Almost An Island – that's the title of a book about Deerness, and you can see why. When you drive east from Kirkwall, the land narrows until at the isthmus of Dingishowe there's sand on both sides of the road and you enter the most easterly parish on the Orkney mainland - who this year are joining the Festival with an evening event and an exhibition.

As you drive into Deerness, the flat stretch of Sandi Sand to your left provides food for waders, ducks and swans, and was one of the favourite beaches of the great Orkney shell expert Robert Rendall.

The name Dingishowe provides a clue to the importance of the parish in Norse times. It comes from the Norse word for local parliament or thing, along with howe for a mound – which you can see there rising up out of the grassy dunes. Law-making was traditionally carried out on a high place. More recently Dingishowe came to the fore in the autumn of 1988 when it was the location for part of the film Venus Peter – involving a realistic model of a beached whale.

The name Deerness itself may have more mixed origins. The ness part represents a Norse headland, but some writers have suggested that the first part is more of a Celtic word, daire, used for a settlement of the early church – as for instance in the name Deer in Aberdeenshire.

And the place with an early Christian connection is at the far end of the parish, where the cliffs begin to rise up – the Brough of Deerness, a rocky islet with a grassy top, a hundred feet above the sea. A winding path leads to the top where there are the ruins of a small chapel. The brethren would have lived round about it, and archaeological work has uncovered the foundation of some of their huts. An old account describes how people from all parts of Orkney would make a pilgrimage to the Brough; the excavation found copper coins, mainly from the 17th century, possible offerings.

The area is part of a local nature reserve, and a coastal walk goes on to the Mull Head, then round to Scarva Taing, where the Crown was wrecked in 1679. She was bound for the West Indies with three hundred Covenanters, aboard, prisoners for plantations. They were left under battened hatches by the crew, and only around fifty escaped, to make their way quietly to safety in other parts of Orkney; some went on to Shetland. The memorial was erected in 1888, with stones quarried in the ebb below the farm of Denwick. A tune Scarvataing was composed in the 19th century to their memory; it is sung to the words of Paraphrase 66, How bright these glorious spirits shine.

The starting-point for a walk to the Brough is a car park, close to the Gloup, chasm in the ground where the sea has broken in through the rock underneath.  Waves beating on the Orkney cliffs produce a fall of water, trapping air which bursts out with immense force. This opens up cracks in the layers of sedimentary rocks, and gradually a sea-cave forms. At the Gloup, the roof of this cave has fallen in, and the birds fly through the entrance and over the waters below.

And the road to the Gloup car park runs close to the old parish church, completed in 1788. It gets its name from the grounding of the steamer St Ninian on a sandbank in fog. The ship was refloated, and the parish minister persuaded the passengers to pay for a bell for the church – an expression of thankfulness for a safe outcome and also a possible warning to other vessels in the future. A later minister, the Rev. Harald Mooney, a man of much learning who served in the parish for 55 years, suggested that they call the building St Ninian's. He also had in mind the early Christian connection of the parish through the Brough, and a suggestion that it, like the parish of Deer in Aberdeen, was connected to a mission from the church of Ninian at Whithorn. Today the building is owned by the community through a Trust, and the Friends of St Ninian's are hosting events in this year's Science Festival.

In the 2009 Science Festival, in From Tragedy to Triumph, on the evening of Monday 7 September in Deerness Community Centre, Tom Muir told the story of how the tragic loss of the battleship Royal Oak led to the creation of the Italian Chapel, as told by the people who were there. Prof. Mike Gore of the Australian National University in Canberra described how the brilliant code-breakers of Bletchley Park helped turn the Battle of the North Atlantic. Admission £4 & £2 at the door included tea and scones at the interval.

Then, also in the Community Centre, a superb exhibition titled In Time of War was on view over the weekend of the Festival. Opening times were Friday 4th, 7.30 - 9.30 pm; Saturday 5th, 2.00 - 9.30; and Sunday 6th, 2.00 - 8.00. Admission was £4.