to the Amazon, it felt right to use the church space to raise awareness of Indigenous Rights at the COP30. The exhibition is taking place during the duration of the event and Solas Eige has endeavoured to send out regular briefings on the talks progress to the community and its followers. The island children who made COP 30 the topic of their assembly last week, will be jogging to the church from the school to add their message to the points already made about the urgent need to protect the Amazon forest as well as the Ocean.

In particular. the island of Eigg supports the Belem Action Mechanism for a Global Just Transition to address the current fragmentation and inadequacies of Just transition efforts to take a decisive step towards a coordinated action linking climate action with social justice, equity and sustainable development for all.

For more information:

https://www.forestpeoples.org/cop-30-delegation-of-the-autonomous-territorial-government-of-the-wampis-nation-peru/

PROJECT SUPPORT CONSULTANT FOR SOLAS EIGE

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 07:37:57 -0700

Hello! As part of our SLF funding package, we have been awarded £4,500 for project support to bring capacity to our board and ensure all the essential repairs to the church are completed by end of March 2026! If you are interested in the preservation of Scottish historic churches, this might be job for you!

See job description below and how to apply:

Solas Eige Project Support Consultant

Contract Duration: 4 months
Total contract value: £ 4,750
Day rate: £250
15 days and up to £1000 travel expenses
Reports to Solas Eige board

Background

Through Solas Eige SCIO, the community on Eigg wishes to purchase and repair St Columba’s church, a C-listed building, with the aim of making it fit for purpose as a centre where visitors will discover the multi-layered story of Eigg and enjoy a variety of cultural activities.
St Columba’s fabric repair is a challenging project which will involve making the building watertight and sustainable in its usage for years to come as a carbon neutral venue. Solas Eige SCIO has teamed up with Conservation architect BARD to provide a blue print for extensive fabric repairs, including insulation and re-slating of roof.
Following acquisition of the church...Read More

WE'VE DONE IT!

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 15:37:48 -0700

We are delighted to announce that Solas Eige SCIO has secured £92,703 funding from the Scottish Land Fund to bring St Columba’s Church into community ownership. This marks a major step in transforming the historic building into the Solas Eige Centre – a vibrant hub for heritage, culture, and community life on the island.
“We’re thrilled to have received this support—it’s a powerful endorsement of the vision and potential of Solas Eige,” said Catherine Davies, Chair of Solas Eige SCIO. “This is the beginning of an exciting new chapter for the building and for the island.”
“This is great news for Eigg, its community and visitors” said Ailsa Raeburn, chair of the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust. “The project will ensure a much loved island building will stay in public use as it is developed to tell the story of this beautiful place and its people. Solas Eige are to be congratulated for all their hard work in getting to this stage and I look forward to seeing St Columba’s reopen as a valuable asset for Eigg. “
"It's a step closer to building the island archive we so badly need" echoed Hilda Ibrahim, Chair of Comunn Eachdraidh Eige, the Eigg history society who has strongly supported the acquisition campaign.
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SOLAS EIGE STARTS ITS CLIMATE AWARENESS PROGRAMME WITH A MARINE LITTER UPCYCLING WORKSHOP

Sat, 20 Sep 2025 16:09:22 -0700

As part of its new business plan, Solas Eige is committed to climate awareness raising. Its membership of the Highlands and Islands climate is key to this aspect of our work. To start on the right footing, Solas Eige SCIO is organising a workshop to repurpose ropes collected through the regular beach cleans carried out on the isle of Eigg. To date, it is still really difficult to recycle ropes and these have to be sent to landfill. To divest some of these ropes from landfill, Solas Eige SCIO has teemed up with Rebecca Johnstone of Shore to Floor in neighbouring Skye to conduct a workshop as part of the Highlands and Islands Climate Festival 2025: on Sunday 28 September, Rebecca will show the islanders how to use the collected ropes to make door mats. Very much looking forward to this!
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WE'VE RE-SUBMITTED to the Scottish Land FUND WITH OUR NEW, EXPANDED BUSINESS PLAN!

