Knock Castle

Knock Castle is also known as Caisteal Camus,  it is 3.5 miles north of Armadale on the Isle of Skye.  It was held by the MacLeods in the fifteenth century, but later passed to the MacDonalds.  Knock Castle became the key stronghold for the Lords of the Isles - The MacDonalds.  Some say that if it wasn’t for the carelessness of the warden who held it for the MacLeods and allowed himself to be suprised, the MacDonalds would have never set foot in Skye.  When the Lords of the Isles eventually left Knock Castle for Dunscaith it became the fortress of the Barons of Sleat and stood seige from the MacLeods at the end of the fifteenth century.  On this occassion it was defended, and most bravely, by a woman, ‘Mary of the Castle’.  The story of how she came to be in charge is a mystery, but most of the MacDonald women were competent fighters so this is not completely out of the ordinary.  Stories of Mary’s courage and skill are still told to this day.  It was under the shelter of her shield that the clan had time to gather and to arm.

Castle Maol

Kylekin is a small promontory that juts out of the east end of Skye and is crowned by the ruins of Castle Maol. The main wall of the ruin is an impressive eleven feet thick, but ended up defeated by the great storm of 1948. On Febuary 1st 1948, the main wall of Castle Maol cracked from top to bottom. But the castle still stands.

It was originally built by ‘Saucy Mary’, a Norwegian princess, wife of a MacDonald of the time, who used the castle to extract toll from every ship that passed through the Kyles. It is said she had a chain across from the castle to the mainland shore. This would have been some chain! Later, Castle Maol came into the possession of the MacKinnons of Strath.

Castle Maol

The ruins of Castle Strome sit in the picturesque headland which once formed part of the ancient earldom of Ross. It became the focus of Clan fighting due to it’s strategic location between the lands of the MacDonalds of Glengarry and the MacKenzies of Kintail.

The castle was built in the early 15th Century and during the next two centuries the land surpassed too and fro between the rival clans according to the royal favour of the time, this intensified the bitterness between the MacDonalds and the MacKenzies and eventually spelt disaster for Strome Castle.

The year 1602 saw the castle under seige by the MacKenzies once again. After a long offensive the MacDonalds imprisoned in the castle for so long made two unfortunate blunders. According to an contemporay account some ’silly women’ from the MacDonald Clan left the castle in order to draw water from the well, however they were so fearfull and the light was so bad they made the disaterous mistake of pouring the water into the gun powder vat instead of the water barrel.

When the MacDonald men discovered this blunder they cursed the women loudly, but this made matters worst. A MacKenzie prisoner overheard the commotion in the castle and managed to escape back to his own camp telling his Clan Chief what had happened. Which promted a final attack.

The MacDonalds knew they were facing a sure defeat, their only option was to surrender and to save their lives. Agreeing to this the MacKenzie Clan watched the MacDonalds leave they then blew up the castle. Strome Castle has remained in ruins to this day.

“A well tempered man, in body shapely, of a fair piercing eye, of middle stature and of quick discernment.”

Somerled is the first known historic figure of the medeival Hebrides. He was celebrated as a purely Celtic hero, but like all good heroes, his story is a gloss of myth and legend.

His name in Norse means summer hunter - but his father had a Gaelic name - Gillebride.
Tradition accounts of Sommerled’s genealogy take him back to the Irish king, Conn of 100 battles.
This was typical of the middle ages when who your ancestors were was as important as who you were. What is probable is that he was of the kindred of the Ui Maic Uias of Oriel. On his mother’s side he may have been Norse. He was a fusion of the Gaelic and Norse worlds.

For all that he is such a major figure in Hebridean history, we know relatively little about him. We know that he fought the Norse in two battles in 1156 and 1158 and drove them from Argyll and then from the islands. We know that he married the daughter of Olaf, the King of Man. We also know that he died in 1164 at Renfrew. Even his death is shrouded in mystery. Some say that he died in battle, others that he died treacherously by the assassin’s hand.

His legacy was two fold - the kingdom he established and the dynasty he founded. His kingdom held a unique position between the overlordship of the King of Scots and the King of Norway. Poised between the two, it grew into one of the greatest examples of medieval Celtic culture - the Lordship of the Isles.

His dynasty came to befocused in the descendants of his grandson Donald, who gave his name to Clan Donald. They ruled the Lordship for three and a half centuries.

Somerled left three sons - Dugall, Ranald and Angus. His kingdom was divided between them. On the death of Angus, his lands of Bute and Arran were taken over by Ranald, who already held Kintyre and Islay. Gradually through marriage, take over, and judicious politics, it was Clan Donald, the descendants of Donald son of Ranald, who became overlords of Somerled’s kingdom.

Skye Trumpan Church

This tiny ruined church sits in solitude overlooking the sea at Trumpan.  Once the centre of a medieval village, Trumpan church now stands as a monument to a dark history where an entire population were massacred.

Back in the 1500s The MacDonalds and The MacLeods were engaged in fierce clan rivalry.  This came to a head in 1577 when a band of MacLeods of Skye landed on the island of Eigg.  The resident MacDonalds took refuge in a cave, but the raiding party lit a fire at it’s entrance and suffocated all The MacDonald’s to death, all 395 people from the island.  This cave is now known as ‘massacre cave’.

In retribution for this a gang from the clan MacDonald of Clanranald burnt the MacLeod church of Trumpan to the ground together with it’s trapped congregation.   The only MacLeod to escape alive was a young girl who managed to squeeze through a window. She raised the alarm, after running to Dunvegan, ten miles away. At the same time fellow Macleods hastened to Ardmore Bay with their charmed ‘fairy flag’, slaughtering all MacDonalds they came across, hardly any escaped the massacre.  The bodies of these MacDonalds were lined up and buried by a dyke which was pushed over on top of their corpses, hence the name of this skirmish - The Battle of the Spoiling of the Dyke.

The village of Trumpan was never re-established.