To start an article about Fèis Ìle with an anecdote from a French author may seem counterintuitive. But Martine Nouet’s bond with Islay shows the island’s specialness through the eyes of someone with a unique inside-outside perspective. A former resident who lived on Islay for nearly two decades, she first visited during a press trip to Bowmore in the early 1990s. When she disembarked the plane at the small rural airport she stopped abruptly. “I just stood at the door and could not move. I was totally tantalised by all the smells. I was on the edge of fainting. The moment passed quickly, but all the journalists who were with me on this trip said that I was behaving bizarrely because I had this sort of love for the island. And it was so strong. I call it love at first nose.”
Nouet, an authority on French cuisine and whisky, was overwhelmed by the island’s different fragrances. The seaweed, the iodinic air, the smell of sheep’s wool and grass. What was new to her then is part of everyday life for locals, especially the Ileach born and bred on the island. Much like the island’s whisky. The industry is omnipresent, its influence felt in every nook and cranny. And though locals are proud of their island’s allure, the global reach of Islay can still blow their minds. “I was watching a TV programme last night and there’s a bottle of Lagavulin on it,” says Georgie Crawford, current manager of Portintruan Distillery and formerly of Lagavulin and Port Ellen. “That is still madness to me, no matter how long I’ve been working in whisky. It’s been around us our whole life, you know what I mean? Whisky is just the thing we do.”
Islay ebbs and flows with its whisky industry. It has been a mostly upward trajectory for the last several decades, and while it tests the limits of the island’s infrastructure, the success of its whisky has proven largely beneficial. Conversely, the local economy suffers when whisky goes bust, most notably during the 1980s. Numerous people lost their jobs as distilleries were mothballed or closed permanently. These were the hard times. The community longed for an event that showcased the value of what they had. Not just in their own eyes but in other people’s eyes as well.
Fèis Ìle (pronounced “faysh eel”) would be exactly that. Formed in 1985, the original aim of the Islay Festival Association was to promote local culture. “We wanted to improve the tourist experience and lengthen the Islay summer season,” explains current chairperson Florence Grey, who describes herself as an Islay girl who likes to travel, but one who always comes home. “May and June was a quieter period, so it gave the season another chance.”
The first-ever Fèis Ìle in 1986 was a mix of community events with walks, slideshows, ceilidhs, history talks, and more. As the festival developed through the 1980s, communities competed for the Best Dressed Village. On Carnival Day there were decorated floats, stalls and entertainment. “The boys from the distilleries would dress up peat lorries and there would be a big parade down Main Street in Bowmore. Sometimes the boys from the fishing fleet would put one up. One year they had a very fetching mermaid on their team.”
There was a Carnival Queen from each parish, as well as music, workshops, dances, concerts, and drama. Crawford remembers participating in a play about Fionn and the Fingalians as a child. “It was all in Gaelic, I was never very good at it. I remember having to dance and being hugely embarrassed.”
Whisky was but a small element during a two-week long happening that traversed the whole island. It was enjoyed socially, of course, but for a long time a whisky nosing competition was the only official event. That changed around the turn of the century, coinciding with the rising popularity of peated whisky, the style for which the island is best known. Distilleries became more involved with Fèis Ìle. As each started hosting its own open day during the festival, whisky enthusiasts soon attended in droves.
Now, the island population swells more than three times during Fèis Ìle. All accommodations are fully booked long before, campervans and tents are scattered across the island, and ferries are chock-full (some 18,000 passengers were carried by CalMac last year). Fèis Ìle has had a transformative impact on Islay through whisky and the love of whisky from people around the world. Everybody who lives and works on Islay, or who has a business on the island, has been affected hugely.
Anthony Wills is the founder of Kilchoman, which was only a building site when it first participated in Fèis Ìle. “I had heard from other distilleries about the importance of the festival and how it brought huge numbers of people to the island,” remembers Wills. “We put up a marquee and Charles MacLean came along and gave a talk. Anybody was welcome if they wanted to come and see what we were up to.”
Some of the busiest Fèis Ìle years were a decade ago, thinks Crawford. Ardbeg and Laphroaig celebrated their 200th anniversary in 2015, followed by Lagavulin the next year. “It was like being at Glastonbury or something, just a massive festival. At Lagavulin there’s this big grassy area that goes up to the house I lived in opposite the distillery. People were camped out there for the whole week. It was absolutely madness, but fantastic.”
Part of the festival’s attraction is the limited-edition bottlings. All distilleries offer them, some more than one. Many have become quite the collector’s item. Selecting a cask of Lagavulin for Fèis Ìle is one of the more standout memories Crawford has of the festival. Getting that privilege to join Iain ‘Pinky’ McArthur for the selection process “felt special”. To fulfil the appetite for these bottlings, Lagavulin eventually moved to bigger batches, as did other distilleries. “If you queued in the rain for four hours to get your bottle and then you just missed out on a bottle, the staff had to deal with, quite rightly, disgruntled people. It was difficult to manage.”
While limited edition Fèis Ìle bottlings were once reserved for those making the pilgrimage to Islay, some distilleries now release theirs worldwide. It doesn’t sit entirely well with Wills. “We’ve stuck to our guns and only make it available to those who visit Kilchoman on our open day… I think those who actually make the effort to come to the festival need to have something unique and different that isn’t available around the world.”
As general availability of festival releases has increased, queues during Fèis Ìle have decreased. They’re not like they once were, mentions Wills. Especially not compared to when Kilchoman first started participating in the festival. It is something Grey has noticed as well. The festival’s chair received feedback from distilleries that everything was more manageable last year, even though it wasn’t any less busy on the island. “The customer is more discerning and isn’t as hell-bent to collect these high-priced bottles. I think they enjoy the experience of the festival more. Distilleries all went down this premium rabbit hole. But this rich man, he’s quite a hard man to find.”
In celebration of Fèis Ìle’s 40th anniversary, the Islay Festival Association has collaborated with Elixir Distillers (independent bottlers and owners of Portintruan) on a limited blended malt of Islay whiskies. Exact details will be announced in early May, but it will contain whisky from every decade the festival has been running.
The whisky will be finished in a ruby port cask, a nod to the festival’s ruby anniversary, and 100 per cent of the profits will go the association. These funds, together with those collected from distilleries to use ‘Fèis Ìle’ on their labels, will be used to support more cultural events on the island throughout the year, but also in the week before the festival. These local events will be very similar to the very first festival, with walks, ceilidhs, and the like.
Trying to capture the spirit of some of those earlier festivals has been a priority for the current organising committee. They want to make sure there’s more for the community and locals again within the festival. This year the Folk Night, an event that could usually sell out many times over, will be held at the Bowmore Round Church to accommodate more people. “It’s an evening with Islay folk, really,” says Grey. “Like our own musicians, the choir will be there this year, the trad band from the school, some of our local singers, another Gaelic singer from another island, and different aspects of how we entertain ourselves.”
It’ll be an event where whisky is secondary to much of what makes Islay such a remarkable place. It will showcase why the Ileach are proud to call Islay home, and why people like Wills and Nouet have grown so fond of it. “Islay is the people,” says Nouet. “They are welcoming. They smile even if they are struggling. I’ve always felt at home and never had the feeling I was not accepted.” If she has one wish for Fèis Ìle’s future, it’s that visitors will enjoy more than Islay’s whiskies. “There’s so much to this island. The nature alone. There really is no place like it. If you come to the festival, at least take a few hours. Maybe bring a bottle of whisky to the beach. Or just go sit on a rock and have a Lagavulin. That’s my Lagavulin on the rocks.”
