[10] Maclean offers several options, including an unspecified Celtic word meaning "gloom" or "death", later suggested to be Ei hirt – dangerous or deathlike,[3] or the Scots Gaelic hIar-Tìr ("westland").

[11] Steel (1998) quotes the view of Reverend Neil Mackenzie, who lived there from 1829 to 1844, that the name is derived from the Gaelic Ì Àrd ("high island"), and a further possibility that it is from the Norse hirt ("shepherd").

The director of the project told BBC News that the work "revealed that the eastern end of Village Bay on St Kilda was occupied fairly intensively during the Iron Age period, although no house structures were found".

According to UNESCO, "St Kilda represents subsistence economies everywhere – living off the resources of land and sea and changing them over time, until external pressures led to decline".

A diary (now owned by the NTS) written by a school teacher who worked in Village Bay shed some light on life here in the early 1900s.

Whaling boats brought supplies of coal and the government was able to provide more services for the islanders – visiting doctors had spent the two weeks ... vaccinating its residents – and the frequent presence of English fishing fleets meant they were better linked to the wider world than ever before".Medical care was always limited.

[20] In 1908, British Pathé News released a documentary film, The Island Of St. Kilda, which shed light on the lifestyle in Hirta during that era.

The film is available for viewing on a National Library of Scotland Web page which also includes a great deal of specifics in the text, in a "Shotlist".

[17] Early in the First World War, the Royal Navy erected a signal station on Hirta, and the first daily communications with the mainland were established.

In a belated response, the German submarine SM U-90[25] arrived in Village Bay on the morning of 15 May 1918 and, after issuing a warning, started shelling the island.

The evacuation was encouraged by Williamina Barclay, the resident Queen's Nurse, who was very concerned about health issues on Hirta, especially after the deaths of two young women.

The sky was hopelessly blue and the sight of Hirta, green and pleasant as the island of so many careless dreams, made parting all the more difficult.

Observing tradition the islanders left an open Bible and a small pile of oats in each house, locked all the doors and at 7 am boarded the Harebell.

But as the long antler of Dun fell back onto the horizon and the familiar outline of the island grew faint, the severing of an ancient tie became a reality and the St Kildans gave way to tears.

[32] According to the National Records of Scotland, "officials found forestry work for the men, and most of them were settled at Lochaline near Oban, while other families went to live at Strome Ferry, Ross-shire, Culcabock near Inverness, and at Culross, Fife".

[33] In 1955, the British government decided to incorporate St Kilda into a missile tracking range based in Benbecula, where test firings and flights are carried out.

[35] In summer 2018, the MOD facilities were being restored as part of building a new base; one report stated that the project included "replacing aged generators and accommodation blocks".

[39] A tour operator's Web site states that when facilities in Hirta are open, "the St. Kilda museum, school and church provide a fascinating insight into the St Kildans’ way of life ... the remains of the village, the graveyard and Second World War gun" can also be viewed.

[40] The Historic Environment Scotland Web site adds that "the plain, two-bay church, with the schoolroom added to its north west in 1898" was "restored as they might have appeared in the 1920s".

The Web site also explains that the "arrangement of St Kilda Village along a curving street is the result of mid-19th century improvement ...

"They have reroofed [some of] the cottages on the main street, restored the church, and restacked stones that years of gales had toppled from the cleits, or bothies, that dot the volcanic landscape", according to a November 2017 report.