Thieves Holm is a small island in Orkney, Scotland.

Geography and geology

Thieves Holm is due north of

Mainland, Orkney The Mainland, also known as Hrossey and Pomona, is the main island of Orkney, Scotland. Both of Orkney's burghs, Kirkwall and Stromness, lie on the island, which is also the heart of Orkney's ferry and air connections. Seventy-five per cent of O ...

at the mouth of

Kirkwall Kirkwall ( sco, Kirkwaa, gd, Bàgh na h-Eaglaise, nrn, Kirkavå) is the largest town in Orkney, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland. The name Kirkwall comes from the Norse name (''Church Bay''), which later changed to ''Kirkv ...

Bay, between the Mainland and the isle of

Shapinsay Shapinsay (, sco, Shapinsee) is one of the Orkney Islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. There is one village on the island, Balfour, from which roll-on/roll-off car ferries sail to Kirkwall on the Orkney Mainland. Balfour Castle ...

. It is at the west end of the strait between Mainland and Shapinsay, known as the String. It is south west of the

tidal island A tidal island is a piece of land that is connected to the mainland by a natural or man-made causeway that is exposed at low tide and submerged at high tide. Because of the mystique surrounding tidal islands, many of them have been sites of ...

Helliar Holm Helliar Holm is an uninhabited island off the coast of Shapinsay in the Orkney Islands, Scotland. It is home to a lighthouse, which was built in 1893 and automated in 1967. It is a tidal island that used to be connected to Shapinsay. It is still ...

.Haswell-Smith, Hamish. (2004) ''The Scottish Islands''. Edinburgh. Canongate. The name is said to derive from the practice of banishing thieves and witches there. The island is uninhabited and home to a variety of wildlife including cormorants,

kittiwake The kittiwakes (genus ''Rissa'') are two closely related seabird species in the gull family Laridae, the black-legged kittiwake (''Rissa tridactyla'') and the red-legged kittiwake (''Rissa brevirostris''). The epithets "black-legged" and "red-l ...

s and seals."Thieves Holm"
Gazetteer of Scotland. Retrieved 27 October 2013.

References

Uninhabited islands of Orkney {{Orkney-geo-stub