The St Kilda Steamers

Until the advent of the helicopter, the only way to visit St Kilda was by sea and two companies made the trip their own. John Macallum and Martin Orme owned the ships Hebridean, Hebrides and Dunara Castle and these ships made the regular mail visits to the islands from the 1880s until the late 1930s. They brought trade and tourists to the islands, and were, apart from infrequent calls by fishing boats and whaling ships, the only contact with the outside world. For a short summer each year, once a week, one of the steamers would be in Village Bay discharging cargo, collecting tweed and taking visiting tourists on their quest to view Britain’s most remote inhabitants. James MacKay tells the story of the St Kilda steamers, those ships that have operated to the island group of St Kilda and which helped in the evacuation of the islands in 1930.