The enquiry suggests one song to me, which was written by Gill Reid, who used to attend Newtongrange Folk Club in Midlothian: she won the club's songwriting competition in 2007 with it. If you were in the Edinburgh or S of Scotland area when you heard it, that might be the one, Jeff. There is just one very short video of her on Youtube, but not singing that one.
The practice of going down the cliffs precariously to collect seabird's eggs is documented on old films of St Kilda (which was evacuated in 1930).
And a large number of Gaelic songs feature sons or husbands going off to sea and never returning alive.