Rùm (), a Scottish Gaelic name often anglicised to Rum ( ), is one of the Small Isles of the Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland, in the district of Lochaber. For much of the 20th century the name became Rhum, a spelling invented by the former owner, Sir George Bullough, because he did not relish the idea of having the title "Laird of Rum".
It is the largest of the Small Isles, and the 15th-largest Scottish island, and is inhabited by about 30 people, all of whom live in the hamlet of Kinloch on the east coast. The island has been inhabited since the 8th millennium BC and provides some of the earliest-known evidence of human occupation in Scotland. The early Celtic and Norse settlers left only a few written accounts and artefacts. From the 12th or 13th centuries the island was held by various clans, including the MacLeans of Coll. The population had grown to more than 400 by the late 18th century, but the island was cleared of its indigenous population between 1826 and 1828. The island then became a sporting estate; the exotic Kinloch Castle was constructed by the Bulloughs in 1900. Rùm was purchased by the Nature Conservancy Council in 1957.
Rùm is mainly igneous in origin, and its mountains were eroded by Pleistocene glaciation. It is now an important study site for research in ecology, especially of red deer, and is the site of a successful reintroduction programme for the white-tailed sea eagle. Its economy is entirely dependent on NatureScot, a public body that now manages the island, and there have been calls for a greater diversity of housing provision. A Caledonian MacBrayne ferry links the island with the mainland town of Mallaig.
In 2024 the island was designated an International Dark Sky Sanctuary, the first in Scotland and the second in Europe.
Toponyms
Haswell-Smith (2004) suggests that Rum is "probably" pre-Celtic but may be Old Norse for 'wide island' or Gaelic () meaning 'isle of the ridge'. Ross (2007) notes that there is a written record of Ruim from 677 and suggests 'spacious island' from the Gaelic . Mac an Tàilleir (2003) is unequivocal that Rùm is "a pre-Gaelic name and unclear". In light of this, Richard Coates has suggested that it may be worth looking for a Proto-Semitic source for the name. This is because the British Isles were likely repopulated from the Iberian Peninsula following the last Ice Age. He proposes a name based on the Proto-Semitic root , a 'height-word' as seen in Ramat Gan in Israel and Ramallah, Palestine. Rum would therefore mean something like '(island of) height' or 'high island'.
The origins are therefore speculative, but it is known for certain that George Bullough changed the spelling to Rhum to avoid the association with the alcoholic drink rum. However the Rhum spelling is used on a Kilmory gravestone dated 1843.Love (2002) p156. In 1991 the Nature Conservancy Council of Scotland (the forerunner to NatureScot) reverted to the use of Rum without the h.Ross, David (2007) Dictionary of Scottish Place-names. Edinburgh. Birlinn/Scotland on Sunday..
In the 13th century there may be references to the island as Raun- and Raun-, and Dean Munro writing in 1549 calls it Ronin.Rixson (2001) page 88. Seafaring Hebrideans had numerous taboos concerning spoken references to islands. In the case of Rùm, use of the usual name was forbidden, the island being referred to as , 'the kingdom of the wild forest'.Rixson (2001) page 110.
The island was cleared of its indigenous population prior to being mapped by the Ordnance Survey, so it is possible that many place names are speculative. Nonetheless, the significant number of Norse-derived names that exist eight centuries after Viking political control ended indicate the importance of their presence on the island. Of the nine hamlets that were mapped in 1801, seven of the names are of Norse origin.Rixson (2001) pages 67 and 70.
Geography
Rùm is the largest of the Small Isles, with an area of .
Kinloch is at the head of Loch Scresort, the main anchorage. Kilmory Bay lies to the north. It has a fine beach and the remains of a village, and has for some years served as the base for research into red deer (see below). The area is occasionally closed to visitors during the period of the deer rut in the autumn. The western point is the A' Bhrìdeanach peninsula, and to the southwest lie Wreck Bay, the cliffs of Sgorr Réidh and Harris Bay. The last is the site of the Bullough's mausoleum. The family decided the first version was inadequate and dynamited it. The second is in the incongruous style of a Greek temple. Papadil (Old Norse: "valley of the hermit") near the southern extremity has the ruins of a lodge built and then abandoned by the Bulloughs.
An 1801 map produced by George Langlands identified nine villages: Kilmory to the north at the head of Glen Kilmory, Samhnan Insir just to the north between Kilmory and Rubha Samhnan Insir, Camas Pliasgiag in the northeast, "Kinlochscresort", (the modern Kinloch), Cove (Laimhrige at Bàgh na h-Uamha in the east), Dibidil in the southeast, Papadil in the south, Harris in the southwest and Guirdil at the head of Glen Shellesder in the northwest.Rixson (2001) page 142.Virtanaen, R., Edwards, G.R. and Crawley M.J. (2002) Red deer management and vegetation on the Isle of Rum (pdf) Journal of Applied Ecology 39 572-83.
The island's relief is spectacular; a 19th-century commentator remarked that "the interior is one heap of rude mountains, scarcely possessing an acre of level land".MacCulloch, J. (1824) The Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland. Vol. IV. London. This combination of geology and topography makes for less than ideal agricultural conditions, and it is doubtful that more than one tenth of the island has ever been cultivated. In the 18th century, average land-rental values on Rùm were a third those of neighbouring Eigg and only a fifth of Canna's.Rixson (2001) page 136, quoting Walker's Report on the Hebrides of 1764.
Mean annual rainfall is high at at the coast and in the hills. Spring months are usually the driest and winter the wettest, but any month may receive the highest level of precipitation during the year.Clutton-Brock, T. and Ball, M.E. (1987) pages 2-3.
