Gaelic Ring: Kennacraig to Islay, Colonsay
and Oban
by Iseabail and Margaret Mactaggart

Earra Ghaidheal is an extraordinary kingdom. It is beautiful in its own green, lush, damp way; it is rich in wildlife; it has a unique Gaelic culture intertwined with that of its Irish cousins and, of course, it is home to some of the best known whiskies in the world. But best of all perhaps, is its almost secret, magnificent history, utterly unexplored, utterly unexploited. Argyll is the home of some of the most resonant symbols of Gaeldom, including Dun Add, the stronghold of Dalriada – the Kingdom of the original Scots; Finlaggan – The Council of the Lords of The Isles; and the incredible Kilmartin Glen, stuffed with ancient archaeological sites. So welcome – surrender yourself to the charm of these crumbling structures, dense, green lands and scattered islands.

CalMac journeys are never ordinary. For an islander, no matter how mundane the reason for travel, it’s not like getting the No 32, or the 0817. It’s always an adventure. The clanking, the heaving, the deep rumble as the engine revs and the ropes strain, the shouts as tankers are secured, the bellows of calves in floats – the sheer mechanics of the journey mean that this can never be an ordinary mode of transport. But it’s more than that again: the sound of Gaelic being spoken by the crew; people leaving, people returning; relief at departures, the pain of imminent, dreadful homesickness – the CalMac ferry journey is the quintessential Gaidhealach experience. Masochists aboard!

The CalMac ferry has always been part of our family’s lives – great, long adventures north to Lewis; great, long adventures to the rest of the Gaidhealtachd and the fantastically mad frenzy of the Mod. Because we were going to or coming from a Mod, there would be music: choirs practising in the corridor, in the bar, anywhere. Most recently, the first Islay male voice choir to sing at a national Mod in years was in residence in the bar on the long journey from Islay to Oban. Even without the help of a dram, we had much improved by the time we got to Oban. That is about the joy of the music, all the more special because of the seas being sailed, and the company.

And so we start our journey from Kennacraig. Irrespective of the weather, the departure from West Loch Tarbert is almost always a quiet, gentle one. The ferry sails slowly and warily up the protective arms of the loch, the long stretch of the Kintyre peninsula on one side, Ardpatrick point on the other. And then she thrusts out into the open sea. Kintyre – mainland, but almost not – bends away behind, its long line of wind turbines cheerily bidding farewell. Jura lies to the west, still distant, its Paps punching the skyline.

To the south lies the long, green streak that is Gigha. Its recent story is remarkable – God’s Island indeed. It was bought by its community in 2002, a feat no more joyfully manifested than with its ‘dancing ladies’, its three community-owned, and profit-generating, wind turbines. The three ladies were christened Creideas, Dòchas and Carthannas, (Faith, Hope and Charity) – and as the ferry passes they appear giddy with a girly excitement. The Port Ellen route dips down to the south west, County Antrim in Northern Ireland within sight. Islay’s ties with Ireland are old and deep – what’s twenty miles, after all? – and the songs, the Islay Gaelic blas (literally ‘taste’, but here meaning ‘accent’), and some of the words used, reflect that. The famous twentieth century Islay bard, Duncan Johnstone wrote of Sìol Ionndroim is Ìle, bu rìoghail am pòr (The progeny of Antrim and Islay, how kingly the race).

Trips to Ballycastle and around the Antrim coast were often made, and that mere distance is nothing now to the ribs that make the journey regularly.

This route between Scotland and Ireland is called Sruth na Maoile – the Straits of Moyle. It’s one that was regularly travelled by Ilich, for fishing, fairs, feisean, and with anything and everything exchanged: songs, jokes, donkeys (Barney the donkey was famously brought back on a fishing boat from Ballycastle to Port Ellen. Someone, somewhere has a video). The journey across that strait in these tough ribs is a magical one – scudding and bouncing over the tops of what seem at that level to be enormous waves, negotiating porpoises, then huge lumps of wood, while rearing up on the return come the massive cliffs of the Oa (pronounced ‘Oh’).

