A day or two after any visitor arrived to St Kilda, the inhabitants suffered from outbreaks of a respiratory tract infection known locally as the ‘boat cough’

On August 15th 1727 three men and eight boys were rowed from Village Bay on Hirta, the largest island of St Kilda to Stac an Armin, an almost sheer sea stack 643 feet high five miles away. They had little with them apart from their. . .