Qualla: Oronsay https://qualla.com/oronsay-colonsay en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/w/oronsay-colonsay-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Oronsay https://qualla.com/oronsay-colonsay Oronsay: Introduction https://qualla.com/oronsay-colonsay/ Photo credit C Michael Hogan, CC BY-SA 2.0. You can walk to Oronsay. For roughly six hours twice a day - the tides do most of the deciding - a flat plain of mud and sand called The Strand is dry enough to cross on foot from southern Colonsay to the smaller island just to the south. Wait too long and the Atlantic flows back in and you are stranded for twelve hours. Cross at the wrong stage and you find yourself wading. Generations of islanders, monks, kelp gatherers, mail carriers and shepherds have made the crossing on tidal schedules that are still calculated by anyone who needs to visit. Seven people live on Oronsay. They depend on the tides for everything.

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Image: C Michael Hogan | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/w/oronsay-colonsay-wp/gcgw-oronsay-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Oronsay: The Crossing https://qualla.com/oronsay-colonsay/ Photo credit Bob Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. Oronsay is about two miles long and a mile and a quarter across, rising to a single hill - Beinn Orasaigh, 305 feet - that is just high enough to be visible from northern Colonsay on a clear day. The Strand that connects the islands is sand and mud flats, well-marked but unforgiv...

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Image: Bob Jones | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/w/oronsay-colonsay-wp/gcgw-oronsay-the-crossing.mp3 0:06 2 full Oronsay: The Middens https://qualla.com/oronsay-colonsay/ Photo credit David Hallett, CC BY-SA 3.0. When Victorian antiquarians opened three Mesolithic shell middens on Oronsay in the 1880s, they did not yet have the tools to read what was there. Decades later, carbon dating put a piece of bone in those middens at around 4600 BC and an oyster shell at 3065 BC. The middens thems...

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Image: David Hallett | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/w/oronsay-colonsay-wp/gcgw-oronsay-the-middens.mp3 0:06 3 full Oronsay: The Priory https://qualla.com/oronsay-colonsay/ Photo credit Bob Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. The ruins of Oronsay Priory stand at the centre of the island. Built around 1380, possibly by John of Islay, Lord of the Isles, possibly on the site of an earlier church for which no physical evidence survives, the priory housed Augustinian canons through most of its working life...

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Image: Bob Jones | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/w/oronsay-colonsay-wp/gcgw-oronsay-the-priory.mp3 0:06 4 full Oronsay: Choughs, Corncrakes, Bees https://qualla.com/oronsay-colonsay/ Photo credit Tony Kinghorn, CC BY-SA 2.0. Oronsay and southern Colonsay together became a Special Protection Area in December 2007 - one of the most rigorous conservation designations available under European Union law, retained in UK law after Brexit. The protection targets two birds in particular. The chough is a small...

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Image: Tony Kinghorn | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/w/oronsay-colonsay-wp/gcgw-oronsay-choughs-corncrakes-bees.mp3 0:06 5 full