And to mark the Irish national airline carrier’s opening of a new route to the capital of the Scottish Highlands we trust some will claim that they have seen the Loch Ness MonstAer.
Only there is no such creature, and there I’ve said it, although there are no shortage of fluffy merch toys.
As we found out on a visit to the Loch Ness Centre where the Son and Heir left the glove puppet soothing toy he carried everywhere.
Among all the other Nessies.
Of course, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it was the fabled Loch Ness Monster which put Inverness and its environs on the tourist map.
When, in fact, word of the beauty of the Scottish Highlands had long been known.
From forays from friend and foe alike over the century.
With no less a chronicler than Samuel Johnson waxing lyrical about its beauties on his 1775 A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.
Walking in Boswell and Johnson’s footsteps
Johnson commented on the diction of the Invernessians, to this day praised as close to ‘Queen’s English.’
Saying ‘The soldiers seem to have incorporated afterwards with the inhabitants.
‘And to have peopled the place with an English race.
‘For the language of this town has been long considered as peculiarly elegant.’
Johnson and Boswell were much taken by Inverness Castle, reputed home of Macbeth, and a particular fort nearby.
‘It was no very capacious edifice, but stands upon a rock so high and steep, that I think it was once not accessible.
‘But by the help of ladders, or a bridge.
‘Over against it, on another hill, was a fort built by Cromwell, now totally demolished.
‘For no faction of Scotland loved the name of Cromwell, or had any desire to continue his memory.’
All of which will be music to newbie Irish visitors to Inverness.
With the famously warty religious zealot no friend of our Celtic cousins either.
When we got our Erse kicked
Today’s Inverness Castle may be different than the one B&J visited but you’ll still be able to take in the atmosphere on your visit.
Johnson goes somewhat off track though here.
With the kind of demeaning and belittling descriptions of the Invernessians which would have him cancelled today.
Although he helpfully reminds us that the Highlands and Islands is the home of the Gaelic or Erse language.
And stop giggling there at the back.
‘There is I think a kirk, in which only the Erse language is used, he notes.
‘There is likewise an English chapel, but meanly built, where on Sunday we saw a very decent congregation.’
Go West
B&J seemingly don’t linger in Inverness, preferring to get on their journey to the remote Hebrides.
Saying: ‘At Inverness we procured three horses for ourselves and a servant, and one more for our baggage, which was no very heavy load.
‘We found in the course of our journey the convenience of having disencumbered ourselves, by laying aside whatever we could spare.
‘For it is not to be imagined without experience, how in climbing crags, and treading bogs.
‘And winding through narrow and obstructed passages, a little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burthen.’
Bonnie Prince Charlie’s last stand
Why B&J chose not to visit the site of the last battle on British soil, at nearby Culloden in 1746, we never learn.
Although it might still have been too raw.
But you can, and learn about the fate of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and how he too fled to the Western Isles.
Or the Jacobite Train, or Hogwarts Express over Glenfinnan Viaduct.
Or why they missed too the Clava Cairns, prehistoric burial site.
And the site of The Traitors UK castle at Ardross.
We’ll give them a pass on not knowing about the Victorian Market.
Or Scotland’s second-oldest bookshop and old church, Leakey’s.
Or not heading out to Chanonry Point on the Black Isle for dolphin watching.
And they actually do exist.
Take the Aer
Aer Lingus’s Inverness route will commence from 21 May.
With the new service operating twice weekly on Thursdays and Sundays.
We found a sample return fare in May from €22.62.
