Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1018747
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018747
There has probably been a defensive structure on the site of the castle at Duntulm for centuries, but the ruined buildings which now stand there have obliterated any traces of an earlier fortress. The lands of Trotternish were the subject of rival claims by the MacLeods of Dunvegan and the MacDonalds of SIeat, and it was probably to consolidate their possession that the MacDonalds moved to Duntulm from Dun Scaich (no. 24) in the early 17th century. King James V visited the castle in 1540 and is said to have been favourably impressed by its strength and hospitality, but in the early 17th century Sir Donald MacDonald improved it as a dwelling. It was abandoned about 1730 when the family went to live at Monkstadt, a little further south.
The castle stands on a crag, with cliffs and steep slopes on three sides and a dry ditch on the fourth. The earliest surviving structure is a rectangular building facing the ditch, with a wall enclosing the summit of the rock. Very little of this earliest building remains, though there is a barrel-vaulted basement at the southwest corner. The main entrance was across the ditch, but there is also a sea-gate in the wall on the opposite side of the courtyard. A small tower with a vaulted room on the ground floor was added in the 17th century and parts of this tower still stand to the full height. Another building was added in the north-west corner of the courtyard.
Among those who died in the dungeon here was Hugh MacDonald, cousin of Don aid Gorm, the 8th chief He had plotted to supplant Donald Gorm but the plan miscarried and, after hiding in Dun an Sticir, North Uist (no. 57) for some time, Hugh was captured and left in the dungeon at Duntulm with a plate of salt beef and an empty pitcher.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Argyll and the Western Isles’, (1985).
