Ewen’s great hall in the courtyard also partly survives. The gatehouse tower was later altered, but the other two stand much as built. It had few openings in it, just some narrow vertical arrow slits.ĭubhgall’s son, Ewen, probably added the three projecting round towers, both to flaunt his power and to improve the castle’s defences. This brute mass of masonry still overawes visitors today. (Dubhgall also founded the priory at Ardchattan, beside Loch Etive just six miles – 10km – east of Dunstaffnage.) His new stronghold consisted of a formidable curtain wall of stone, behind which sheltered the residential and service buildings. Judging by the architecture, Dunstaffnage was built by Dubhgall’s son, Duncan, around 1220. His eldest son, Dubhgall, became the next ‘King of the Isles’. In 1164, Earl Somerled was killed fighting the Scots. From then until the last Jacobite Rising in 1745–6, Dunstaffnage’s story is inextricably interlinked with the incessant struggles by the Crown and the Campbells to control their unruly western subjects. Thereafter, Dunstaffnage remained a royal castle until it passed to the Campbells, earls of Argyll, in the 1460s. Mighty Dunstaffnage saw action during the Wars of Independence (1296–1356), and was famously besieged by King Robert Bruce in 1308, after his victory over the MacDougalls at the Pass of Brander, overlooking Loch Awe. The acquisition of the region by Scotland in 1266 did not see the end of warring far from it. These were stirring times in Argyll, because of the remarkable struggle between Scotland and Norway for control over the Hebrides. The castle was built around 1220, probably by Duncan MacDougall, son of Dubhgall, Lord of Lorn, and grandson of the great Somerled ‘King of the Isles’. It guards the seaward approach from the Firth of Lorn to the Pass of Brander – and thereby the heart of Scotland. Dunstaffnage Castle is one of the oldest stone castles in Scotland.

Callanish isle of seil