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!)