Port Rìgh: the Gaelic names around Portree

Portree is Port Rìgh, and Gaelic is part of the town in daily use. The town's Gaelic-medium primary school has its own stop on the bus routes, the knoll above the harbour has a Gaelic name the council uses in its own records, and the building at the Storr car park opened under a Gaelic name. You do not need any Gaelic to visit, but knowing a few of the names makes the place easier to read.

Port Rìgh: two stories for one name

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college based in Sleat in the south of Skye, runs a short series on place names, and its piece on Portree gives two readings. The first half is simple: port means the same in Gaelic as in English, though it is said slightly differently. The second half is the argument. Some take it from rìgh, king, and say the town was named after a visit by King James V in the sixteenth century. Others take it from ruighe, a slope.

Wikipedia's account adds two details. It dates the royal visit to 1540, and notes that the story has been contested, since James did not arrive in peaceful times. It also gives an older form, Port Ruighe, slope harbour. Stand on the pier and look up at the town climbing the hill behind Quay Street, and the slope reading is easy to believe.

Am Meall, the Lump

The rocky knoll above the south side of the harbour has three names. Most people call it the Lump. The Folly Flâneuse, who has written up the tower on top, says some call it Fancy Hill, and the local GP practice and the community hospital both give their address as Fancy Hill or Fancyhill. In Gaelic it is Am Meall, which is how Highland Council's licensing record for the 2026 music festival named the venue.

The tower on top is the Apothecary's Tower. A Geograph caption by a contributor writing in February 2025 says it was built in 1835 by Dr Alexander MacLeod, known as An Dotair Bàn, Lord MacDonald's chamberlain, who had laid the hill out as a pleasure garden in 1829. The same caption ends with a Gaelic line, Cuimhnich na laoich o shean, and credits the restoration to Sir Iain Noble of Fearann Eilean Iarmain. The Skye Highland Games are held on Am Meall every August.

Ionad an Stòir, the Storr Centre

At the Storr car park, Highland Council developed a building that opened in 2024 under the name Ionad an Stòir, the Storr Centre, which the West Highland Free Press reported was custom-built on Barra. The paper put visitors to the Storr at around 200,000 a year. The pinnacle below the cliffs is the Old Man of Storr, and the area of cliffs and pinnacles around it is called the Sanctuary, per Walkhighlands.

On the way round the town

Some smaller names you will meet:

Bun-sgoil Ghàidhlig Phort Rìgh is the Gaelic-medium primary school. The bus stop outside carries its name, and Stagecoach runs a school service to it from the high school.

Scorrybreac, the name of the shore walk, the restaurant on Bosville Terrace and the old house of the Nicolsons, appears on Geograph as the site of Scorrybreac House, the ancestral home of the Nicolsons of Scorrybreac, marked by a memorial above Torvaig. Walkhighlands says members of the clan bought the headland the path crosses.

The Bile, on the Scorrybreac circuit, is a broad grass shelf above the shore. A Geograph contributor says it is known locally by that name, pronounced beel, meaning lip or edge, and that it is a raised beach.

Brose, half of the name of the Bosville Hotel's restaurant, Dulse & Brose, is defined by the Dictionaries of the Scots Language as a dish made by mixing boiling water or milk with oatmeal or peasemeal, with salt and butter.

An Stiùideo is the name of the wellness studio in the Isle of Skye Candle Co. visitor centre, in the building that was the Aros Centre.

Learning more

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig's place-name series is the place to start if you want the reasoning behind a name rather than the story.