Iochdar (Eochar, in another spelling) sits 1.5 kilometres west of the A865, on machair grassland that has been farmed by crofters for centuries. A croft is a small landholding in the Highlands and Islands, traditionally a few acres at most, tenanted under a system codified in 1886 to protect families from eviction. Iochdar is the largest of several crofting settlements along the northern half of South Uist, all part of what was, until 2006, the South Uist Estate. That year, in Scotland's largest community land buyout, the estate's 93,000 acres were purchased by the residents themselves, organised as Stòras Uibhist. The estate now runs in perpetuity for the people who farm and live on it.

Angus McPhee was born in 1916. As a young man on Iochdar he worked the croft and was conscripted into the Lovat Scouts during the Second World War. Something broke in him, and in 1946 he was admitted to Craig Dunain. For five decades he refused to speak English. He spent his days outside, gathering whatever vegetation he could find, weaving it into wearable objects, then abandoning them. Staff at the hospital eventually understood what he was doing. The art critic Joyce Laing saw the grass suits in the 1970s and recognised them as something extraordinary, a body of work made for the maker rather than any audience. He has since been recognised internationally as one of the most important British Outsider Artists. He returned briefly to South Uist before his death in 1997, and was buried in Iochdar's cemetery, the soil of the place that had grown him.

Iochdar School was built in 1963 and serves around 75 pupils across years one to seven, with five teachers. In 2009 it won the Homecoming Scotland Award at the Scottish Education Awards. In December 1998, frustrated by the lack of outdoor facilities, a community group called Sgoil an Ìochdair agus a' Choimhearsnachd was formed. Its catchment extends 14 miles along the island chain, from Peninerine in South Uist to the islet of Flodda in Benbecula. Its trustees, three from community groups, three elected, with one co-opted, have over the years upgraded the playground and the playing fields, the small but vital infrastructure of childhood in a place too remote for big budgets.

The Iochdar Saints play in the Uist and Barra amateur football league. They were, at last count, champions four years in a row. They have also won the Westford Challenge, the MacPherson Memorial Shield, the Summer Cup, the Billy McNeil Cup, and the Indoor Tournament Cup. The team is managed by Stephen MacAulay. Iochdar Hall, the community hall, hosts dances and sales and an annual cattle show. The main visitor attraction is Hebridean Jewellery, run by John Hart, who sells Celtic-design jewellery and runs a small café. Lovats Shop and Carnan Stores provide homewares and crofting supplies. A hamlet of crofters, a champion football side, a weaver of grass, a community that bought back its own land. Iochdar is small. It is not slight.