Islay: Finlaggan and Ballygrant

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Loch Finlaggan

Finlaggan Castle is a ruined fortified house on the isle of Eilean Mór on Islay’s Loch Finlaggan. It was once a residence and stronghold of the Lords of the Isles, semi-autonomous rulers of the Hebrides and Kintyre from the 12th century until 1493 when the lands of the Lordship were forfeited to King James IV. The title Lord of the Isles was annexed to the Crown in 1542 (and is now one of the titles of the present Prince of Wales). The castle appears to have been demolished around that time.

In truth, there’s not much to see of the ruins, but we enjoyed our visit all the same. We started in the small visitor centre which has an interesting display of artefacts discovered during archaeological excavations, along with a fabulous new virtual-reality reconstruction of the settlement in the early 15th century. You can see John totally immersed in it above.

I was also, if you remember, looking out for references to Sinclairs (my great-grandfather’s name) and MacAffers (the family his sister married into). Sinclair is a relatively common name in Scotland and we found many in the graveyards around Islay, but the only reference to MacAffer that I found was at Finlaggan. The MacAffers were hereditary armour bearers to the Lords of the Isles – see below.

From the Visitor Centre, we took the path down to the site, crossing the reed beds of the loch on duckboards.

Finlaggan Visior Centre
Loch Finlaggan
Loch Finlaggan

On the island, interpretive panels explain the ruins and fill in the gaps of what was no longer there. We also visited Finlaggan in 1989 when it was quite overgrown, and I think you can tell from the pictures below that it is now much better maintained.

Finlaggan Castle
Finlaggan 1989

After a quick lunch in Port Askaig, we drove back to a little village called Ballygrant from where we planned to walk to Lily Loch. This was a pleasant, if unspectacular, walk through woods and farmland, and the loch was pretty – although we were there too early to see waterlilies.

From the loch, we crossed an area of open moorland to take a parallel track back – this took us through the village of Keills. The name derives from the Gaelic for church, Cill, and the graveyard here contains the ruins of an old chapel attributed to St Columba. I can never resist an old graveyard, especially one with a view like this. Headstones which caught my eye included one for a father and son who died a fortnight apart, and the memorial to Piper Lily MacDougall aged 100 years. There must be interesting stories attached to both of those.

Chapel ruins
The view
Father and son died two weeks apart
Keills graveyard
Piper Lily MacDougall, ged 100

From the graveyard we headed back to Ballygrant where we caught Labels, the local café, just as it was about to close. Coffee at an outdoor table was a pleasant end to a round walk of 9.5km.

Labels Ballygrant
Labels Ballygrant

(In my last post, I mentioned that I had been called for jury duty and might therefore be out of action for a while. That turned out to be an anti-climax. I called the helpline three nights in a row to find out if I was required – I wasn’t and was “released from my citation” on the third call. Whoopee!)

Scotland, UK , , , , ,

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  1. The VR headset is a brilliant idea to give visitors a sense of what it would have been like. I hope more historic attractions start doing that, my favourite thing about visiting old places is wondering what it would’ve been like for the people who would’ve lived and worked there.

    Cait @ Of Needles and Noodles

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  2. The list of family names associated with hereditary roles with the Lords of the Isles was interesting. Of course it makes sense, but I hadn’t thought of that type of history that a family might have.

    Jude

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  3. Love the names and their meanings which i always find fascinating. I love cemeteries and always love looking at the tombstones. I wonder if the father and son were in some accident and succumbed to their injuries. How wonderful that lady lived to be 100 years old

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  4. What a beautiful walk, and how interesting that you found out that the MacAffers were hereditary armour bearers to the Lords of the Isles. I love the scenery here. The photos are marvelous.

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  8. Another lovely walk, we love looking around graveyards too. Seems a little odd sometimes but some of the older stones, like those you saw, are so interesting. Glad to hear that you escaped yet another jury service too.

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  9. Glad to hear you made it out of jury duty! I’ve never been called, but I suppose I run the risk of it in two countries. Hope the US would at least accept non-residency as an excuse, though they’re not exactly known for being reasonable…

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  10. So glad you aren’t going to have to do jury duty! And thanks for sharing this walk with us…it looked just lovely. Someday I’m going to visit Scotland, and when I do, I’m going to re-read most of your posts to get an idea of what I want to see the most.

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  11. Wee cemeteries are always a magnet for me too, and I couldn’t resist finding out what happened to McDougalls jr and sr.