As the ferry turns west the soft, lush woods of the south east end of Islay appear, with her backbone of hills behind. There are many, many islands dotted around here – according to legend dropped by the giant Scandinavian princess, Iula, as she staggered her way across the seas with her apron full of stones of different sizes. The fallen stones became islands: first Ireland, then Rathlin, Texa near Port Ellen and the string of islands off the south east coast. When she reached the shores north of Kildalton, Iula collapsed and sank in the sand. The tide came in and she did not have the energy to save herself. It’s said that it is from Iula, buried near Loch a Chnuic, that Islay got its name.

This then is the rather shy introduction to Islay – the dark woods, the gentle peeking from the deer, the seals lolling, too comfortable to stir themselves to greet you properly, all under the frown of the hills beyond. You’ll perhaps see the seals from the ferry, but be sure to go to what’s called ‘up country’, the area north of Port Ellen. At the lovely Loch an t-Sàilein, north of Ardbeg, the seals lie, soft, fat, utterly uninterested in anything except comfort.

Kildalton’s dark woods mask an area littered with Duns – historic forts, their names magical and rich in resonance: Dun Fhinn, Creag Fhinn, Meall Fairich Fhinn. Wow. The real, great Fionn of Irish and Scottish legend, father of Ossian, here on Islay! Here too is where the Kildalton Cross lies – dating from c.800AD and the only complete, unbroken, early Christian wheel cross to survive in Scotland. The cross is of such quality that it is thought Kildalton was an important Christian site with links to Iona. It’s a lovely, if melancholy, spot.

Out of this lush, island-dotted softness emerge three of the island’s eight distilleries in sequence: Ardbeg, Lagavulin, Laphroaig. The names are stamped proud on their pristine, whitewashed seawalls. A simple, matter of fact statement: tha sinn an seo. We are here. Take us or leave us. All the island’s distilleries stand as white sentinels around the coast, almost inadvertently world brands; here, their gnarled roots entwined in that of the villages that sprang around them and the families that work in them.

Crouched in the bay at Lagavulin, perfectly positioned, lie the ruins of Dun Naomhaig castle, the main stronghold of the Macdonalds of Islay – the Lords of the Isles. There is a wonderful piobaireachd – pipe tune – about Colla Ciotach, a famous Macdonald warrior who was said to favour Dun Naomhaig. Around 1615 Dun Naomhaig was under siege, and he travelled to seek help from Ireland and Kintyre. Before he returned, Dun Naomhaig fell. His piper, held captive in the castle, recognised his master’s ship and played the tune  A Cholla mo ruin, seachain an dun (Colla my love, keep clear, of the fort). Coll paid heed to the warning and escaped. The piper was less fortunate: he had his fingers cut off and could never play again.

On this, the gentle rump of Islay, the harsh, salt winds don’t quite wreak the damage they do on the west. But as the ferry approaches Port Ellen the sea heaves and rolls more as the Atlantic makes its presence felt, the huge Mull of Oa out to the southwest, steadfast – in the main – against it. The Oa has always been a wild, desolate place – golden eagles swooping off its cliffs, rare choughs nesting, wild goats defending their territory, the American monument a lonely testament to the lives lost in two American troop ships lost in 1918. It would have been densely populated in the 19th century. Now, after a long period of relative emptiness it’s being resettled, with many new homes being built high on its hills beside the ruins. Wave at them! Below the assortment of new houses and old ruins lies the lighthouse at Kilnaughton – its gentle, white-gold beach a contrast to the jagged cliffs of the Oa. It is flanked to the west by the ‘singing sands’ (no, I’ve never heard them) and to the east, the gentle woods of Cairnmore. Port Ellen distillery sits in the bay, its name proud, as if it’s not been told it’s closed. Port Ellen bay can be dotted with pretty yachts docked at its new pontoons; you might too see the barley boat, supplying the voracious appetite of the distilleries.

