Boats to Mingulay run from Castlebay or Vatersay, south of Barra, and only in calm weather. The island has been uninhabited since 1912, when the last handful of fishing families left after centuries of settlement. The old village stands above the bay where boats land on the rocks, its houses roofless but the street still traceable through the grass.
The island’s cliffs, among the highest in Britain, are home to thousands of breeding razorbills and guillemots, kittiwakes on the lower ledges and puffins burrowing in the grass above. The National Trust for Scotland has owned Mingulay, together with neighbouring Pabbay and Berneray, since 2000, and some boat trips add those two islands to a Mingulay landing when the sea allows. The Mingulay Boat Song, about fishermen sailing home, was written in the 1930s by the Glasgow choirmaster Hugh S. Roberton, two decades after the last islanders had already gone.
