The Road to the Isles a daring Commando attack during Operation Roast in the Spring 1945 offensive in Italy, and also at the start of construction on Toronto's first subway line, under Yonge Street, in 1949. The lyrics mention first the hills of the Isle of Skye (whose memory is calling the traveller west); then the successive locations he will pass on the way across the Western Highlands and Inner and Outer Hebrides. The locations mentioned are (in this order): the Cuillin Hills (on the Isle of Skye), Tummel and Loch Rannoch(both in Perthshire), Lochaber (a district in the western Scottish Highlands), Shiel (east of
Scottish island names Shetland, and Kirk Rocks in Orkney. Great Cumbrae and Little Cumbrae are English/Brythonic in derivation and there are other examples of the use of "great" and "little" such as Great Bernera and Rysa Little which are English/Gaelic and Norse/English respectively. The informal use of "Isle of" is commonplace, although only the Isle of Ewe, the Isle of May and Isle Martin of the larger Scottish islands use this nomenclature in a formal sense. "Island" also occurs, as in Island Macaskin and Mealista Island although both islands are also known by their Gaelic names of "Eilean Macaskin" and "Eilean Mhealasta". Holy