The VICE Guide to the Bars of Barra Island

This is in the Castlebay Bar during a two hour set by local heroes The Vatersay Boys. Live, they’re like The Pogues meets The Boredoms. Photo by Jamie-James Medina

If you want to drink yourself to death in the most beautiful surroundings possible then I really can’t think of a better place than the Isle Of Barra. No one will catch you at it because there’s basically no-one there. Imagine Leaving Las Vegas without the hookers, dealers, gamblers and losers and replace them with sheep and fishermen. To say that booze is an important part of the culture here is like saying the French are so fond of smoking and cheese. Scotland and booze love each other and nowhere more so than Barra. There is booze everywhere you look. The single road that circles the island is smattered with great bars that you could really disappear in forever. As my new friend Angus MacNeil (we met about five guys with the same name in two days) said to me over a few Goldies one Sunday morning (large measures of cheap whisky): “In the summer on Barra you can fish and drink, and in the winter there’s no fishing.” The Isle Of Barra Hotel Bar is situated on the wild Atlantic west coast of the island and it’s what tourist guides would call “a hidden gem”. It’s got the bleakest car park in the British Isles and it’s fun to sit in the car and watch the massive Atlantic rollers crashing against the shore while thinking “I never want to go back to the city again”. Once inside it’s impossible to enjoy the sea views because there are no windows. Don’t let that put you off though because inside the main barman is a friendly Englishmen called John who spends about four days a week behind the bar. We had him down as an acid casualty hippy burnout who fled to the island to put his scrambled egg brain back into a manageable fried egg sandwich but after we did some research we found out he used to be an English teacher. That’s something that happened a lot during the trip. There’s so little happening that you tend to dramatise the mundane. So John spends his days reading Pushkin behind the bar, cooking himself sausages and serving up to 12 customers a day. The bar itself was built in the 60s and like everything else here has never really been touched. I’d recommend sitting on a stool at the bar and listen to John’s philosophising. Drinking five large Laphroaigs then ambling down to the rocks and being sprayed by the sea foam makes you feel like you’re a Viking out of Lord Of The Rings Five. You stand there all wobbly, while the brisk salty air mixes with your heavy whiskey breath and the foam splashes your face and the isolated beauty is so overwhelming that, mixed with your drunkeness, you’re planning on moving here so you can be like this forever and finally find your peace with God (who is a Viking just like you). The Castlebay Bar. This joint jumps more than anywhere else on the island. Way back in 1911 the owners of the adjacent Castlebay Hotel decided the locals needed their own bar where they could really get down to some professional drinking, away from the visiting birdwatchers and seal enthusiasts who are generally a little more timid than the Islanders. The initial welcome is about as warm as a Glasgow kiss (I lost count of the number of times the fat guy with the skinhead and the beard whispered “queer” as I walked past him to the toilet) but, trust me, persevere and you can have a good time here. The day often starts quite early when the fishing boats come in. The guys shed their oilskins and order up some Tennants. Tennants is a great day beer. It’s weak enough to prevent peaking too early but is strong enough to provide a nice gentle slope into oblivion. Another local favourite is the delightful Scottish Pimms. Just order up a large vodka (best if it’s an AIDS brand like Glenn’s) and a can of Irn Bru (the soda that has taught generations of Scots to drink by tasting very much like alcohol preparing the youth for a force 12 Stella habit). It’s really nice. Believe me. The food’s great in here too. Just kidding. Apart from the crab sandwiches, the food here is pre-packaged toasties or deep fried burgers. That’s one of the biggest bummers about Barra. If you’re a lazy London shite with no hope in hell of getting invited into somebody’s home there’s nothing really to eat all day apart from going to the Co-op and getting pork pies and Scampi Fries. Because we went there in the middle of December, there was literally no food served on the island between 9.30AM and 7.30PM apart from pre-packaged toasties. Well, that’s what we thought until we met a fisherman (who we can’t reveal the name of for several reasons) walking up the causeway from Vatersay to Barra and he sold us three huge lobsters for £20 and a bottle of Bell’s. He took us back to his little house (it was more like a shack) and we boiled them up and ate them with lightly salted butter like it was the only food we’d eaten in four weeks. It was like a multiple food orgasm.

