Qualla: Traigh Mhor

Traigh Mhor: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Twice a day the runway disappears underwater. When the tide goes out, Traigh Mhor, the Great Beach, becomes Barra Airport again, two miles of compacted cockle-shell sand at the north end of the island, hard enough to take a Twin Otter and forgiving enough to take cockle rakers and barefoot kids. There are three runways marked across the sand for different wind directions. The schedule is set by the tide table. When the windsock goes up to signal an arrival, you clear the beach, which would be a really bad moment for the dog to chase a seagull. In 1933 a postmaster named John MacPherson looked at this sand and proposed using it as an airfield. Everyone listened. He was right.

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Traigh Mhor: The Coddy's Idea

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

John MacPherson was the postmaster at Northbay, known to everyone on Barra as The Coddy, a Hebridean storyteller whose tales were eventually collected in book form. In 1933, when a site was being sought for a Barra airfield, he suggested the beach: the cockle-shell sand was hard,...

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Traigh Mhor: The Cockle Strand

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Great Beach has another name: the Cockle Strand. The sand is hard because it is mostly the broken shells of countless generations of cockles, and the living bivalves are still here in numbers, just under the surface, where rakes can find them. Razor shells (locally razorfish)...

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Traigh Mhor: Orosay and the Wider Geography

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

At the northern end of Traigh Mhor lies Orosay, a tidal islet whose name comes from the Old Norse Orfirisey, exactly meaning a tidal island. Further east, Hellisay and Gighay sit divided by a narrow channel; further northeast still, Eriskay can be seen on a clear day, the next is...

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