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A Short History of Arran

Lying some 15 miles off the Ayrshire mainland, Arran translates (depending on the source) either from the Gaelic Ar Rinn as ‘place of the peaked hills’ or from the Irish Arainn, meaning kidney-shaped. Certainly, both make sense. Gaelic plays a large part in the names of Arran's spectacular mountains (Cir Mhòr and Caisteal Abhail, for instance) while Old Norse has left its mark on Glen Rosa, Glen Sannox and the island's highest peak, Goat Fell, which climbs to 2866ft (874m) above Brodick Bay; itself a translation from the Old Norse Breithr Vik, which means Broad Bay. This association with the Old Norse language stretches back to around the 9th or 10th centuries, when Arran was under the ownership (as were many of Scotland's present islands) of the Norwegian crown. It was not until after the Battle of Largs in the 13th century that it fell into Scottish hands. In fact it was at Lamlash Bay on Arran's eastern side that Norway's king, Hakon IV, reassembled his defeated army after the battle.