Islanders defending the last bastion of the Sabbatarian tradition claim to have won thousands of supporters as they face a new threat of Sunday ferry sailings.
Currently, 3760 people - equivalent to one in six of the combined population of Lewis and Harris - have signed a petition to register their strong opposition to any Sunday ferry service to Lewis, and returns are still coming in.
But the board of the publicly owned ferry company Caledonian MacBrayne meets on Wednesday to consider "thousands" of requests for a seven-day service on its Stornoway to Ullapool route.
Last year, CalMac angered many islanders by introducing a service between Berneray and Leverburgh in the south Harris which has similar traditions of Sabbath observance to Lewis. The most populous of the Hebrides, Lewis is now the only island not to enjoy a seven-day service because of religious tradition.
The Rev Andrew Coghill, the Church of Scotland minister at Leurbost, spokesman for the Lewis branch of the Lord's Day Observance Society (LDOS), said the response to the group's petition was very encouraging given the limited time.
"We are very grateful for the support we have received as it shows the strength of the feeling of the residents who are opposed to Sunday sailings. We did have to strike a number of names off the petition because they lived outside the island.
"There is no doubt in our minds that if a Sunday ferry service was introduced it would lead to demands for other facilities to be opened.
"Our Sabbath has contributed to a safe, peaceful environment, free from secular pressures, and is appreciated by locals and visitors, churchgoers and non-churchgoers alike."
The LDOS hopes to meet Stewart Stevenson, the Transport Secretary, to discuss the issue.
Unlike in previous years, government ministers will no longer be able to simply remain aloof from the issue because of the terms of the contract just signed with CalMac, after its routes were put out to tender.
It states: "Major adjustments (to the timetable) shall not be made without the consent in writing of the Scottish Ministers "
CalMac says it has had thousands of representations for and against a Sunday sailing and that is why the issue is on Wednesday's agenda.
Industry sources suggest that CalMac's board will have to postpone a decision until it is known whether the Ullapool/Stornoway route will be involved in the Scottish Government's pilot study of road equivalent tariff (RET), which should be revealed within the next few weeks.
In August, it was announced that at least one of the Western Isles' routes would act as an RET pilot. RET should mean the ferry fare is no greater than the cost of driving a car the same distance with £5m, £7.5m and £10m earmarked over the next three years in the Scottish Government's recent Budget.
It costs £229 for a car with driver and three passengers to make a return trip between Ullapool and Stornoway, a total journey of about 100 miles. Some claim that RET would cut that to around £30, though details of the RET equation have yet to be established. The service is running at close to full capacity already so it will not be possible to tell whether the RET pilot increases traffic unless there are extra services on Sundays.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article