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This beautiful and popular air was originally called Dr Mackay's Farewell to Creagorry by its composer Iain McLachlan. When David Silver of Inverness, was asked to write a song for a BBC Thriller called "The Dark Island", filmed in Benbecula, he used McLachlan‘s air and set words to it, inspired by the island of Benbecula.

Since its first airing in 1963, there have been several sets of words written, and the tune has become a classic (there are more than 50 different recordings). In 1965 the journalist W Gordon Smith wrote that the tune had been a traditional Highland pipe tune which had been adapted, but this is most likely a mistake.