Type | Weekly newspaper |
---|---|
Format | Tabloid (since 2018) |
Owner(s) | Orkney Media Group (Anderson-Mackintosh family) |
Founder(s) | James Urquhart Anderson |
Editor | Leah Seator |
Founded | 1854 | (as A Literary and Commercial Advertiser for Orkney and Zetland)
Language | English |
Headquarters | Kirkwall, Orkney, Scotland |
Website | www |
The Orcadian is the oldest newspaper in Orkney, Scotland, first published in 1854. At first a monthly paper, it soon became a weekly. The newspaper is based in Kirkwall but printed in Glasgow for sale every Thursday. [1] It is part of the Orkney Media Group, formed out of a partnership with a competing newspaper, Orkney Today, in 2007. [2]
The newspaper was first founded in 1854 as A Literary and Commercial Advertiser for Orkney and Zetland by James Urquhart Anderson, who established the first printing press on the island in the 1820s, and his son of the same name. The first issues were written by James, while his son printed the issues on hand set type. The Andersons were joined by Ayrshire journalist and editor W.H. Mackintosh when he married into the family in 1877, and since then, the newspaper has been owned by the Anderson-Mackintosh family. [1]
During the Second World War, The Orcadian published a special armed forces newspaper titled Orkney Blast. A competing newspaper founded in 1860, The Orkney Herald, closed down in the 1950s, leaving The Orcadian as the sole remaining newspaper on the island until the launch of Orkney Today in 2003. [1] Following the formation of the Orkney Media Group in 2007, Orkney Today was closed in 2010, citing financial issues and low circulation, making The Orcadian again the island's only newspaper. [3] [4]
Until 2018, the newspaper was printed at Orkney Media's printing facilities in Kirkwall. Increasing maintenance costs and a need to modernise saw The Orcadian cease printing on Orkney to instead be printed at Newsquest's Glasgow printing facilities. This coincided with a relaunch of The Orcadian on 1 March 2018, with the newspaper redesigned and resized to tabloid format. [5] [6]
The paper has been edited by Leah Seator since 2016. [7]
Orkney, also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north of the coast of Caithness and has about 70 islands, of which 20 are inhabited. The largest island, the Mainland, has an area of 523 square kilometres (202 sq mi), making it the sixth-largest Scottish island and the tenth-largest island in the British Isles. Orkney's largest settlement, and also its administrative centre, is Kirkwall.
Kirkwall is the largest town in Orkney, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland.
The Daily Record is a national tabloid based in Glasgow, Scotland. The newspaper is published Monday–Saturday and its website is updated on an hourly basis, seven days a week. The Record's sister title is the Sunday Mail. Both titles are owned by Reach plc and have a close kinship with the UK-wide Daily Mirror as a result.
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.
St Magnus Cathedral dominates the skyline of Kirkwall, the main town of Orkney, a group of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. It is the oldest cathedral in Scotland, and the most northerly cathedral in the United Kingdom, a fine example of Romanesque architecture built for the bishops of Orkney when the islands were ruled by the Norse Earls of Orkney. It is owned not by the church, but by the burgh of Kirkwall as a result of an act of King James III of Scotland following Orkney's annexation by the Scottish Crown in 1468. It has its own dungeon.
Walter Traill Dennison (1825–1894) was a farmer and folklorist. He was a native of the Orkney island of Sanday, in Scotland, where he collected local folk tales and other antiquites. Dennison recorded most of the information available about traditional tales told in Orkney, but to an extent "romanticised and systematised" parts of it in the process of transforming the stories into prose. Writing in 2004 and 2010 twenty-first century academics from the University of the Highlands and Islands and University of Glasgow indicate Traill Dennison "relied almost exclusively on the peasantry of his native island for the raw materials of his literary work" and he "provided us with some authentic traditions and that he got these, as he always claimed, directly from the Orkney peasantry". The Orcadian folklorist and antiquarian Ernest Marwick considered that Traill Dennison bridged the gap between the social classes and that he had an "affinity with the common people".
The Orkney football team is the representative football team for the islands of Orkney, Scotland. They are not affiliated with FIFA or UEFA. The team regularly competes in the Island Games and has a strong rivalry with the representative teams of Shetland and Caithness.
NHS Orkney is an NHS board that provides healthcare services in the Orkney area of Scotland.
The Orkney Islands Council, is the local authority for Orkney, Scotland. It was established in 1975 by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and was largely unaffected by the Scottish local government changes of the mid-1990s.
Balfour Hospital is a rural general hospital in Kirkwall, Orkney. It is managed by NHS Orkney.
Ola Gorie is a Scottish jewellery designer, one of the founders of the modern craft movement in Scotland.
The Orkney International Science Festival is a science festival which takes place every September in Kirkwall, Orkney Islands, Scotland and has been running since 1991.
The Battle of Summerdale was fought on 19 May 1529, and was the last battle to take place on Orkney soil. The battle took place on the boundary of the parishes of Orphir and Stenness in Mainland, Orkney. The battle was fought between the Sinclairs of Orkney and Shetland and the Sinclairs of Caithness, who had the support of James V, King of Scotland.
Bessie Skea or Bessie Grieve (1923–1996) was a Scottish writer of prose and poetry. Inspired by her native Orkney Islands in the north of Scotland, her reputation grew from her regular contributions to The Orcadian newspaper under the name Countrywoman, and she went on to publish a number of books. She wrote mainly about the natural world and island life.
The 2017 Orkney Council election took place on 4 May 2017 to elect members of Orkney Islands Council. The election used the six wards created as a result of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004, with each ward electing three or four Councillors using the single transferable vote system a form of proportional representation, with 21 Councillors being elected.
Mary Anne Baikie (1861–1950) was a Scottish suffragist who established the Orcadian Women's Suffrage Society (OWSS) and grew the membership and public interest in the debate, in the Orkney Isles, during the campaigns for Votes for Women.
Mary Lauchline McNeill was a Scottish suffragist and Orcadian doctor, who served with the Scottish Women's Hospitals in World War One, awarded medals from Britain, France and Serbia, then worked in medicine in Palestine, India and Uganda, where she died of typhoid.
The Big Tree is a sycamore in Kirkwall, Orkney. It was named "Scotland's Tree of the Year" in the annual competition held by Woodland Trust Scotland, in 2017. The tree was nominated for the Scottish competition by Andrew Richards and Hazel Flett on behalf of the Kirkwall Community Council who also won a £1,000 grant from the Scottish Woodland Trust and Postcode Lottery. The prize money was used to stage a series of competitions to engage the public with the tree in the largely treeless islands.
Elections to the Orkney Islands Council were held on 5 May 2022, the same day as the 31 other Scottish local government elections. The election used the six wards created under the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004, with 21 councillors being elected. Each ward elected either 3 or 4 members, using the STV electoral system.
Bina Cursiter was a Scottish suffragist, who played a leading role in Orcadian Women's Suffrage Society, and helped to galvanise the organised women's movement in Orkney.