A causeway built in 1991 joins Vatersay (Bhatarsaigh) to Barra, a simple drive down from Castlebay; it’s the southernmost inhabited island in the Outer Hebrides. Around 80 people live here, most in the village near the causeway. A narrow neck of land separates two white-sand beaches, Traigh a’ Bhaigh on the sheltered side and Traigh Siar, open to the Atlantic.
On the dunes above Traigh Siar, a granite obelisk marks the loss of the emigrant ship Annie Jane, wrecked in a storm in 1853 with the loss of up to 350 of the men, women and children aboard, bound from Liverpool to Quebec; many lie in unmarked graves nearby. To the north, the remains of an Iron Age dun, a stone-walled fort, overlook the Sound of Vatersay at Dun a’Chaolais.