When you only have the choice of 3 bars you are going to have to get on with everybody. It can be quite weird to find yourself buying drinks for the local Reverend and the local red eyed alcoholic at the same time. You’d be surprised how friendly everyone was and how well they all get along together. They didn’t even mind us too much. Only one guy pulled a knife on us and that was only to show us the quickest way of gutting a sheep. It’s sort of impossible to tell when the Castlebay Bar closes. It just sort of fades away to black and you find yourself waking up in bed the next morning appreciating the fact that you managed to find your room. Here’s where Barra’s amazingly pure air comes into play. Even if you have like seventeen large whiskys and some beers, the hangovers are zilch compared to city hangovers. A quick walk around the beach after some egg and black pudding breakfast literally zaps away your sickness and lethargy quicker than even Solpadeine and a Bloody Mary. The air is the purest air we have ever experienced. They bottle it and give it to premature babies. Oh shit! We nearly forgot to mention the Vatersay Boys. They’re a five piece Gaelic band who are like the Oasis of Barra, ie everybody has a soft spot for them and gets wasted at their concerts. They play traditional Gaelic music in a really intense, drunken way. They played at the Castlebay Bar on the Saturday night we were there and it was incredible. There were gangs of middle aged women dancing on the tables with reindeer hats on while the Vatersay Boys sat in a huddle on the stage, making this amazing, hi-energy, traditional Gaelic / rock hybrid. It was like The Boredoms meets the Pogues or Spiritualized with bagpipes. Later on that night at the disco, some kid picked a fight with one of the band and he got short shrift. He was seen outside the bar later, kind of crying and being comforted by a fat girl. The fat kid getting hit was also good for us because it distracted the attention of the tougher-looking Barra guys who wanted to fight us and were sending their girlfriends over to our table to ask us for dances / offer sex in the vague hope we’d say yes to give them an excuse for throwing us into the sea, bloodied and beaten. Earlier, at the The Heathbank Hotel. We were served by Karen who also serves the baked spuds at the Airfield Cafeteria. Think she also worked at the Castlebay Bar as well. Most people on the island have four jobs. At first this manifests itself by making you have constant deja vu when you meet somebody new but then you realise that the lady serving you a crab sandwich in the bar was the same person who checked your luggage at the airport two days ago. Later, We ended up at The Craigard Hotel Bar. This is the place to be on a Sunday afternoon after church. At first it was a bit weird because one amazingly pissed guy who poured about a quarter of a pint of cider onto his hand kept trying to pick a fight with us by talking in Gaelic / pissed Scottish to us and then demanding an answer. Example: Drunk guy: Aaaaeeersmmeerssh a wweeeeeebossssh acchanaye likeeee weeee bo?
Vice: Hi, just waiting to get a drink here.
Drunk guy: Aeeeehsssmeeersshsh, you wannnaaa take it easshy there pal.
Vice: Err, okay. Scampi fries and a pint of Magners please.
Drunk guy: Ashhhhmmeeerrr are yeeesh fuckingggsh happy now pal?
Vice: Yes thanks, I’m happy I got my crisps. Been pretty hungry all day.
Drunk guy: Whyeeeeee deeeyeerrrssh think I give a shiiittte?

The best thing about the bar is the informal music society led by a great and noble old guy called DD. He was my favourite person I met on the island the whole time we were there. He sits there and plays his accordion all afternoon long. He pauses only to sip at his whiskey (an act he describes as “kissing the pig”) and laugh out loud. He told me he didn’t own any recorded music as there was no point when he can make his own music anytime he wants. Later on, a rock band called The Lack Pack played and they did some Pink Floyd and AC/DC covers. The band’s based around “the only rocker on the island” lead guitarist Stephen. (See Music Interviews and Fashion for more on this kid). We ended the trip with whisky at The Airfield Cafeteria. At the end of your stay on the island there’s still a chance for a quick one before you board the Twin Otter for the flight back to so-called civilisation. They sell snacks, tea, coffee and of course whisky. Be careful though: there’s an uptight security guy who won’t let you on the plane if you are too wasted. Getting bumped off the plane and arrested would be very bad because everybody on the island would know about it in two seconds and the whispering campaign would be unbearable. That’s the other great thing about this place, the natural sense of law and order. We asked the headmaster of the island’s school David Bowman why there was so little crime if there was so much boozing and he said: “Well if you were found to be a criminal, everybody would know about it immediately and the shame you’d feel would make you want to leave the island forever and never come back.”

NEIL THOMSON & ANDY CAPPER