Mull

Mull (Gaelic: Muile pronounced [ˈmulʲə]) is the second largest island of the Inner Hebrides (after Skye), off the west coast of Scotland in the council area of Argyll and Bute.

With an area of 875.35 square kilometres (337.97 sq mi) Mull is the fourth largest Scottish island and the fourth largest island surrounding Great Britain (excluding Ireland). In the 2011 census the usual resident population of Mull was 2,800 a slight rise on the 2001 figure of 2,667; in the summer this is supplemented by many tourists. Much of the population lives in Tobermory, the only burgh on the island until 1973, and its capital.

Tobermory is also home to Mull's only single malt Scotch whisky distillery, Tobermory (formerly Ledaig).

History

It is widely understood that Mull was inhabited shortly after the end of the last Ice Age, from around 6000 BC. Bronze Age inhabitants built menhirs, brochs and a stone circle with examples of burial cairns, cists, standing stones, stone circles, pottery and knife blades providing compelling evidence.

Mull (film)

Mull is a 1988 Australian drama film directed by Don McLennan. The film is based on the popular 1986 book, Mullaway by Bronwen 'Bron' Nichols.

Plot

A sixteen-year-old teenage girl (Nadine Garner) is forced to care for her family, when her mother (Sue Jones) finds out she is dying of Hodgkin’s disease. The family consists of her father (Bill Hunter) a reformed alcoholic and recently born-again Christian, her heroin-dabbling closet gay older brother (Craig Morrison), and two trying younger siblings (Bradley Kilpatrick and Kymara Stowers) all packed into a rented flat in the Melbourne bayside suburb of St Kilda. She also has to deal with her pregnant Greek best friend (Mary Coustas), her yearnings for her brother’s lover (Juno Roxas) and her gay former schoolteacher plus his lover.

Cast

Production

The film's budget was $3 million but McLennan says only $1.7 million went on the film, the rest went into fees.

Awards

Mull received six nominations at the 1988 Australian Film Institute Awards: 'Best Film', 'Best Director' (McLennan), 'Best Actress' (Garner), 'Best Supporting Actress' (for both Jones and Coustas) and 'Best Costume Design' (Jeanie Cameron). Nadine Garner winning the 'Best Actress' award.

Mull (geographical term)

Mull is an Anglicization of the Gaelic Maol, a term for a rounded hill, summit, or mountain, bare of trees (it has also been used, in Gaelic, to refer to a forehead, or to a shaved head). As an adjective, the word is used to indicate something which is bare, dull, or bald. In Scotland, the term is most commonly used in the southwest, where it is often applied to headlands or promontories, and, often more specifically, for the tip of that promontory or peninsula.

Gaelic spelling rules require that maol, in certain syntactical arrangements, be lenited: that is, an h is inserted after the first letter, if the first letter is a consonant (and not an l, n, or r). This h makes the preceding consonant silent, or changes its sound (mh, or bh, for instance, are silent or sound like an English v). Gaelic spelling rules also require that, with the first letter lenited, the last vowel should be slender (an i, or an e). As both vowels in maol are broad, an i is inserted after. These two changes alter the sound of maol (rhymes with mull) to mhaoil (rhymes with uell, or well), as in Creachmhaoil (creach + maol). Consequently, maol, where it appears combined in place names, may not be Anglicized as mull. Creachmhaoil is typically Anglicized (as a toponym) as Craughwell. The reverse is also true, and though mull appears in numerous Irish and Scottish toponyms, a convoluted history of Anglicizations means that in many it may have no connection to the word maol.