'Great Barn of Ostaig') is a public higher education college situated in the Sleat peninsula in the south of the Isle of Skye, Scotland with an associate campus at Bowmore on the island of Islay.

The college enjoys an international reputation for the study of the history and literature of the Gàidhealtachd, past and present; for research into political, educational, and community aspects of minority language maintenance and revitalisation; and for its engagement with Gaelic creative arts, as well as with broadcast and online media.

With residencies for writers, artists, musicians, and dramatists; its degree courses in media and traditional music; its hosting of the national folklore digitisation project Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches; and Fàs, its £8-million centre for creative industries, Sabhal Mòr fulfils an important cultural remit both in the Highlands and in Scotland more generally.

Four urrasairean or trustees were appointed: Iain Noble, poet Sorley Maclean, Donald Ruaraidh Macdonald of Portree High School, and Gordon Barr, then a lecturer in biochemistry at the University of Dundee.

[1]: 106  A two-week summer course for Gaelic learners, attended by 22 students from Scotland, Britain, and further afield, was held in September 1973 in association with An Comunn Gàidhealach.

[1]: 124  During the early years of the college's existence the trustees’ energy was directed towards fundraising, improving the dilapidated Ostaig steading, expanding summer courses in Gaelic and music, developing links with equivalent institutions in Ireland, Wales, and Canada, and hosting an annual conference.

Two years later the committee recommended the establishment of practically oriented business and administration courses focusing upon the situation in the Highlands, but employing comparisons with similar regions.

[1]: 133–4  Following a fundraising drive to pay for the necessary building improvements, the first two-year HND diploma course, in Business and Gàidhealtachd Studies, began in 1983 under the new college principal, Seán Ó Drisceoil, appointed on a three-year secondment from Údarás na Gaeltachta in Ireland.

[1]: 213  Opportunities for significant expansion arose at the end of the decade with the establishment of Comataidh Telebhisein Gàidhlig, endowed by the government with an annual grant of £9.5 million.

With its business focus, and existing expertise in ICT,[5]: 134  Sabhal Mòr was well placed to take advantage of the demand for a major increase in Gaelic-speaking personnel in the Scottish media.

In a more concrete sense, the surprising ‘conversion’ of the then Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth to the merit of the UHI scheme in October 1995 was primarily due to a recent visit to Sabhal Mòr during which he had been given a demonstration of the efficacy of new ISDN communications technologies in linking widely dispersed colleges into a single university network.

Forsyth's remarkable volte-face gave the UHI proposal the vital government support required to make a plausible submission to the lottery-funded Millennium Commission.

"[7] In 2008 the £8 million new centre for creative and cultural industries, Ionad Fàs, incorporating a television studio, offices, workshop and exhibition spaces, and Gaelic-medium childcare facilities, was finished.

In 2013 the £6.7 million first phase of the Kilbeg Village scheme began, a long-term development that will result in new administration and research facilities, a conference and training centre, new college and community sports and recreation provision, a hotel, and up to 75 new houses being built in the space between the two campuses.

[3]: 59–60  The original buildings contain the student common room and the Tàlla Mòr or Great Hall, used for cèilidhs and smaller concerts, while the newer hosts the Café Ostaig.

[9] The college's associate campus Ionad Chaluim Chille Ìle, situated beside Bowmore on the island of Islay and incorporating a library and lecture facilities, was opened in 2002.

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig offers the following degrees and diplomas: Distance Learning: Undergraduate: Postgraduate: In addition, research staff at the college are presently supervising PhD theses concerning Gaelic language, culture, history, and sociolinguistics.

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig also offers a growing number of short courses, well-established programmes in Gaelic language and music as well as more recent ones in history, culture, and crofting.

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Library is an internationally significant collection of material, antiquarian and contemporary, relating to Gaelic language, culture, and music, and Highland history.