Or even from the main village "Durine" which would translate as "Dubh Rinn" the black (or fertile) promontory, with the Norse "ness" tacked onto an existing Gaelic name.

To the south of the village at the former township of Cnocbreac can be seen the remains of two parallel turf dykes of Neolithic origin, the purpose of which is unknown.

During the Second World War, the battle cruiser "Jamaica" sustained an outbreak of measles on board and was quarantined in the loch for months.

After the war there was also a ROTOR radar station at Faraid Head near Balnakeil, part of which is used by the modern military range and the accommodation area is used for various crafts.

The population today is much diminished, with the whole of the Durness area suffering greatly from the Highland Clearances, the first in 1809 and thereafter throughout the greater part of the 19th century until the Crofting Act of the 1886 finally gave crofters a measure of security of tenure.

[10] In the first attempt, in August, 1841, a party of sheriff officers and constables were attacked by a mob of about 400 people who were armed with weapons, at the inn of Durine in the parish of Durness.

Mackay made another attempt with a stronger force on 17 September 1841, again consisting of a party of sheriff officers and special constables, arriving the following evening.

This thick sequence (c. 800 m or 2,625 ft) of dolomites with subordinate limestones and chert is softer than the surrounding hills which are formed of more resistant Lewisian Gneiss or Torridonian sandstones, sometimes capped by Cambrian Quartzite.

Additionally, Sango Bay (geologically a graben) also exposes some of the best basin bounding fault outcrops in the British Isles.

The cliffs on the eastern side of this headland show the only preserved exposures of Moine metasediments west of the main outcrop of the Moine Thrust in Scotland (as a result of thrusting and later normal-faulting) and excellent machair examples have developed between the cliff top and the dunes, partly due to the high sea-shell content of the sands in the Durness area.

As a result, Durness is part of the North West Highlands Geopark and is a popular destination for both postgraduate and undergraduate geology students during the summer.

The surrounding coastline is some of Europe's most isolated and spectacular, with the nearby Clo Mor Cliffs being the highest on the British mainland, at 922 feet (281 m) high.

The Balnakeil Craft Village can be found approximately 1 mile (1.5 kilometres) outside Durness and is a collection of former MoD units dating from the 1950s, which now house various independent shops.

A monument dedicated to John Lennon has been erected in a memorial garden by the village hall and has three large stone slabs inscribed with lyrics from “In My Life”.

A plaque on the gable of the new house reads “John Lennon 1940-1980 Singer and Songwriter and member of The Beatles Spent many childhood holidays here”.

[15] There are claims[16] that the rugged scenery around Durness and Cape Wrath may have inspired Tolkien in creating his Middle Earth epics.

A bench placed on the shore of Loch Borralie by actress Juliet Stevenson commemorates her elder brother Johnny who died in a car accident at the Kyle of Durness in 2000.

This links the parish to the A836 at Tongue to the east, and loops around the coast through Rhiconich near Kinlochbervie, to meet the A836 again north of Lairg, which generally runs to Bonar Bridge and the south.