World Island Info

Islayblog.com, which covers the Inner Hebridean island of Islay, in Scotland, is doing a series of pictures of islands on the island. Here’s the first post about it.

Islay has some interesting double islands, including Eilean Mor and Eilean na Comhairle (Council Island) in Loch Finlaggan, which served as administrative centers for the Lords of the Isles and Clan Donald.

Image courtesy ifyr, Flick
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Today is the centennial of Louis Bleriot’s making the first powered flight to the island of Great Britain, from France across the English Channel.

Balloons had made the trip before, but this first flight via airplane changed island geography. Ships were no longer the only means of reaching them, and isolation decreased rapidly as the speed of aircraft increased. And, in the First and Second World Wars, Great Britain and other islands were to discover that airplanes greatly diminished their status as fortresses.

It is not clear whether this was the first powered flight to any island; did aviators fly before this to the Isle of Wight, Long Island, or Manhattan, for instance?

(Image courtesy Smudge 9000, Flickr)

A double island — a lake island on the island of Great Britain — has several minutes on screen in the new “Pride and Prejudice”.

It is in the background while Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth are arguing in a pillared pavillion, one hour and eight minutes in on the DVD.

The real island is part of the gardens of Stourhead Estate; the pavillion seems to be the Temple of Apollo.

Going off to be alone on Sanda, Scotland.  Said incoming island caretaker Charles McVey, “I wanted to do something totally different and can’t wait for the isolation. People say I’ll go crazy and told me not to watch The Shining.”

A dispute has broken out over a tiny double island—an island in a body of water on another island—in Loch Lomond, Scotland.