Qualla: Our Lady of the Isles https://qualla.com/our-lady-of-the-isles en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:24 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Our Lady of the Isles https://qualla.com/our-lady-of-the-isles Our Lady of the Isles: Introduction https://qualla.com/our-lady-of-the-isles/ 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.

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/4/y/our-lady-of-the-isles-wp/gf4y-our-lady-of-the-isles-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Our Lady of the Isles: Father Rocket https://qualla.com/our-lady-of-the-isles/ 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 pr...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/4/y/our-lady-of-the-isles-wp/gf4y-our-lady-of-the-isles-father-rocket.mp3 0:06 2 full Our Lady of the Isles: Hew Lorimer's Granite Madonna https://qualla.com/our-lady-of-the-isles/ 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 Hebr...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/4/y/our-lady-of-the-isles-wp/gf4y-our-lady-of-the-isles-hew-lorimers-granite-madonna.mp3 0:06 3 full Our Lady of the Isles: A Sign of What South Uist Is https://qualla.com/our-lady-of-the-isles/ 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 Sco...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/4/y/our-lady-of-the-isles-wp/gf4y-our-lady-of-the-isles-a-sign-of-what-south-uist-is.mp3 0:06 4 full Our Lady of the Isles: The Statue at Rueval https://qualla.com/our-lady-of-the-isles/ 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 Gaeli...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/4/y/our-lady-of-the-isles-wp/gf4y-our-lady-of-the-isles-the-statue-at-rueval.mp3 0:06 5 full