Dunyvaig Castle

In the twelfth century Somerled, King of the Isles, had a castle built on a rocky promontory at Lagavulin Bay on the south coast of Islay, raising it directly on top of an earlier dún, a fort that had already occupied the headland. The choice of site gave any later garrison command of the bay itself, a natural anchorage sheltered enough to hold a fleet at rest.

Through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the castle remained in the hands of Somerled's descendants, the Macdonalds who held the title Lord of the Isles. Angus Mor Macdonald and his sons Alexander Og and Angus Og used Lagavulin Bay as an anchorage for their fleet of galleys, and the stronghold above the water functioned as the operational base for a seaborne power that could move fighting men across the Hebrides and into Ireland.

The MacDonald hold on Dunyvaig broke in 1493, when the lordship was forfeited to the crown and the castle passed to the MacIans of Ardnamurchan, a family descended from John Macdonald, younger brother of Angus Og and a friend of Robert the Bruce. When the MacIans were punished for their part in the 1501 to 1506 insurrection led by Black Donald, the castle was transferred again, this time to a branch of the Campbells, before the MacDonald holdings in Islay and Jura were restored to the family in 1545. The castle's political weight was still felt at the highest level of Scottish court life: in 1563, as Mary, Queen of Scots planned a journey to Argyll, Lady Agnes Campbell, wife of James MacDonald of Dunyvaig, presented the queen with a set of Highland dress described as marvellous fair, and by 1598 the castle was being kept on the crown's behalf by John Stewart of Arskok, paid £3000 Scots a year for its upkeep.

On 2 August 1608 Angus MacDonald, 8th of Dunnyveg, surrendered the castle by negotiation to the king's lieutenant, the 3rd Lord Ochiltree, and to Andrew Knox, Bishop of the Isles, who arrived with a royal naval force of 1,000 men. Three days later Angus MacDonald and others were invited aboard the ship Advantage to mark Gowrie day, the anniversary of James VI's rescue at Perth in 1600, and a garrison loyal to the crown was installed in the castle.

The peace did not hold. In 1614 the castle was seized by Ranald Og Macdonald, then retaken by Angus Og MacDonald, who tried to negotiate its surrender. When Bishop Knox attempted to retake it himself in September 1614 he was defeated and forced to retreat, leaving his own son and nephew behind as hostages for his good faith. Knox later wrote to the lawyer Thomas Hamilton defending his conduct, describing how he had struggled to raise boats and men during the harvest season, how the Clan Donald of Islay had cut him off from his ships and destroyed them, and how he had been told to surrender his hostages or see his men executed; the two prisoners were eventually freed through the efforts of George Graham, acting on no more than a verbal promise of reward from the Earl of Dunfermline.

The castle changed hands twice more within a year. On 6 January 1615 Sir John Campbell of Calder, aided by Sir Oliver Lambart's artillery and men brought in aboard the Phoenix, retook Dunyvaig, capturing 22 men while another 22, including Coll Ciotach, escaped by postern gate to a longboat. In June 1615 Sir James MacDonald and Coll Ciotach seized the castle yet again, killing its captain and part of the garrison, prompting the Privy Council of Scotland to send a pinnace armed with cannon. James MacDonald fled before the guns could be landed, and on 13 October 1615 Coll Ciotach surrendered the castle to the Earl of Argyll.

The Covenanters seized Dunyvaig in 1647, after which it passed into the hands of the Campbells of Cawdor. They held the castle until 1677, when Sir Hugh Campbell had it pulled down and relocated the family seat to Islay House nearby. The ruined promontory site was designated a scheduled monument in 1989, protecting the surviving thirteenth-century courtyard, fifteenth-century keep and sixteenth-century castle fabric that remain today.