Thou great Dunstaffnage

This ruined chapel stands in woodland behind Dunstaffnage Castle, just outside Oban. The castle has 'clung to its rocky mound for nearly 800 years' overlooking the Firth of Lorn, and is rather daunting. A huge and forbidding stone construction on an equally sturdy and forbidding rock.

Both Castle and Chapel were built for Duncan MacDougall, grandson of the revered Somerled, around 1220-1250. This area was frontier land then, between the kingdoms of Scotland and Norway, and so the castle changed hands several times. Robert the Bruce laid siege to it in 1308. The Stewarts appear to have had it in their possession for a short while in the 1400's, it was seized back by the MacDougall clan only for them to be evicted by James lll, who granted the lordship to his local henchman, Colin Campbell. The Campbells took it and used it as their stronghold in their long standing battle with the MacDonalds. One of the castles most famous 'visitors' was Flora MacDonald, imprisoned there before being sent to London for helping Bonnie Prince Charlie escape. It remained pretty much in the hands of the Campbells, with a little sashay or two elsewhere, until it was devastated by fire in 1810. Part of it was still fit to live in and was handed down with various disputes until finally in 1958 it was entrusted to the state.

The chapel, a solid chunky building, shows no sign of the its original ornamentation, except maybe we can imagine the glory of these arched windows, the only openings of any significance, allowing light to stream down onto the altar.

I get the feeling that living on the headland at Dunstaffnage would not have been for the faint hearted. Even the walk to chapel to say your daily prayers would leave you soaked and blown away in a gale. Glad it was a lovely sunny day while we were there.

Here is part of a rather gloomy poem about Dunstaffnage Castle by Cora Kennedy Aitken

Broken Dunstaffnage by the western sea
Thou are as dark as any old misdeed
Commited in thy lonely towers could be.
Thou'rt like a life too gloomy to succeed,
That preys upon itself and dies of need.
Thou great Dunstaffnage, though we cannot save
Thy life, we may at least revere thy grave.