The Port Askaig route is quite different and offers tantalising glimpses of altogether less accessible parts of Islay. The ferry turns north to travel up the Sound of Islay, immediately sheltered from the Atlantic but running against the fierce currents of the Sound. Jura flanks the east, while Islay sits, inhospitably, with its back to you on the west. There are charming, green peeks of Jura’s south: the big Jura House with its patches of forest and of course the three paps: The Mountain of the Sound, The Mountain of Gold and The Mountain of Magic.

On the Islay side, Macarthur’s Head lighthouse sends out its lonely beacon, on this, the uninhabited side of Islay, the natural site of some of the former illegal whisky caves. Now, as then, Highland cows munch seaweed on the shores, with slow, unconcerned gravitas. The ferry is ignored. And, as the ferry slows against the Sound of Islay current to pull in at Port Askaig, the imposing Dunlossit House emerges from the trees, the magnificent home of the Schroeder family. A few miles to the south-west of Port Askaig, there’s the silent wonder of Loch Finlaggan. It is a quiet, still place which belies its huge importance in Scottish history: it was the centre of the Lords of the Isles, the home of the Macdonald chiefs for almost 400 years, from the 12th to the 16th century.

There are three islands – on one, the installation of the Lords was said to have taken place. On Eilean na Comhairle, the Council Island, the Council decided on administrative functions like land charters and legal judgements. I am always bothered by questions: where did these seafarers from all over the west coast, from Lewis to the Mull of Kintyre, leave all their boats? Was there enough room at Port Askaig? Or did they haul up at Loch Indaal and walk? Or ride? How many ponies did they need to ferry them to Finlaggan? Why is Finlaggan not grander?

Stop at the ancient woollen mill, first established in 1883, and suppliers to Hollywood. It’s a charming, if ramshackle place, with beautifully made woollens, all woven on Victorian machinery. You’ll pass Loch Indaal, quiet and full of birds. In winter, you can’t miss the thousands of rare geese blackening the sky, or marching slowly across green fields – laughing at Islay’s farmers.

Visit the Rhinns, the peninsula that lies on the west of the island. At its very end – next stop America – are Portnahaven and Port Weymss, two tiny, pretty villages. Their one church has two doors, an entrance for the inhabitants of each of the villages. The seals lie in the bay, the picture of contentment. Beyond the pretty villages, the lighthouse lies on the island of Orsay, just off the Rhinns coast and across mad channels, one called, fabulously, Caolas nan Gall – the Strait of the Lowlander. It just begs questions.

Jura is impossibly, unfeasibly close to Islay. The tiny car ferry carries you across the Sound from Port Askaig to Feolin. The journey takes minutes but the currents are such that it is undertaken at a 45 degree angle. The Paps loom up and the island’s one, single-track road skirts their toes. But Jura is a much, much bigger island than just Paps.

Its east side – facing those sophisticates on the mainland – is gentle, like Islay’s south east coast. In the south are the wonderful Jura House Gardens, with the gorgeous tea tent in summer and payment of the admission price by honesty box. Do stop, be honest, delve into the woods, go beyond the listed garden wall and consider these gardens in this climate, genius at work in the siting and the planting, taking full advantage of the Gulf Stream, which caresses this part of Jura rather more lingeringly than elsewhere.

The village of Craighouse hosts the shop, the distillery, the perfectly pitched hotel (with its enormous helpings and rather exotic palm trees), the hall, the school. Sailing boats lie at anchor. But this is just the tip. Travel up north, never in a hurry, over the single tracked roads, up to Ardluss and then out of the car if you want to reach Orwell’s Barnhill, where 1984 was written.

