Sleat is a peninsula on the island of Skye in the Highland council area of Scotland, known as "the garden of Skye". It is the home of the clan MacDonald of Sleat. The name comes from the Scottish GaelicSléibhte, which in turn comes from Old Norsesléttr, which well describes Sleat when considered in the surrounding context of the mainland, Skye and Rùm mountains that dominate the horizon all about Sleat. Sleat is a traditional parish that has several communities and two major landowners. Sleat Community Trust, the local development trust, has purchased the Skye Ferry Filling Station at Armadale and in common with many communities is investigating the options for renewable energy production. It also owns Sleat Renewables Ltd., a timber production company. In October 2007 the Trust hosted the Highlands and Islands Community Energy Companyannual conference. In the early 2000s the final section of a new double-track road through Sleat from Armadale Ferry to Broadford was finished. After later substantial upgrades by June 2019 it became a S2 road throughout, the A851. Most teenage school-children in Sleat travel along the A851 to attend Portree High School, where there is a hostel for those who live particularly far away.
Gaelic
After the Trotternish peninsula, the Sleat peninsula is the second strongest Gaelic-speaking area in Skye. In the 1901 census, 91% of the population was recorded as speaking Gaelic, with 10% recorded as Gaelic monolinguals. In the 2011 census, 39% of the population in Sleat were recorded as speaking Gaelic, with the highest percentage of Gaelic speakers in Tarskavaig and Achnacloich, and the lowest in Armadale. The localprimary school, Bun-sgoil Shèite, is a designated Gaelic-medium school. There was some local and national controversy in 2006 about the decision to change the status of the school from an English school with a Gaelic medium unit to a Gaelic school but in the end the Highland Council opted for a compromise solution, designating the school as an all-Gaelic school but with an English-medium unit. Sleat is home to Scotland's only Gaelic-medium college, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, which provides university-level education in a number of subjects in Gaelic, and is the largest employer in the area. The Gaelic feature-length film, , was largely filmed in Sleat and produced by Christopher Young, a Sleat resident and partial Gaelic speaker.
