Qualla: Isle Martin

Isle Martin: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Greer, CC BY-SA 2.0. The wheat arrived from somewhere south by sailing ship and was unloaded onto a wharf on an uninhabited Highland island. Between 1939 and 1948, a flour mill on Isle Martin ground that wheat into flour, packed it into sacks labelled 'Isle Martin Flour Mills,' and sent it back to the mainland on the same ships. Most of the workers came over each morning from Ullapool, did a day's shift, and went home at dusk. A few lived in cottages built for them. After the war the mill closed, the buildings were dismantled, and the island fell quiet again. It was not the first time Isle Martin had been industrious and then abandoned, and it will not be the last time a generation chooses what to make of it.

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Image: David Greer | CC BY-SA 2.0

Isle Martin: Not Saint Martin

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Webb, CC BY-SA 2.0. Despite the name, Isle Martin has no connection to St Martin of Tours. The old Gaelic name, recorded in the sixteenth century, is *Ellan Mertack* - the *martrick* being an old word for the pine marten that once moved through the island's woods. A monastery is reputed to have been...

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Image: Richard Webb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Isle Martin: Herring Before Ullapool

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mick Garratt, CC BY-SA 2.0. For most of its history Isle Martin lived off the sea and the thin soil. It was an important centre for the fishing trade, with a curing station running here before Ullapool was even founded as a planned village on the mainland in 1788. The island was lotted into crofts in 1831 -...

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Image: Mick Garratt | CC BY-SA 2.0

Isle Martin: The Conservationists

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Roger McLachlan, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the 1960s Monica Goldsmith bought Isle Martin and took it out of crofting tenure. She wanted it managed for nature: she installed water and power, removed the sheep in 1969, and in 1980 gave the island to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds on the condition that it s...

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Image: Roger McLachlan | CC BY-SA 2.0

Isle Martin: Community Hands

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Roger McLachlan, CC BY-SA 2.0. The trust improved the jetty at Ardmair Bay and now operates a seasonal ferry across the half-mile of water that separates the island from the mainland. A new pontoon went in in 2007. Some of the houses have been refurbished, and one is available to rent for those who want a few ...

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Image: Roger McLachlan | CC BY-SA 2.0