    The death record for Archibald McDougall lists quite a complicated cause of death. I’m not totally sure of the hand-writing on some of the words, but it looks like:

    “Acute lobar pneumonia. Emphysema with chronic bronchitis and bronchospasm following blast injury from explosion of a mine.”

    Alexander’s cause of death looks like “influenzal broncho pneumonia.” The death certificate says he was a retired lighthouse boatman.

    Records always raise more questions than they answer, and now I’m wondering if the mine that exploded was a coal mine, or a weapon?

    Lily MacDougall (Piper) I think was the wife of Archibald’s brother. Both Archibald and Alexander’s death certificates show Dugald McDougall as the informant.

    The address on both certificates — Yellow Rock cottage, Portaskaig,– is now a holiday cottage. The website says it was owned by Lily McDougall until her death at 100.

    Alexander’s wife, Annie died in 1948 but it looks like Dugald lived into his 90s. I can’t help thinking what a terrible experience it must have been for Annie and Dugald, losing the two men so close together — and with a war going on at the same time. Who knows if there were other sons away in the military.

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    • My goodness, Su, you are a marvel! I look and wonder, you act. Emphysema is certainly a miner’s disease, but there are no coal mines on Islay, though he could have worked away. I hadn’t even thought what the connection between the two stones could be. Thanks for all that information!

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      • Thanks Anabel 😀
        I have Scotland’s People credits so it was easy to search and download the records.
        I’m perplexed about the mine explosion too, but I’m not sure how to dig further into that.
        I hadn’t connected the two headstones either until I found the Yellow Rock Cottage website – and that was just because I was checking that I had read the address on the death certificates correctly.
        There were so many interesting little snippets to be gleaned from the records — and so many questions! Now I’m feeling a bit guilty I haven’t given much time to my own family history for a while 🤨

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  16. Hi Anabel, Interesting how the titles are carried forward to each generation. I think the word is juxtaposition with the ruins and then the virtual reality. All of the photos are interesting and fun. I really enjoy living vicariously through you and your husband, Anabel. Whoopee on the jury duty says it all:)

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  17. Looks a good trip. You might like Nigel Tranter’s Lord of the Isles, a great book I read years ago about Somerled, the half viking, half Celt chieftain who started the title, built the chain of castles, and ruled West Coast Scotland from the Outer Hebrides to the Isle of Man with his fleet of warships yet most Scots have never heard of him. It’s a cracking read.

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  19. I remember growing up and being fascinated by stories of Somerled, Lord of the Isles. Annabell was called to Jury duty once and she and a friend had to drive the 80 klms to the district court at Port Augusta. We used to have a court here but that was closed down in 1980(ish) and moved to Port Augusta. We still have a Magistrate Court and a Youth Court and that’s about it.

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  21. I love the sound of the Scottish names you list in your Post, they sound so ??? I can’t think of a word, it’s not ‘musical’, would rhythmic be OK? They seem to have a beat to them when spoken aloud. Quite a few of them are like the Irish ones, not surprising as we share the Gaelic tongue even though there are stark differences. I take it Mór means the same in Scottish as in Irish – Big? And would that then be Big Eilean?
    As usual, interesting and fascinating.

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  27. Hi Anabel – so glad about the jury service – saved by lifting your arm to the phone!

    Beautiful area to visit – now VR … interesting – I can imagine the wait if there’s more than one person around … but that technology is definitely arriving in our world.

    Also good you found some reference to the family – while the image about the Scottish surnames linked to the Lord of the Isles is just wonderful to read …

    Cheers Hilary

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  29. I got called for jury duty earlier this year but got discharged as I had a funeral to go to – first time I’d been called and was relieved not to have to sit on a case. Great photos – very atmospheric! Hope you can trace your ancestors – would be fascinating if they had a connection to this place. I am descended from the Maxwell clan on my paternal grandmother’s line but no one knows where they came from originally only that they came down to London from Scotland in the late 18th century. I know they had links to Edinburgh but the story was they came from the Highlands originally. I thought it would be relatively easy to find the lineage for an Alexander Maxwell – well no chance there are so many of them and it’s impossible to work out who is who!

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  32. Great photos, I love the view from the graveyard and the one of Lily Loch – I can imagine that would be really pretty with water lilies. I went to a section of the Lancaster Canal a week ago (future post) and there were several parts of the water with large areas of yellow water lilies 🙂

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  33. I’m seeing many more museums using VR nowadays – I used it to feed a dinosaur at the Yorkshire Museum the other week!
    Some lovely photos of the Loch.
    Glad to hear you weren’t called up for jury duty. More adventures await!

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