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 04:12:28 -0700

Hi everyone, in our last post, we said we were picking ourselves up to re-focus and re-submit to the Scottish Land Fund. And WE HAVE DONE IT, first making the deadline of 9 June for submission, then working with our Scottish Land Fund case officer to refine our budget and provide extra information. The completed case officer's report is now in the hands of the commissioners for a decision in a month's time. We should hear by Mid September if our hard work has paid off!
What's new: we teamed up with our local entrepreneur for design a modest eco-cabin to be placed on the church grounds to provide the revenue we will be needing for the project (see picture above). Our offer is now including a lot more about climate literacy in our heritage strategy. drawing on Eigg’s internationally recognised renewable energy grid—a symbol of self-sufficiency and ecological responsibility. We have been discussing setting a new "green pilgrimage" concept around the historical figure of St Donnan with the Scottish Pilgrim Routes Forum. And we have been working with BARD architects on a new design for the church - more ambitious in the scope of the building and site usage, including a stand alone archive. See our new plans on our front page!
What we are now asking the Scottish Land Fund, is the price of the acquisition of the building and surrounding land, together with the cost of bringing water, setting out a no-electricity biorock foul water treatment system, and a vehicular access track on the north boundary together with a small disabled car park area. This will allow us to do all the preparatory work for the repair and extension phase to set up the Solas Eige centre in 2026 and 2027, hopefully completing the work in time for the 30th anniversary of the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust!
In the meantime, St Columba's church is being successfully used for this year's exhibition: "Eigg, a very special landscape" and we are...Read More

Disappointed but still going strong!

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 09:06:18 -0700

Hello friends, it's taken us a few weeks to recover from the news in early March that we did not get our stage 2 award to buy the church, but that we were invited to re-submit with a stronger business plan! We had to re-group and get the Solas Eige membership together to consult them and see if they - like the 4 Solas Eige trustees - were happy to continue and help reframe and strengthen our business plan with the help of our conservation architects. The answer was a resounding YES, and here we are, hoping that you too will continue to support us!
We have now applied for funding to carry out the essential electrical and mechanical engineer survey that will enable us to put more precise figures on the business plan, showing that our approach will make the building truly sustainable.
We have also secured the help of our local builder to bring the price of on-site accommodation to help fund our Ionad Solas EIge centre to a far more reasonable level: our vision is affordable eco-accommodation and we are sticking to it, as we know that for many people who are associated with Eigg, holiday accommodation is becoming priced out of their reach.
In the meantime, the church of Scotland has been really supportive and is giving us more time to get organised, for which we are truly grateful.
We are now also planning this year;'s year exhibition in the church, probably something about the landscape of Eigg and crofting, to coincide with the launch of "Cultivating Change: Crofting on Eigg" a report which explores how crofting has evolved in recent years, highlights the challenges the island's crofting community faces, and explores ideas for strengthening and growing crofting.
We are also hoping to collaborate with Eigg bothy artists to have a special summer event: watch this space!

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Working with BARD conservation architects and Comunn Eachdraidh Eige

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 04:28:03 -0800

Our year started very well, with the Trustees of the Church of Scotland confirming our status as preferred buyer - phew, that took a long time, but it was a very welcome news, which were able to share with our case officer at the Scottish Land Fund.
We are also progressing with the analysis of the features we want to conserve, like the very fine joinery details uncovered by BARD.. Ruairidh Moir, our lead architect was visiting last week and looked at all the issues in details and walked with us around the site to choose the best point of entry for our vehicular access. It's a balance between avoiding trees and avoiding destroyed sound parts of the boundary wall and making the case for this with the planners. On the plus side, making an opening in the wall will provide stones to repair it in other places!
One exciting thing also is the discovery that the proportions of the church are perfectly aligned to the Golden ratio, which means that whoever built the church - and we are still trying to work out who it was - had a fair bit of architectural knowledge and very definite intentions. We are currently looking at locating the Heritors' records, as they might provide a clue of who the heritors ( landowners) of the parish at the time paid to erect the building.
We also want to thank Comunn Eachdraidh Eige, our local history society partner, for continuing with their donorbox fundraiser - link provided on the website . Every little helps as - fingers crossed - summer 2025 is scheduled to see the start of the repair phase!
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