Field Visit

Date June 1979

Event ID 1121908

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1121908

RCAHMS Inventory; Argyll Volume 4 - Iona

LÀRAICHEAN (15, 3 on Fig.).

These remains are situated on a raised-beach terrace N of the boat-landing of Port Làraichean, in a small valley enclosed on N, E and w by steep slopes and sheer rock-faces. A circular enclosure (A) about 16m in diameter was bounded by a stone-and-turf dyke, now reduced to its lowest courses, butted against the c1iff face to the w; the entrance appears to have been in the N sector. Some 15 m to the S there has been another dyke which probably formed the S boundary of a rectilinear enclosure (B), although the traces of its E wall are very slight. A scatter of stones in the re-entrant angle at the junction of these enclosures is probably due to field clearance. Further s there are the remains of a rectangular building (C) measuring 3·4m by 2·7m within 0·6m wall, and three piles of stones, probably clearance-cairns; the largest of these (D), 8·5m in diameter and 1 m in maximum height , may have been accumulated round the ruins of another building. Although a considerable quantity of stone has thus been moved, there are no visible traces of arable cultivation.

When this site was first described in the 19th century, it was supposed that the remains were dwellings of great antiquity, and a pre-Columban origin has sometime been suggested (1). Crawford, however, was justifiably sceptical of this claim (2), and they may be identified a stock -enclosure, with an associated bothy or shelter. Although the name Làraichean ('Ruin') show that the site was abandoned long before the middle of the 19th century, the remain are probably of post-medieval date.

RCAHMS 1982, June 1979

(1) Adomnan, Columba (Reeves), 421-2; Maxwell, W, Iona and the Ionians (1857), 15-16, Ritchie, Iona, 16.

(2) Antiquity, 7 (1933), 457