The remains of Dunaverty Castle stand on a rocky headland at the south-east corner of Kintyre which projects into the Sound of Sanda between the Bays of Dunaverty and Brunerican. The headland forms a natural stronghold, protected by the sea on three sides and is approachable only from the north where it is joined to the mainland by a narrow path.
The principal means of defence appears to have been a wall of enclosure which followed the outline of the rock, those parts of which appearing naturally impregnable being lefl undefended. Few traces of masonry can therefore be observed on the east and south sides of the headland, where there is a sheer drop to the sea but close to the south-west tip of the promontory, there is a short wall section evidently designed to block any likely attack from that direction. Further fragments of curtain wall exist along the north-west edge, which enclose a reasonably flat plafform, situated below the top of the rock on that side of the promontory. All the surviving fragments of curtain wall are of rough-coursed rubble masonry, laid in lime mortar. The summit, although comparatively level, is small in area, access being evidently obtained from the north-west plafform by means of a narrow, rock-cut staircase, which led to a small chamber situated at the eastern extremity of the summit. There are no other identifiable buildings on the summit except on the north-west side, where there are traces of a wall enclosure. There is insuffcient evidence to determine the precise age of the existing remains but they may tentatively be ascribed to the medieval period.
The writer of the first Statistical Account (1790-91 ) observes that the fosse was covered by a drawbridge, aher which two or three walls, one within the other, fortified the ascent.
Fergus Mor Mac Erc, i.e. Fergus the Great, Son of Erc, who flourished during the second half of the 5th century AD, migrated with his people, the Gaidheal, or Gaels, from Dalriada (Dal Riata) in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland, to what is now Kintyre and Mid Argyll, where he founded the Gaelic colony of Dalriada which, in the time of his grandson, Aidan, with the support of St. Columba, became an independent kingdom. These settlers are, from their Gaelic appellation, commemorated in the place-name Argyll, or Earraghaidheal - the coastland of the Gaels and from their Latin description, Scotli, i.e. the Scots, the name Scotland is derived. By the 7th century, there were three principal kindreds, or tribal groups in Dalriada, known as the Cinel Angus, Cinel Loarn and Cinel Gabran. Each kindred had its own appointed righ, or king but the King of the Cinel Gabran had been acknowledged as Ard Righ, or overlord of Dalriada. By the 8th century, the principal strongholds of the Cinel Loarn (from whom the district of Lorn is named) were Dunollie and Dunadd, while those of the Cinel Gabran were Dunaverty and Taipert Boitter, probably near Tarbert, Loch Fyne.
During this century the influence of the Cinel Gabran had declined and a power struggle took place among the leading kindreds. The Annals of Ulster record in 712, the siege, by Selbach, King of the Cinel Loarn, of Aberte, i.e. Dunaverty and this is the first recorded reference to the stronghold. Like so many of the duns or hill-forts, the meaning of its name is obscure. Edward Dwelly, in his Illustrated Gaelic-English Dictionary gives the Gaelic form as Caisteal Dun-abhartaidh and the meaning of the word abhartadh as a feast, or rich entertainment, from which has been suggested by some, the definition Castle of the Feasting, but a more plausible interpretation is the suggestion by Professor William Watson (History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland), the Fort of the Abartach a powerful tribe in Irish and Scots Dalriada.
In the spring of 1248, Henry lil of England allowed Walter Bisset to buy stores in Ireland for Dunaverty Castle which he had seized and was fortifying, apparently in revenge for the hospitality given by Alexander II to certain English pirates. Sometime during the same year the Castle was retaken by Alan, natural son of Thomas of Galloway Earl of Atholl and Bisset made prisoner. In 1263, Dunaverty was garrisoned by Alexander lil during the Norse invasion of Hakon IV, on which occasion it was surrendered to the Norwegian King, who installed a Norse governor named Guthorm Backka-kolfr; but eventually Hakon gave the Castle to Dugall MacRuairi, grandson of Ranald, son of Somerled, whom he made King of the Isles, in place of Ewen MacDougall of Argyll, who was forfeited. In an undated letter of 1296, from Alexander MacDonald of Isla, to Edward I of England, following the dethronement by the latter of his puppet King of Scots, John Balliol ( Toom Tabard), the Lord of Isla, whom Edward had made his Admiral and Lieutenant in the Western Highlands and Isles, states that he has seized the lands of Kintyre belonging to the Steward (who was pro-Balliol) "and could take the castle"; which may be a reference to Dunaverty.
John Barbour, in his epic poem The Brus, states that Robert I (the Bruce) in flight from his enemies, sailed down the Firth of Clyde and reached the safety of Dunaverty Castle, where he spent severai days, hospitably entertained by Angus 0g MacDonald of Isla. The King of Scots, however, had soon to flee westward to Rathlin Island, on the Irish coast, in order to avoid the pursuing English fleet and on 22nd September 1306, the English King, or his son, Edward, Prince of Wales, ordered the employment of miners, crossbowmen and masons in the siege of Dunaverty, which was soon surrendered.