From there it’s a less long walk to the tip, the Gulf of Corryvreckan, where the whirlpool lies. Orwell tried it, and was almost, but not quite, consumed by it. It is among the world’s largest whirlpools – strangely there is no mad, spiralling drama, just a seething, simmering, mass. It is a place of legend, of songs: the mermaid singing ‘Bha mi’n raoir an Coire Bhreacain, Bidh mi nochd an Eilean I’, ‘Last night I was in Corryvreckan, tonight I will be in Iona’).

The story of how it got its name too is wonderful and, obviously, in true Gaidhealach fashion, utterly tragic: Breacan, a Viking prince wanted to marry the daughter of the Lord of the Isles. To prove he was worthy of her, her father said Breacan must hold his boat in the whirlpool for three days. He took advice and secured his boat with the three ropes: one made from wool, one from hemp, and one woven from the hair of the island’s maidens. The wool rope snapped on the first night, the hemp on the second ... and the third rope, because one of the maidens was not quite as maidenly as she said she was, snapped on the third. Breacan drowned.

Of course sovereigns of all – of Jura, of Islay, of the whole of this part of the west coast – are the Paps. You can run them, walk them, climb them – or just look at them. You can’t ignore them.

On leaving Port Askaig, to make the journey to Oban via Colonsay, it is the ridiculously long length of Jura, with its low, belted middle, that immediately strikes. And it’s when you’re on this stretch of water, crammed with islands, that the power of the Sea Kingdom makes such utter sense. On either side of you, in front, behind, are islands, all within sight – the cliffs and caves of the north end of Islay, the endless length of Jura, the golden sands of Colonsay. Make sure you’re on the top deck as all this unfolds – imagine yourself in that birlinn (the small galleys used at the time, typically 12–18 oars), hauling the oar, seeing beacons the length of the coast – sometimes welcoming, sometimes warning – a magical time and place.

Time was when the Locheil leaving West Loch Tarbert used to call at Gigha, Jura, Islay and Colonsay and thus islanders got to know each other.

Now, we can travel to Colonsay from Port Askaig once a week. And what a journey: up the narrow Sound of Islay with Rubha a’Mhill, Rubha a’Bhachlaig, Cnoc na Piobaireachd and Rubha a’ Mhail beckoning from the green growth of Islay, and these omnipresent paps expressing the continuing utter muteness of the desolate, deserted, brindled moors of Jura. Away from the shelter of the two islands, the sea stretches ahead, often choppy, and to the right, far in the distance, surges the warning – yet enticing – gurgling wail of the Corryvreckan. But, from the mythical Land Under the Waves on your left arises Colonsay, Colm’s Isle, caressed by Oransay, islands gentle in their expanse of white sandy beaches.
Colonsay, Colm’s island, is yet another of the odyssey of places from which poor Colm Cille (Columba) could still see sight of Ireland, and from which he was forced to travel further until he reached Iona. From Iona, he could no longer catch sight of Ireland and thus in ‘Iona of the brothers’ he had peace to dwell without the reawakening of the nostalgia for Ireland. Poor Columba. What would the present day tourism-marketing team for the southern inner Hebrides do without him?

On the horizon come Beinn na Sgoltaire, Beinn nan Gudairean, Cill Chatain, Uragaig Rubha Bagh nan Capull, Rubha Eilean Mhartainn, names that are testament of the people’s footprints in their impression on the land. In goes the ferry to Scalasaig and I am walking up the long, narrow uncovered walkway from the ferry to the Caledonian MacBrayne office. Inside, a man sits at a computer opposite a window, Sandy the Bus and one or two other men of  approaching vintage years are ensconced in cushioned arm-chairs, as members of a sitting St Kilda parliament, or the characters in a Tormod
A’ Bhocsair (Norman Campbell) drama sketch, with a view to the walkway by which passengers arrive on Colonsay.

Chair 1: ‘It’s yon one back … He can’t have had much of welcome when he’s back already.’

Chair 2:  ‘Oh, and the wee man with the briefcase … aye … phone Maggie and tell them HE’s in again.’

Chair 1:  ‘And the man with the beard and the suit…the development grant man … that’s who it is … Tell Himself at the computer.’

