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Hebridean Sea Tours Trips from the Isle of Barra to Mingulay and St Kilda

Posted by (Lake District, England) on

Further to this thread- https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/scotland/st-kilda-from-barra-

Booking is now open up until early August on Hebridean Sea Tours-
Mingulay trips run on most Mondays and Wednesdays, also some Fridays from 7 May.

The St Kilda trip is being run on 2, 9 and 30 June also 7 and 28 July and 4 August.

It may well be that 4 August is the last of the season, given that the Scottish schools go back a week after that. They may well feel that their primary customer base is the domestic market, not the international one. Also the puffins have gone by early August. Although there is more to Mingulay than puffins and other sea birds that will be the big draw.

They either run Mingulay or St Kilda on any given day, so substitution for the other destination isn't an option.

So the answer to the original question of when do they open bookings seems to be- early in the New Year.

There are also short non landing trips around Kisimul Castle (in the bay at Castlebay)- the Historic Scotland website tells you very little but last Autumn they were advised to be running on Thursday to Saturday several times a day- just turn up at Castlebay marina at a simple unassuming sign, pay and board.
There is also an exhibition about Kisimul Castle and it's history in Barra Community Hall. As far as I know that is a permanent exhibition.

From early 2026 these should become landing trips, when the Castle opens to the public.

Posted by
8684 posts

The Mingulay boat song has nothing whatever to do with Mingulay. It was written over twenty years after evacuation of the island by a Glasgow composer, using old Gaelic lyrics from Lochaber on the Scottish mainland.
A piece of poetic, romantic fiction.

The original post stating that you are more likely to get to Mingulay than St Kilda is also unlikely.

One of the complex set of reasons for the evacuation was because there was no safe landing place (then as now), some nineteenth century writings say it was a worse place to be than St Kilda due to being isolated repeatedly for so many weeks at a time. Some records suggest up to 3 months at a time.

The story of evacuation had begun in 1897 when the entire active male adult population of the neighbouring island of Pabbay were lost when caught in a storm while fishing- which affected the confidence of the male population of Mingulay. Some years before final evacuation much of the island population had already gone to the islands of Sandray and Vatersay (as it was then before the modern Causeway was built).
The Government had actually bought Vatersay in 1907 to provide new crofts for the people of Mingulay.

Posted by
1562 posts

To add to Stuart's post, the Mingulay Boat Song was composed by Sir Hugh Roberton (1874-1952), founder and choir master of the Glasgow Orpheus Choir. Although there's no exact date indicating when the song was actually written, it first appeared in Roberton's Songs of the Isles, published in 1937, 25 years after the evacuation of Mingulay.

Roberton also composed, in collaboration with John Bannerman, several other well known Scottish songs, including Westering Home (Islay), the Uist Tramping Song, and the Lewis Bridal Song (Mairi's Wedding).

Mike (Auchterless)

p.s.: There are many songs about events in Scottish history, songs about Scottish places (towns, mountains, lochs, rivers, islands, etc.), and songs about the people who made Scotland famous (and infamous!). Give them a listen!

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