Qualla: Copinsay https://qualla.com/copinsay en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:25 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/q/p/copinsay-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Copinsay https://qualla.com/copinsay Copinsay: Introduction https://qualla.com/copinsay/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. FinnBjo~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. In 1958, the last people moved off Copinsay. They left a two-storey farmhouse, a steading behind it, a schoolhouse, and the houses of three lighthouse-keeping families. Their cattle had crossed to the Orkney mainland on the cow boat. The men who used to be lowered over the cliffs to gather bird's eggs no longer needed to be lowered. Today the island is owned by the RSPB - bought in 1972 in memory of the naturalist James Fisher - and the only year-round residents are seabirds. The fields are still farmed, in a way, but the farming is done for the birds.

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. FinnBjo~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/q/p/copinsay-wp/gfqp-copinsay-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Copinsay: Life on the Cow Boat https://qualla.com/copinsay/ Photo credit Adam Ward, CC BY-SA 2.0. Copinsay sits a short distance off the east coast of Mainland Orkney, with a smaller companion island, the Horse of Copinsay, to the northeast. For generations the community on the island - a few families at the farm, a schoolteacher, the lighthouse keepers - lived a life closely...

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Image: Adam Ward | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/q/p/copinsay-wp/gfqp-copinsay-life-on-the-cow-boat.mp3 0:06 2 full Copinsay: The Pigs of the Horse https://qualla.com/copinsay/ Photo credit Mark Crook, CC BY-SA 2.0. Among the more peculiar agricultural practices on Copinsay was the one that involved the smaller island next door. Each spring, the islanders rowed pigs across to the Horse of Copinsay and let them loose. The Horse was uninhabited, with no farming and no people, but it had cliffs...

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Image: Mark Crook | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/q/p/copinsay-wp/gfqp-copinsay-the-pigs-of-the-horse.mp3 0:06 3 full Copinsay: What They Left Behind https://qualla.com/copinsay/ Photo credit Vanbug28, CC BY-SA 4.0. By 1958 the population had dwindled to the point where the last residents made the decision that island life was no longer viable. They went to the Mainland. The farmhouse stood empty. The schoolhouse stood empty. The lighthouse, by then automated or close to it, no longer needed...

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Image: Vanbug28 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/q/p/copinsay-wp/gfqp-copinsay-what-they-left-behind.mp3 0:06 4 full Copinsay: A Patchwork of Yesteryear https://qualla.com/copinsay/ Photo credit Des Colhoun, CC BY-SA 2.0. Today the RSPB still farms some of Copinsay's fields - not for produce but for habitat. Corncrakes need certain kinds of grassland, mown at certain times, with certain plants left standing. The result is a patchwork of yesteryear, as the RSPB puts it - the agricultural patterns o...

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Image: Des Colhoun | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/q/p/copinsay-wp/gfqp-copinsay-a-patchwork-of-yesteryear.mp3 0:06 5 full