Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 564672
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/564672
Dun Scaith Castle (Dùn Sgàthaich), possibly 13 th century Occupying an older fortified site, originally a vitrified fort, this fragmented castle of enclosure perched on a rock above Loch Eishort was a stronghold of the Macleods before it became the principal seat of the Macdonalds of Skye (Clann Ùisdein) in the 15th century. (After more than a century of sieges and inter-clan hostility, the Macdonalds moved back to Duntulm in the early 17th century.) The castle is approached over a gully bridged by two walls. These flanked a drawbridge, whose pivot holes are still visible on the far side. Here, a door opened onto a flight of steps leading up between walls to the castle (these outworks appear later than the castle structure, and are not bonded-in). Parts of the curtain wall - one of the earliest surviving examples of lime-mortared construction in the district, being of random rubble with smaller infill - still cling to the cliff edge. But what survives of the internal structures, which probably included a tower, is identifiable only by grassy mounds. In the courtyard is a well, and at the south-east angle are remains of a stair within a tower leading to the parapet walkway. Later rebuilding is particularly apparent on the eastern, landward wall.
[Among the many legends associated with Dun Scaich are those recounted in Macpherson's 'Ossian' concerning the adventures of the Irish folk hero Cu Chulainn, who came here when he first landed in Skye. One tradition tells how he came here to learn the marshall arts of war from the warrior queen 'Sgathaich', whose home this was.]
Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2007. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
