Canon John Morrison earned his nickname the hard way. The local Catholic parish priest on South Uist in the mid-1950s, he led the campaign against the British Army's plan to turn the island into a missile-assembly town. The press called him Father Rocket, half-mocking, half-admiring. He lost the political fight, but he made sure that the rockets would never go up without a Madonna watching them. On the western slopes of Ruabhal hill, just east of the A865, a 9-metre granite Mary holds a child and faces the range that she was raised to oppose.
In the mid-1950s the Ministry of Defence proposed a missile testing range on Uist that, in its original form, would have included a military town and missile-construction facilities. The scale alarmed islanders. The Gaelic language and Catholic Hebridean culture, already under pressure, would not survive thousands of English-speaking soldiers and their families. Canon John Morrison, parish priest at Bornish, led the resistance. He spoke from the pulpit, wrote letters, gave press interviews. The MoD pressed ahead with the range itself, but the military town was dropped from the plan. Morrison kept his nickname and his sense of humour both. He also kept campaigning, but in a different way: he began raising money for a statue.
The commission went to Hew Lorimer, one of Scotland's leading 20th-century sculptors, known for his monumental religious work and his ability to draw modern feeling from traditional Christian iconography. Lorimer carved the statue from granite, the same stone that builds the Hebridean hills. The Madonna stands holding the Child Jesus, her gaze tilted slightly to take in both the road below and the missile range beyond. The statue was completed in 1957 and dedicated in 1958, almost the same year that the MGM-5 Corporal began its test firings. In 2007 the statue was listed as a Category B historic building, protected by Historic Environment Scotland.
In his 2004 book The Last of the Celts, the journalist Marcus Tanner described Our Lady of the Isles as one of the only visible proofs that visitors driving across South Uist have left the Scottish Presbyterianism of John Knox behind. South Uist remained Catholic when most of Scotland did not, partly because of its remoteness, partly because Clan Ranald, the local lords, never converted. The statue makes that history visible. Most Hebridean churches are plain Presbyterian boxes, white-walled and severe. The Madonna is none of these things. She is sculpted, draped, monumental, the figure of an older, southern Christianity surviving on a hillside facing the Atlantic.
Our Lady of the Isles is also a moment in Scottish Gaelic literature. Dòmhnall Iain Dhonnchaidh, an important South Uist bard, commemorated both the 1958 dedication and Canon Morrison's central role in a poem called Laoidh Statue Ruaidheabhal, The Statue at Rueval. Scottish Gaelic literature, often associated only with the medieval and early modern past, is in fact a living tradition, and the granite Mary on Ruabhal is one of its modern subjects. A paved path runs from the road to the statue, and on a clear day you can see St Kilda from the foot of it, fifty miles further out where the radar tracking station still listens.
Located at 57.34 N, 7.36 W on the western slopes of Ruabhal hill, northern South Uist, just east of the A865. The 9-metre granite statue stands on open hillside and is visible from the road and from the air as a small but distinct vertical feature. Benbecula Airport (EGPL) lies 12 km north. Recommended viewing altitude 1500-2500 ft. Strong westerly winds; visibility often excellent in clear conditions, with St Kilda sometimes visible 50 nm offshore.