Mingulay () is the second largest of the Bishop's Isles in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Located south of Barra, it is known for an extensive Gaelic oral tradition incorporating folklore, song and storiesStorey, Liza (2008) p. 7. and its important seabird populations, including puffins, black-legged kittiwakes, and razorbills, which nest in the sea-cliffs,Murray (1973) p. 102. amongst the highest in the British Isles.Buxton (1995) p. 11.
There are Iron Age remains, and the culture of the island was influenced by early Christianity and the Vikings. Between the 15th and 19th centuries Mingulay was part of the lands of Clan MacNeil of Barra, but subsequently suffered at the hands of absentee landlords.
After two thousand years or more of continuous habitation, the island was abandoned by its Gaelic-speaking residents in 1912 and has remained uninhabited since. It is no longer used for grazing sheep. The island is also associated with the "Mingulay Boat Song", although that was composed in 1938. The National Trust for Scotland has owned Mingulay since 2000.
Geology and soils In the Pleistocene era Mingulay was covered by the ice sheets which spread from Scotland out into the Atlantic Ocean beyond the Outer Hebrides.Sparks, B. W. (1960). Geomorphology. London: Longman Green. After the last retreat of the ice around 20,000 years ago, sea levels were lower than at present and circa 14,000 BP it was joined to a single large island comprising most of what is now the Outer Hebrides.Murray (1973) p. 69. Steadily rising sea levels since that time then isolated the island, which is made up of Hebridean gneiss interspersed with some granite. The ice deposited both erratic blocks of rock and boulder clay on the eastern side of the island around Mingulay Bay. The rest of the island is covered in peat, thin acidic soils, or bare rock.
Geography and pre-history
Mingulay is part of the small archipelago known as the Bishop or Barra Isles which are "composed of a cluster of islands surrounded by a boisterous sea, making the passage of one island to another a matter of very considerable hazard"Parliamentary Papers, 1847–8 XXXIII. 65. Quoted by Buxton, 1995 p. 11. and which form the southern end of the larger Outer Hebrides group.
There is one large beach on the eastern side of the isle, where the only settlement of note ('The Village') was located, and a tiny cove at Skipsdale (Old Norse: ship valley). Bagh na h-Aoineig (Scots Gaelic: bay of the steep promontory) on the western side is a deep cleft in the sea-cliffs once thought to be the highest in the UK which rise to 213 m (699 ft) above sea level at Builacraig.
Mingulay has three large sea stacks: Arnamul (Old Norse: Erne mound),Buxton, 1995 suggests the more evocative 'Old Norse for sea eagle or Arni (personal name.)' Lianamul (Old Norse: Flax mound) and Gunamul, which has a natural arch in 150 m (490 ft) cliffs through which boats can sail on rare days when the sea is calm. There are several outlying islets including the twin rocks of Sròn a Dùin to the south-west, Geirum Mòr and Geirum Beag to the south between Mingulay and the nearby island of Berneray, and Solon Mòr ('Big Gannet'), Solon Beag ('Little Gannet'), Sgeirean nan Uibhein, Barnacle Rock and a smaller stack called The Red Boy, all to the north between Mingulay and Pabbay.
The highest hills are Càrnan (273 m or 896 ft), Hecla (Old Norse: Hooded shroud) (219 m or 719 ft) and Macphee's Hill (224 m or 735 ft). The last was named when a relief ship was sent by MacNeil of Barra to discover why communications from the island had ceased. A crewman called Macphee was sent ashore and returned to report that the residents had all died of disease. Fearing the plague, his shipmates refused to allow him back on board. He survived for a year, and climbed the hill every day to look out for a rescue. When the island was re-settled the chief of the Clan MacNeil of Barra granted him land there.Murray, W.H. (1966) The Hebrides. London. Heinemann. p. 231. Murray speculates that the disease may have been typhus.
The south-western promontory of Dun Mingulay has the remains of an Iron Age fort and there is a pre-historic site at Crois an t-Suidheachain near the western landing place at Aneir at the southern end of Mingulay Bay, which may have been a stone circle. In 1971 a 2,000-year-old Iron Age midden was found resting on sand near the 'Village' overlooking the Bay. A stone 'pebble hammer' was discovered nearby in 1975, but it has not been possible to date the find. Skipisdale may also contain Iron Age remains.
Name In historic times the Hebrides have been heavily influenced by Celtic, Norse and Scots culture and this is evident in the variety of names the isle possesses. "Mingulay" is derived from Mikil-ay, the Old Norse for "Big Island" although this is misleading as it is only the second largest of the Barra Isles behind Vatersay, which is lower lying and appears smaller from the sea. Miughalaigh and Miùghlaigh are two variants of the Gaelic name. Lowland Scots speakers in their turn have variously described the island as "Mewla"Campbell, J.L. (1954) The MacNeils of Barra and the Irish Franciscans. Innes Review. or "Miuley"Carmichael, Alexander (1874) On a Hypogeum at Valaquie, Island of Uist. Journal of the Anthropological Institute 111. Quoted by Buxton (1995). (which are both approximations of the Gaelic pronunciation), "Megaly"Munro, Donald (1774) A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland called Hybrides. and "Micklay"Martin (1703) p. 155. before finally settling on the current variant.
Murray (1973) states that the name "appropriately means Bird Island".W. H. Murray (1973) p. 41.
