Duart Castle

The castle was probably raised in the 13th century by Clan MacDougall, who controlled much of this stretch of Argyll's coast at the time. Within the following century it had passed into the hands of Clan MacLean, who would hold it as their principal seat for the next four hundred years, shaping the site far more than its first builders had.

In 1350 Lachlan Lubanach Maclean, the 5th Chief of Clan MacLean, married Mary Macdonald, daughter of John of Islay, Lord of the Isles, and Duart came to him as part of her dowry. The arrangement was formalised in 1390, when Mary's brother Donald Macdonald, by then Lord of the Isles himself, issued a charter confirming the castle to the Macleans, tying the clan's ownership to one of the most powerful lordships in the west.

In 1647 the castle was besieged by government troops of Clan Campbell acting for the Argyll administration, but the Royalist Macleans held firm and drove the attackers off, a rare outright military success for the clan during the turbulent Civil War years in the Highlands and Islands.

In September 1653 a Cromwellian naval task force of six ships anchored off the castle, only to find the Macleans had already withdrawn to Tiree. A storm broke on the 13th of that month, wrecking three of the vessels, including one believed to be the Swan; its remains now lie within a protected marine area just north of the castle, a physical trace of that near-encounter beneath the water.

In 1678 the 9th Earl of Argyll, chief of Clan Campbell, invaded Mull and overran the MacLean lands around Duart. Sir John Maclean, 4th Baronet, fled the castle for Cairnbulg Castle and then on to Kintail, sheltering under the protection of the 3rd Earl of Seaforth while Campbell power tightened its grip on the island.

Sir John Maclean finally surrendered Duart in 1691 to the 10th Earl of Argyll, later created 1st Duke of Argyll. The Campbells partially demolished the castle and scattered its stones across the hillside; the 5th Laird of Torloisk later used some of that fallen masonry to build a cottage near the ruin. By 1751 what remained had been abandoned outright, and Sir John went down in family memory as the last laird of Duart for well over two centuries.

The ruin changed hands several times through the 19th century, sold in 1801 and again in 1865 to A. C. Guthrie as part of the Torosay Estate, before being separated out and bought back on 11 September 1911 by Sir Fitzroy Donald Maclean, 26th Chief of the clan, who restored it as a family seat once more. Further restoration work followed after 2012, when storm damage brought down four ceilings and the family launched a public appeal to fund ongoing repairs into the following decade.