Michael MacKinnon, Theresa Irving and Michael MacNeil at the original statue of St Finbarr, which is to be replaced
The journey to the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, 85 miles off Scotland’s northwest coast, is among the most dramatic you can undertake in this part of the world – or anywhere.
A ferry to Barra’s town of Castlebay takes almost five hours from Oban, but the weather is the boss so travel plans must come with a caveat. The more classic route is to fly in from Glasgow, which takes roughly an hour on a whiny Loganair turboprop.
There is no runway on Barra. The pilot plonks the plane down on a tidal sand flat. When I visited in spring last year before the UK’s general election, the flight eased down on to the beac
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