History and culture
Christianity, Norsemen and Clan MacNeil Early Christianity influenced Mingulay (for example the nearby islands of Pabbay and Berneray both have cross-inscribed slabs) but no direct evidence has yet been found. From circa 871 onwards Viking raids on the Outer Hebrides gathered pace but similarly the Viking graves found on Berneray and Vatersay are not replicated on Mingulay and whilst there are no definite indications of Norse settlement, their presence on the island is confirmed by the many features they named.
Acknowledged by Malcolm III as part of the Kingdom of the Isles, a Norwegian crown dependency, from the 12th century onwards Norwegian power in the Western Isles weakened. By the 1266 Treaty of Perth they reverted to the Scottish crown control under the tutelage of the quasi-autonomous Lordship of Garmoran (ruled by the MacRory, a faction among the rulers of the Kingdom of the Isles). In 1427, following violence between the MacRory heirs to Garmoran (Clan Ranald, the Siol Gorrie, and Siol Murdoch), Garmoran was declared forfeit.
That same year – 1427 – following the forfeiture, the Lords of the Isles (the remaining MacRory heirs) awarded Lairdship of Barra (and its associated islands) and half of South Uist to Clan MacNeil of Barra. They adopted the cliffs of Builacraig as part of their traditional crest and used the name as a war-cry.Perrot, D. et al. (1995) The Outer Hebrides Handbook and Guide. Machynlleth. Kittiwake. p. 108. However, following acts of piracy by the MacNeils, king James VI transferred ownership of some of the southern archipelago (including Mingulay) to the Bishop of the Isles, hence those islands became known as the Bishop's Isles .
The islanders' livelihood was based on fishing (for white fish, herring and lobster), crofting (with up to 55 ha (0.21 sq mi) of arable and pasture land fertilised by wrack on which sheep, cattle, ponies, pigs and poultry were kept) and very dependent on the bounty provided by seabirds. For example, rent was payable to The MacNeil in or 'fatlings' – shearwater chicks.
The Reformation never reached the south of the Outer Hebrides and Roman Catholicism held sway from the 12th century to the early 20th. The lack of a resident priest meant that services were often organised by the lay community, but the local culture and traditions of songs and story-telling were rich and varied. As Samuel Johnson observed when lamenting his failure to reach thus far on his 18th-century Hebridean journey:
Popery is favourable to ceremony; and among the ignorant nations ceremony is the only preservative of tradition. Since Protestantism was extended to the savage parts of Scotland, it has perhaps been one of the chief labours of the Ministers to abolish stated observances, because they continued the remembrance of the former religion.Johnson, Samuel. (1775) A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. London. Penguin. p. 125. (1984 reprint).
Some of the local beliefs were perhaps less welcome to the practitioners of organised religion. An each-uisge was thought to live in a bottomless well near the summit of Macphee's Hill, and faery and their associated music were taken for granted, if generally avoided. The curative powers of the seventh son of a seventh son were assumed to be sufficient for the treatment of diseases as serious as tuberculosis. Yet the old ways themselves were dying.
Absentee landlords
The Barra estates of MacNeil (including all the Barra Isles) were sold to Colonel John Gordon of Cluny Aberdeenshire in 1840 whose lack of consideration for his tenants during the potato famines was matched by his zeal for evictions to create sheep farms.Buxton (1995) p. 56 However, the Highland Clearances seemed to have the effect of increasing Mingulay's population as families evicted from Barra sometimes chose to re-settle there rather than take the emigrant ships to Nova Scotia. In this regard Mingulay's remoteness was probably an advantage and rents were reduced from 1840 to 1845. In 1878 Lady Gordon Cathcart inherited the estate and visited but once during her fifty-four year period of tenure.
In 1764 the population of the island was 52. Later census records show that there were 113 residents in 1841, 150 in 1881, 142 in 1891 (occupying 28 houses, compared to the 1841 total of 19), and 135 in 1901. Families were often large, and ten or more children was not uncommon, with three generations sometimes sharing a single small house. Life was co-operative with fishing, waulking, peat cutting and landing the boats all being communal activities. The island is remote but was by no means cut off. In the 19th century fishermen sold fish in Glasgow and Ireland, both men and women worked on the east coast herring fishing industry, and food was brought in from mainland Scotland on a regular basis.
At the height of village life there was a mill, a chapel house consisting of a church and a priest's residence, and a school. However, despite there being a continuous population on Mingulay for at least two thousand years, evacuations began in 1907 and the island was completely abandoned by its residents in 1912.Abandonment of Mingulay in 1912 to be remembered, BBC News, 15 June 2012. Retrieved 27 December 2025.
Evacuation
There were numerous reasons for the evacuation. In 1897 a boat from the neighbouring island of Pabbay was lost off Barra Head with its crew of five:Buxton (1995) pp. 155–56 more than half of Pabbay's male population, and this did not encourage confidence amongst the fishermen of Mingulay. The lack of a sheltered landing meant that the island could be unreachable for weeks at a time, and loading and unloading goods was at best strenuous and at worst hazardous. This may have meant less at a time when possessions were fewer, but no doubt the population was also increasingly aware of their relative isolation. Writing about the collapse of similar populations in the Hebrides, Neat (2000) suggests: one common thread would appear to be the unwillingness of even the most stoical and historically-aware communities to continue an existence based upon endless physical hardship when the opportunity of an easier livelihood elsewhere is there to be taken.Neat (2000) pp. xiv–xv.