Eilean Mor, St Cormac's Chapel. View of chapel from the south-east.

Description Eilean Mor, St Cormac's Chapel. View of chapel from the south-east.

Date 17/8/1898

Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

Catalogue Number AG 1678

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 743225

Scope and Content St Cormac's Chapel, Eilean Mor, Argyll & Bute, from the south-east The ruins of an early 13th-century chapel dedicated to St Cormac stand on Eilean Mor, a tiny island in the Sound of Jura, 6km to the south-west of the tip of the Tayvallich peninsula. The chapel was photographed in 1895 by the Victorian photographer, Erskine Beveridge. The chapel, aligned in an east-west direction, is a rubble-built rectangular building that preserves areas of harling and internal plastering. Some of the turf roofing remains, and two small arched openings survive in the east gable (right). To the south-east of the chapel is a cross shaft (right), dating from the 10th century, with carvings of strange monsters on its east face. The chapel, although relatively well-preserved, was used after 1600 as an ale-house and illicit still. It was traditionally associated with Keills, a remote area at the south-west tip of the Tayvallich peninsula, and was dedicated to St Abbsan mac ui Charmaig, an Irish saint otherwise known as St Cormac or Charmaig who founded a monastery there. St Cormac died in 640AD and was buried on the island. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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