Table Of Contentislands
The Earth series traces the historical significance and cultural history of natural
phenomena. Written by experts who are passionate about their subject, titles in the
series bring together science, art, literature, mythology, religion and popular culture,
exploring and explaining the planet we inhabit in new and exciting ways.
Series editor: Daniel Allen
In the same series
AirPeter Adey
DesertRoslynn D. Haynes
EarthquakeAndrew Robinson
FireStephen J. Pyne
FloodJohn Withington
IslandsStephen A. Royle
MoonEdgar Williams
TsunamiRichard Hamblyn
VolcanoJames Hamilton
WaterfallBrian J. Hudson
Islands
Stephen A. Royle
reaktion books
Published by
Reaktion Books Ltd
33Great Sutton Street
London ec1v 0dx, uk
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk
First published 2014
Copyright © Stephen A. Royle2014
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior permission of the publishers
Printed and bound in China by 1010 Printing International Ltd
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
isbn9781780233468
contents
1 Islands: Definition and Formation 7
2 Island Characteristics 29
3 Island Identity, Mythology, Religion
and CustomaryPractices 55
4 The Island as Laboratory 77
5 Island Literature 102
6 Islands: Visual Arts and Film,
Television and Radio 130
7 Popular Culture: Islands and Tourism 154
appendix: 100 islands (including australia) 181
references 201
select bibliography 214
island resources and websites 216
acknowledgements 218
photo acknowledgements 218
index 219
Nathaniel Hone (1831–1917), View on the Irish coast, probably Lambay Island,
from Malahide; view from the shore looking towards the sea and to an island,
n.d., watercolour.
1 Islands: Definition and Formation
What is an island?
The portion of the English word ‘island’ that refers to insularity
is the first syllable. Its sound is reflected in part of the place
names of many small islands off Great Britain and Ireland that
have ‘-ay’ or ‘-ey’ endings: Anglesey, Dursey, Jersey, Lambay, Raasay,
Shapinsay, Whalsay and so on. This ending stems from the voy-
ages of the Vikings or Norse in this region from the eighth to
eleventh centuries, when these peoples were expanding their
arena of activity from their Scandinavian home. In this era the
sea was a highway, not a barrier, and islands were ports of call
where fresh water might be obtained and rest, relaxation and
perhaps refuge might be sought. The Vikings’ toponymic mark
on these islands comes from the Old Norse word for island, ey;
modern Danish has ø. Islands with -ey endings do not normally
take ‘island’ as part of their names, for this would be tautological
– it is Jersey, not Jersey Island. The Old Norse eyentered English
via the Old Englishíeor í, not by itself (although there is an island
near Dublin called Ireland’s Eye) but in combination with ‘land’,
a solid part of the earth, to form ‘iland’. This had happened by
ad888, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In 1624John
Donne actually wrote ‘no man is an iland’, the ‘s’ in ‘island’ becom-
ing common only later that century, though the pronunciation did
not alter.¹The derivation of ‘island’ in other European languages
is also ‘etymologically constituted by the interplay between land
and water’.²
7
islands
This derivation is reflected in the definition of an island as ‘a
piece of land completely surrounded by water’ according to the
primary definition given in the Oxford English Dictionary. The un
Convention on the Law of the Sea says ‘An island is a naturally
formed area of land, surrounded by water, which is above water
at high tide.’³The English, being a seafaring and trading people,
needed other words to describe different types or groups of
islands and their language offers archipelago, atoll, ‘crag’, eyot,
holm, isle, islet, key (cay), reef, rock and skerry. Other languages
needed fewer terms if the sea and the pieces of land within it were
of less importance to their speakers. Slovak, from landlocked
Slovakia in Eastern Europe, has only one word for ‘island’, ostrov,
with developments therefrom, such as ostrovčan for ‘islander’ and
súostroviefor ‘archipelago’.
To the Vikings a piece of land surrounded by water was not
an ey unless it was sufficiently distant from the mainland for the
passage separating it to be navigable by a ship with its rudder
in place. In the Scottish census of 1861 an island had to have Francis Towne, view
enough pasture to support at least one sheep.4 Functional of the coast of the isle
of Lundy, 1787,
thresholds for insularity remain; the unConvention on the Law watercolour.
8