Sandy the Bus: ‘Oh, and here’s herself back this time and it’s two in tow … that will be excitement and a half…’

Chair 2:  “Quite a few tourists for the bus today…’

I speak to them in Gaelic and they all reply to me in chorus:

‘No, No, we don’t speak it here now … maybe old folk sometimes … just now and then … No.’

I go in the bus up to Kiloran beach which is just as beautiful as it is described. Rock, beach, hill, mountain and field intersperse with each other throughout the island; good husbandry in estates over successive generations of tenant farmers and different ownerships – MacDonalds, MacNeills, and Lord Strathcona – provided comparatively acceptable estate-employment. Colonsay, it is said, did not have clearances.

Colonsay and Orasay have through the centuries given and taken many blessings, grace, affection and artistic skills – as seen in the priory – and in the carved stones, such as the MacPhee gravestone in the crumbling Oransay Priory. Despite the decay, there is also growth. Today it is the world wide web-networking which attracts the outside world to Colonsay and Oransay because of interest in the moorland plants, such as the Uragaig Orchis, Seasamphire, and Marsh Helleborine, and the palms, eucalyptus and mimosa of Colonsay House Gardens, plants nurtured there by biodiversity and the encouraging Gulf Stream.

Although, as I understand, farms are no longer available for tenancy but operated by the present estate-owners themselves, new houses are being built and houses are available for sale. Many properties are available for self-catering holidays, as the number of people discovering this veritable jewel of Hebridean islands ever increases, proceeding up the CalMac walkway under the – unbeknownst to them – watchful customs’ scrutiny of the armchair, cushion-seated parliament and the Computer Man. Camping is not allowed in Colonsay, neither are motor homes or caravans. The marketing attraction for present-day Colonsay is its guarantee of quietness, space and remoteness, whether for undisturbed personal space or for peace in which to write your book, lulled by the visible and audible effect of the successful efforts of Scottish Natural Heritage and RSPB. Corncrake and chough numbers have increased; eider, oystercatchers, terns, guillemots, fulmar, all abound in a delirium of delight, their calls wind and wave-borne.

The well-equipped, renovated primary school has a roll of 10 pupils. There are 100 people and three children under school-age in the community, which also has a resident doctor, a hall, two churches but no resident minister. The community owns the shop and, as I understand, the hotel is part estate and part community owned. So, when the glasses are raised in the bar of the Colonsay Hotel, surely the lively, astute, spirited, playful spirit of the remainder of the actual Colonsay people themselves will join the ghosts of the echoes of other Macallister and Macneill songs, along with the tuneful bird-calls swirling on the immortality of the elements:

“Come Home, Come Home,
What for? What for?
To your food, To your food,
What food? What Food?
A piece of limpet, A piece of limpet.
A piece of earthworm, A piece of earthworm.”

Wasn’t Columba himself the wise one … What is to be gained from nostalgia?
Colonsay of the virtues has been, and will be, impressive.

And then the slow glide into Oban, with its countless pretty little boats as the ferry draws close to the harbour. The houses are so close in the Sound of Kerrera, the arrival is similar to the famous plane landings in the old Hong Kong airport, involving much peering inside people’s living rooms. The bustle of the pier with the big boats heading out to the Outer Hebrides; pretty, wonderful views, the distillery, the folly up high,everything (pubs and lovely foodie shops) close by – a Mod town if there ever was one. And of course, for us island-bunker-types, a Tesco!

The journey south from Oban takes you through rich Argyllshire countryside: damp lush, green, maritime. Stop at lovely Lerags, Loch Melfort, Arduaine Gardens, everywhere and anywhere, but whatever you do, linger in glorious Kilmartin Glen. To describe it as a site of outstanding archaeological importance doesn’t quite capture what you’ll see here: standing stones, burial cairns, rock art, forts, duns and carved stones, all concentrated in this peaceful, entrancing spot.