Durness

Durness (Scottish Gaelic: Diùranais) is a huge but remote parish in the northwestern Highlands of Scotland, encompassing all the land between the Moine to the East (separating it from Tongue parish) and the Gualin to the West (separating it from Eddrachilis). The name was originally Norse "Dyrnes", meaning "deer headland". No one knows for sure where the name derives; it has variously been translated as from "Dorainn nis" tempest point, or "Dhu thir nis" the point of the black land; or from the Norse for deerpoint. Or even from the main village "Durine" which would translate as "Dhu Rinn" the black (or fertile) promontory, with the Norse "ness" tacked on to an existing Gaelic name. The parish comprises a number of larger or smaller townships, from the east these including Kempie, Eriboll, Laid, Rispond, Ceannabeinne, Sangobeg, Lerin, Smoo, Sangomore, Durine, Balvulich, Balnakeil, Achins and Keoldale. To the west there are also the single homesteads of Grudie, Carbreck and Rigolter.