Following the final forfeiture of John, fourth and last Lord of the Isles, in 1493, James IV proceeded to the Isles and received the submission of some of the chief vassals of the Lordship. The following year, after a further short visit in the spring, he concluded that stronger measures were required to overawe the Islesmen and summoned the Lords of the east, south and west to meet him at Tarbert, Loch Fyne, where he is found on 24th July 1494, with "ships, gunners and munitions of war." Having repaired the ruinous castle built by Robert Bruce, which he victualled and garrisoned, the King proceeded to reduce the Castle of Dunaverty which he similarly garrisoned and provisioned. By 20th August the King had returned to Stirling but even before he had left the Isles, Dunaverty, it is said, had been retaken by Sir John MacDonald of Dunnyvaig and the Glens, whom James had recently knighted, and the dead body of the governor hung over the walls in sight of the King and his departing entourage. This called for prompt action and Maclain of Ardnamurchan, acting as the Instrument of the Government, successfully apprehended Sir John, his eldest son John Cattanach and either two, or three sons of the latter (accounts vary), it has been said, at Finlaggan in Isla(y), and had them sent to Edinburgh where they were tried, found guilty of treason and hanged on the Burgh Muir.
The Castle was repaired by the Crown between 1539 and 1542, in which latter year the Master of Glencalm, who had been appointed Royal Govenor of Kintyre, took up residence therein. In January 1544, a Commission in Queen Mary's name was given to the Captain, Constable and Keeper of the Castle of Dunaverty, to deliver it with its artillery and ammunition to the Earl of Argyll and in April of that year Argyll received a 12-year tack of North and South Kintyre, including the Castle. Dunaverty was attacked by the Earl of Surrey in 1588 but any damage done was probably not material. In 1626, the Lordship of Kintyre was reconstituted in favour of the Earl of Argyll and Dunaverty Castle was denoted as its principal messuage. Argyll bestowed the Lordship of Kintyre on James, his eldest son by his second marriage, who, in 1635, at Dunaverty, granted a charter of the Lordship to Viscount Dunluce, eldest son of the first Earl of Antrim but the transfer was set aside by the Scottish Privy Council, no doubt on a complaint by Argyll's eldest son, the Marquis of Lorn, who had bitterly resented his father's bestowal of the Lordship on his younger half-brother. On 12th December 1636, Lom received a charter, under the Great Seal, of the Lordship of Kintyre, with the Castle of Dunaverty as its principal messuage.
It was, however, in the year 1647, that Dunaverty was to acquire everlasting notoriety when Lieutenant General David Leslie led a Parliamentary army into Kintyre in pursuit of the Royalist force led by Sir Alexander MacDonald - Alasdair Mac Colla Chiotaich, or Young Colkitto - the Marquis of Montrose's celebrated second-in-command and Major-General during the victorious campaigns against the parliamentarians in 1645, who, after having been surprised at Rhunahaorine, near Largie in Kintyre and being heavily outnumbered by more than two to one, retreated down the peninsula, and leaving a garrison of between three and five hundred men under the command of Archibald M6r MacDonald of Sanda in the Castle of Dunaverty, embarked with the rest of his force for Isla(y) with the intention of crossing to Ireland and returning with substantial reinforcements. Meanwhile, Leslie "with the Earl of Argyll at his coat tails. and a fanatical Covenanting clergyman named John Nevoy, laid siege to the Castle which, after the cutting off of the water supply, the garrison, following a stubborn defence, was compelled to surrender at discretion, or, according to Leslie's Adjutant-Genera' "to the kingdome's mercy. but not to that of the Lieutenant-General. After some deliberation by Leslie, Argyll and his other senior officers, and the demands of the Rev. Nevoy, practically all the prisoners were hanged, shot or bound and thrown over the cliff into the sea. If seems probable, that the Castle, which saw no further action after 1647, was dismantled at the time of the Earl of Argyll's rebellion against James VII and II in 1685.
Sources Include: Alba, eds. E.J. Cowan and R.A. McDonald; Celtic Scotland, W.F. Skene; Highland Papers, J.R.N. MacPhail; History of Argyll, C.M. MacDonald; Kintyre in the 17th Century, A. McKerral; R.C.A.H.M.S. Argyle Inventory - Vol. 1 - Kintyre: Scotland - the Making of a Kingdom, A.A.M. Duncan; The Statistical Account of Scolland, Vol. VIII (Argyll). [N.H.M.]
Article writen by Norman H.MacDonald, Historian and Archivist, taken from newsletter of the Clan Donald Society of Edinburgh,