[10] There are numerous other eið names in the islands of the North Atlantic and those in Orkney include Hoxa (Haugeið) on South Ronaldsay, Aith (found on Walls, Stronsay and the west Mainland) and Scapa in St Ola which is derived from the Norse Skálpeið.

Orkney was Christianised before the arrival of Viking settlers, and there are various local "Papa" names that reflect the activities of the pre-Norse papar monks there.

[17][Note 1] The name "geo", which occurs frequently around the rocky coast, is from the Norse gjá and means a narrow and deep cleft in the face of a cliff.

[19] Eday is 14 kilometres (8+1⁄2 mi) long from north to south but only just over 500 metres wide at the narrow neck of land between the Sands of Doomy and Bay of London[4] and has been described as being "nipped at the waist".

[4] In Orkney this last name, which derives from the Norse varði, is a common one for the highest point on an island as in the past they were used for lighting warning beacons.

Calfsound is the most populous of the settled areas, with other concentrations at Millbounds on the east coast, which has a post office and a community facility in a converted chapel, and Backaland in the south where the ferry from the Mainland docks.

[4] Eday is surrounded by other small islands that make up the "seemingly impossible green and russet jigsaw of Orkney's North Isles".

The oldest part of the sequence, the Rousay Flagstones are found on the eastern side of the island at Bight of Milldale and from Kirk Taing to War Ness, and to the west from Sealskerry Bay to Fersness.

[26] The very limited archaeological record provides scant evidence of Mesolithic life in Orkney, but the later assemblage of houses and monumental Neolithic structures in the archipelago is without parallel in the United Kingdom.

At Warness in the south west there is a burnt mound from this period and there are the ruins of two houses of a similar age on Holm of Faray near the Point of Dogs Bones.

[35] It is not known "when and how the Vikings conquered and occupied the Isles",[36] and although Norse contacts with Scotland certainly predate the first written records in the 8th century, their nature and frequency are unknown.

[39] In 1468 Orkney became part of the Kingdom of Scotland[40] and an influx of Scottish entrepreneurs helped to create a diverse and independent community that included farmers, fishermen and merchants that called themselves comunitatis Orcadie and who proved themselves increasingly able to defend their rights against their feudal overlords.

In 1601 when Edward was "an auld decrepit man ... aged 100 or thereby" William attempted to sell the family interest to George Sinclair the Earl of Caithness.

[45][Note 3] The new proprietor sent half a dozen boatloads of "vagabondis, broken Highland men of Caithness" to Eday, much to the alarm of the notorious Earl Patrick of Orkney.

Earl Patrick was able to use the poor relationship between the elderly father Edward and his son, (the former claiming William fired muskets at him and grabbed him by the neck like a dog) to take action.

Acting, so he alleged, on behalf of Edward, Earl Patrick evicted William, took the Eday the rents for himself and profited from the extraction of building stone from Towback quarry.

[51] Peat extraction was also an important industry in the past as Sanday and North Ronaldsay obtained most of their fuel from Eday and this material was also exported to whisky distilleries on mainland Scotland.

When Smith was unmasked as the notorious pirate John Gow he sought to escape the attentions of the authorities by making for Eday via a raid on Hall of Clestrain, in Orphir.

[46][54][55][56] In the early nineteenth century the kelp industry provided significant employment on some of the Orkney islands, but when the market collapsed between 1830 and 1832 it caused considerable hardship.

[66][67] The income that this asset will generate is expected to reduce fuel poverty on the island, support new community enterprises and create affordable housing.

The Eday Oral History Project records life on the island in the past and is also housed within the centre, which has its own 6 kW wind turbine.

[72] In the early 19th century Patrick Neill wrote of the local flora that "Eda is a mossy island; a great part of it consisting of barren marshy heaths.

[55] In the mid-17th century, Eday was described as being "absolutely full of moorland birds",[49] and today there are red-throated divers on Mill Loch, Arctic skuas and bonxies on the moors and black guillemot offshore.