Fifteen miles off Scotland's west coast lies the Inner Hebridean Isle of Eigg. Known for its community ownership following a high-profile buyout in 1997, Eigg's three by five mile radius is powered by the world’s first integrated renewable energy grid, harnessing the abundant natural resources of wind, hydro and solar power.

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The self-governed isle is steeped in myth and folklore. Humans have lived on Eigg for thousands of years, with the first written reference of human occupation dating back to around 600 AD. The late Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney based his 1983 poem Sweeney Astray on translations of the medieval Irish work Buile Suibhne. The tale follows Mad King Sweeney, a 7th century Ulster king banished and cursed by a cleric to wander the land as half-man half-bird, as he flees Ireland. Exiled and frenzied, Sweeney makes his way across the Atlantic Ocean, landing on Eigg, where he seeks refuge by dwelling in caves, sleeping in the trees and foraging for food among the wilderness. 

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In modern mythology, the story of Eigg’s land ownership dispossession serves as a model for community governance and self-sustainability. Incomers who have migrated to the Isle of Eigg are there not because of what their money can bring to the island - nor indeed how much they may gain in exchange for it - rather, what skills, knowledge and values they can share with the remote community who have chosen to make it their home. Prior to the successful takeover bid, the island had been owned by a series of absentee lairds and landlords, the penultimate and most notable of whom was English businessman and Olympic bobsleigher Keith Schellenberg.

 

Eigg had a population of 39 people when Schellenberg, heir to a glue-making fortune, became the island's ninth laird in 1975. What began as a hopeful tenure eventually descended into a fraught relationship between landlord and islanders. Over the course of Schellenberg’s two decade-long authoritarian reign, the community found themselves in progressively precarious tenancies and working contracts with minimal input into decisions which directly impacted their way of life. This follows a pattern of contentious land laws and ownership rights, a significant aspect of Scotland’s history dating back to the Highland Clearances.

 

The landmark buyout was spearheaded by a group of islanders who founded the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust which now owns the island. A driving force behind the takeover bid was Maggie Fyffe, secretary of the Trust, who moved to Eigg in 1976 and was initially an employee of Keith Schellenberg. Fyffe, who raised her family on the island and still lives there with her husband, navigates Eigg’s solitary road on a golf buggy. A pivotal factor in the success of the buyout was an anonymous donation of £1million towards the cost of purchasing the island from Schellenberg's short-lived successor, a German self-styled artist known as Professor Maruma. To this day the donor’s identity is a closely guarded secret known only by a handful of people, including Fyffe, who sends a Christmas card every year to the generous benefactor she's yet to meet in person.