Deerness

Brough of Deerness showing foundations of an early Celtic Church monastery.
Covenanters' Memorial, Deerness. A memorial to 200 covenanters who drowned when their prison ship foundered in a storm.

Deerness (Old Norse: Dyrnes[1][2]) is a quoad sacra parish (i.e. one created and functioning for ecclesiastical purposes only) and peninsula in Mainland, Orkney. It is about 13.5 kilometres (8.4 mi) south east of Kirkwall. Deerness forms a part of the civil parish of St. Andrews and Deerness.[3]

It consists chiefly of the peninsula, but also takes in its surrounding islets of Copinsay, the Horse of Copinsay and Corn Holm.[4] The Brough of Deerness is the site of an early Christian monastery near the north eastern tip of the peninsula. The Gloup is a sea-cave approximately 40 metres (44 yd) long and 25 metres (82 ft) deep just south of the Brough.[5]

Edwin Muir was born in Deerness in 1887.

The Covenanter's Memorial at Deerness, commemorating the loss in a shipwreck of 200 Covenanters en-route to the New World of America (as a punishment), was largely paid for by Robert Halliday Gunning.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Anderson, Joseph (Ed.) (1893) Orkneyinga Saga. Translated by Jón A. Hjaltalin & Gilbert Goudie. Edinburgh. James Thin and Mercat Press (1990 reprint). ISBN 0-901824-25-9
  2. ↑ Pedersen, Roy (January 1992) Orkneyjar ok Katanes (map, Inverness, Nevis Print)
  3. ↑ "Scrol Analyser". General Register Office for Scotland. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
  4. ↑ Rev. John Marius Wilson (1882) The Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland. Vol.I Edinburgh. W. & A.K. Johnstone
  5. ↑ "deerness". VisitScotland. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
  6. ↑ http://www.ayrshirehistory.org.uk/Shorts/deerness.htm


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Coordinates: 58°56′45″N 2°45′15″W / 58.94583°N 2.75417°W / 58.94583; -2.75417


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