Geology
The main range of hills on Rùm are the Cuillin, usually referred to as the "Rùm Cuillin", in order to distinguish them from the Cuillin of Skye. They are rocky peaks of gabbro, forming the Rum layered intrusion. Geologically, Rùm is the core of a deeply eroded volcano that was active in the Paleogene period some 60 million years ago,Hamilton MA, Pearson DG, Thompson RN, Kelly SP, Emeleus CH (1998) Rapid eruption of Skye lavas inferred from precise U-Pb and Ar-Ar dating of the Rum and Cuillin plutonic complexes. Nature 394: 260-263 and which developed on a pre-existing structure of Torridonian sandstone and shales resting on Lewisian gneiss.McKirdy et al. (2007) page 150.Emeleus, C. H. "The Rhum Volcano" in Clutton-Brock and Ball (1987) page 12. Two of the Cuillin are classified as Corbetts: Askival and Ainshval, (Old Norse for "mountain of the ash trees" and "hill of the strongholds" respectively) and Rùm is the smallest Scottish island to have a summit above . Other hills include Hallival, Trollaval ('mountain of the trolls'), Barkeval, and Sgurr nan Gillean (Gaelic: "peak of the young men") in the Cuillin and Ard Nev, Orval, Sròn an t-Saighdeir and Bloodstone Hill in the west. It is likely that only the higher peaks remained above the Pleistocene ice sheets as nunataks.McKirdy et al. (2007) page 285.
Hallival and Askival are formed from an extraordinary series of layered igneous rocks created as olivine and feldspar crystals accumulated at the base of a magma chamber. The chamber eventually collapsed, forming a caldera. There are swarms of near-vertical dykes of basalt on the northwest coast between Kilmory and Guirdil, created by basaltic magma forcing its way into fissures in the pre-existing rock.Emeleus, C.H. "The Rhum Volcano" in Clutton-Brock and Ball (1987) page 11. The western hills, although less elevated than the Cuillin, exhibit a superb collection of periglacial landforms including boulder sheets and lobes, turf-banked terraces, ploughing boulders and patterned ground. On Orval and Ard Nev the weathered basalt and granophyre has been sorted by frost heaving into circles 50 centimetres in diameter and weathering on Barkeval has produced unusual rock sculptures. On Sròn an t-Saighdeir there are large sorted granite boulder circles 2–3 metres across on the flat summit and sorted stripes on the slopes. Lava flowing away from the volcanic centre formed Bloodstone Hill, gas bubbles leaving holes in the structure that were then filled with green agate flecked with red. There are some outcrops of the pre-volcanic Lewisian gneiss near Dibidil in the southeast corner of the island, and more extensive deposits of sandstone in the north and east.McKirdy et al. (2007) pages 194 and 284-5.
History Prehistory A site near Kinloch known as Farm Fields provides some of the earliest known evidence of human occupation in Scotland. Carbonized hazelnut shells found there have been dated to the Mesolithic period at 7700-7500 BC.Edwards, Kevin J. and Whittington, Graeme "Vegetation Change" in Edwards & Ralston (2003) page 70.; at this time the landscape was dominated by alder, hazel and willow scrub.McKirdy et al. (2007) page 196. A beach site above Loch Scresort has been dated to between 6500 and 5500 BC. The presence of this hunter-gatherer community may have been to take advantage of the local supplies of bloodstone, a workable material for the making of tools and weapons. There is a shell-midden at Papadil in the south and evidence of tidal fish traps at both Kinloch and Kilmory.Rixson (2001) pages 1-7.
Examination of peat cores and pollen records indicates that soil erosion (suggesting clearance of woodland for agricultural purposes) was taking place in 3470 BC (the early Neolithic era); much later, from 2460 BC, evidence of arable cultivation exists.Ballantyne, Colin K, and Dawson, Alastair G. "Geomorphology and Landscape Change" in Edwards & Ralston (2003) page 42. As the climate became damper, peat expanded its coverage at the expense of woodland, and post-glacial sea level changes left raised beaches around the coastline 18–45 metres above the present sea-level, especially between Harris and A'Bhrideanach;McKirdy et al. (2007) pages 196, 214 and 286. Bronze Age artefacts, such as barbed-and-tanged arrowheads typical of the Beaker People, have been found in the machair which replaced it.
There are prehistoric fort sites at promontories near Kilmory, Papadil and Glen Shellesder of uncertain date.Rixson (2001) page 2. These primarily consist of a wall dividing the promontory from the rest of the island, but at Kilmory, there is also a rampart with a hollow containing the traces of an interior structure. At Shellesder, the promontory contains the remains of three round stone-walled huts, one of which integrates with the dividing wall. A small number of cairns, again of uncertain date, are also located along the coast.
Early Medieval Period
In the sixth and seventh centuries, Irish missionary activity led by Columba established a Christian presence in the region. Beccan of Rùm (previously a monk at Iona) may have lived on the island (at Papadil), for four decades from 632, his death being recorded in the Annals of Ulster in 677. He is known to have been conservative on doctrinal matters and surviving examples of his poetry suggest a passionate personality.Rixson (2001) pages 21-25. He wrote of Columba:In scores of curraghs with an army of wretches he crossed the long-haired sea. He crossed the wave-strewn wild region, Foam flecked, seal-filled, savage, bounding, seething, white-tipped, pleasing, doleful."Tiugraind Beccain" in Clancy, T.O. and Markus, G. eds. (1995) Iona- The Earliest Poetry of A Celtic Monastery quoted by Rixson (2001) page 25.