Inchmickery is a small island in the

Firth of Forth The Firth of Forth () is the estuary, or firth, of several Scottish rivers including the River Forth. It meets the North Sea with Fife on the north coast and Lothian on the south. Name ''Firth'' is a cognate of ''fjord'', a Norse word meani ...

in Scotland. It is about north of Edinburgh. Its name comes from the Scottish Gaelic, ''Innis nam Biocaire'', meaning ''Isle of the Vicars'', implying that there may have been an old ecclesiastical or Culdee settlement here, as in nearby Inchcolm. It features occasionally in a riddle, "How many inches is the

Forth Forth or FORTH may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''forth'' magazine, an Internet magazine * ''Forth'' (album), by The Verve, 2008 * ''Forth'', a 2011 album by Proto-Kaw * Radio Forth, a group of independent local radio stations in Scotla ...

?", playing on a pun on 'Inch' (''Innis''), the Gaelic word for island, and inch, the imperial measurement. Inchmickery is tiny, only 100 metres by 200 metres. During both World War I and World War II the island was used as a gun emplacement. The concrete buildings make the island look (from a distance) like a battleship. Although the island is now uninhabited much of this concrete superstructure remains largely intact. The conclusion of Iain Banks's 1993 novel ''

Complicity Complicity is the participation in a completed criminal act of an accomplice, a partner in the crime who aids or encourages ( abets) other perpetrators of that crime, and who shared with them an intent to act to complete the crime.''Criminal Law ...

'' was set here and the

film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...

used it as a location. The island is now an

RSPB The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a Charitable_organization#United_Kingdom, charitable organisation registered in Charity Commission for England and Wales, England and Wales and in Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, ...

reserve, and is home to breeding pairs of common eider, Sandwich terns and various gulls. It used to be a nesting site for the very rare

roseate tern The roseate tern (''Sterna dougallii'') is a species of tern in the family Laridae. The genus name ''Sterna'' is derived from Old English "stearn", "tern", and the specific ''dougallii'' refers to Scottish physician and collector Dr Peter McDoug ...

, but the roseate terns have now moved elsewhere in the Firth of Forth. There are exposed rocks off Inchmickery, known as the Cow & Calves. Inchmickery was formerly known for its oyster-beds, and used to be covered in moss and lichen.

References

External links

*
Report of a visit to Inchmickery

Video tour of Inchmickery

{{coord, 56.01084, N, 3.27343, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(NT207805), display=title Islands of the Forth Islands of Edinburgh Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Scotland

See also

References

External links