Qualla: Rùm https://qualla.com/rum en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:24 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/k/rum-wk/hero-small.webp Qualla: Rùm https://qualla.com/rum Rùm: Introduction https://qualla.com/rum/ Photo credit Doug Lee, CC BY-SA 2.0. Rùm has been continuously inhabited since the eighth millennium BC. It has also, in that long time, been largely uninhabited. The numbers swing depending on what story Britain is telling itself: 400 people early in the 19th century during the brief Hebridean kelp boom, then almost none after the Highland Clearances emptied the island to make room for sheep, then a few dozen at the height of Sir George Bullough's Edwardian sporting estate when he kept alligators among the other expensive whims at Kinloch Castle, then almost none again. Today around 30 people live here, all of them at Kinloch on the eastern shore, outnumbered ten to one by feral mountain goats.

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Image: Doug Lee | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/k/rum-wk/gf5k-r-m-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Rùm: The Cuillin of Rùm https://qualla.com/rum/ Photo credit Russel Wills, CC BY-SA 2.0. The southern third of Rùm is a ridge of basalt and gabbro hills called the Rùm Cuillin, distinct from the more famous Cuillin on Skye but cut from similar volcanic stone. The highest summit, Askival, reaches 812 metres - a Corbett, in Scottish hill-walking taxonomy, meaning betwe...

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Image: Russel Wills | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/k/rum-wk/gf5k-r-m-the-cuillin-of-r-m.mp3 0:06 2 full Rùm: The Clearances and the Sheep https://qualla.com/rum/ Photo credit Richard Sutcliffe, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the 1820s the small population that had built a way of life on this hard ground was evicted, transported to Cape Breton in Nova Scotia and other parts of the diaspora, so the island could be turned over to sheep. The pattern repeated itself across the Highlands and the Islands...

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Image: Richard Sutcliffe | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/k/rum-wk/gf5k-r-m-the-clearances-and-the-sheep.mp3 0:06 3 full Rùm: Manx Shearwaters in the Sky https://qualla.com/rum/ Photo credit Graham Lewis, CC BY 2.0. Rùm holds one of the largest breeding colonies of Manx shearwaters in the world, with around 100,000 pairs nesting in burrows on the high slopes of the Cuillin. Shearwaters are creatures of the deep ocean; they spend most of their lives at sea and come to land only to breed, in b...

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Image: Graham Lewis | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/k/rum-wk/gf5k-r-m-manx-shearwaters-in-the-sky.mp3 0:06 4 full Rùm: Kinloch and the Community Trust https://qualla.com/rum/ Photo credit nschouterden, CC BY 2.0. In 2010 the Isle of Rùm Community Trust took over the area around Kinloch Village from the government conservation body, giving the residents of the island some control over their own homes and livelihoods. The trust has built new houses for incomers, restored the pier, and stead...

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Image: nschouterden | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/k/rum-wk/gf5k-r-m-kinloch-and-the-community-trust.mp3 0:06 5 full Rùm: The Mausoleum at Harris https://qualla.com/rum/ Photo credit Lisa Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0. Six miles across the island, on the depopulated western shore at Harris, stands Sir George Bullough's Doric mausoleum, where he, his wife Monica and his father John are buried beneath polished sandstone columns. A track leads from Kinloch over the hill, and walking it takes you t...

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Image: Lisa Jarvis | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/k/rum-wk/gf5k-r-m-the-mausoleum-at-harris.mp3 0:06 6 full