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The first person to enjoy the title ‘Lord of the Isles’ was a 12th-century warrior named Somerled. Meaning ‘summer traveller’, his name refers to the Viking practice of carrying out shipborne raids during the summer months. It also accurately describes Somerled’s heritage – he was probably born in Ireland to Norse-Gaelic parents with royal ancestry – as well as the means by which he rose to power, initially through a marriage alliance but subsequently through superior skill in sea battles involving large numbers of galleys, whose design was based on that of the boats used by Norse raiders.
Somerled died at the Battle of Renfrew in 1164 in what seems to have been an attempt on his part to extend his lordship into mainland Scotland. Despite these ambitions, his kingdom contracted after his death, but Somerled’s sons and their successors continued to rule a substantial territory that included mainland Argyll, Knoydart, Ardnamurchan, and the Kintyre peninsula, as well as the Isles of Arran, Bute, Islay, and Man, and parts of the Hebrides (including Skye and Ross from 1438).
Although nominally owing feudal loyalty at various times to rulers in Norway, Ireland, or Scotland, the Lords of the Isles effectively operated independently of royal control, representing serious rivals to the Stewart rulers of mainland Scotland. The Lordship came to an end as an independent entity in 1493, when James IV of Scotland succeeded in seizing all their lands and titles.
In 1549, Sir Donald Monro, High Dean of the Isles, published an account of his travels through the western Isles of Scotland, along with the genealogies of the chief clans of the region. This is the main record of the nearly forgotten ceremonies associated with the inauguration of Lords of the Isles and with meetings of the Council of the Isles, where councillors gathered regularly to issue decrees and land charters, deliver judgement on legal matters, and adjudicate in disputes.
Research for a new edition of Monro’s work, published in 1961, led to the identification of Loch Finlaggan, a few miles to the south-west of Port Askaig on the island of Islay, as the probable centre of the Lordship’s ceremonial, administrative, and judicial functions. Two islands – Eilean Mòr (‘Large Island’) and Eilean na Comhairle (‘Council Island’) – were selected for excavation as part of a National Museums Scotland project that ran from 1989 to 1998. At the same time, extensive fieldwork was carried out in Finlaggan’s hinterland to understand the wider story of human occupation and impact on this landscape, and to try to find out why this apparent backwater became a site of such strategic importance to the Lords of the Isles. The results of all this work have just been published (see ‘Further reading’ below), and we will share some highlights here.
Early Islay
Mesolithic and Neolithic finds attest to human presence on the two islands, with the area of Finlaggan probably serving as a hunting ground. Bronze Age roundhouses are abundant on Islay, and on Eilean Mòr a hearth, food vessels, and post-holes remained from two truncated houses. Further evidence of Bronze Age activity within the survey area included a standing stone and a small cremation cairn, as well as a number of burnt mounds – evidence of communal cooking and feasting.
The natural island of Eilean na Comhairle was found to have been extended through the construction of timber reinforcements packed with brushwood and peat to create a fortified island, or crannog, around the end of the 1st century BC. Perhaps contemporary with this phase of the crannog was a dun, a substantially built roundhouse of a type relatively common in the Scottish Iron Age and early medieval period. Although this could not be dated, a bronze zoomorphic brooch of late 1st-century date was found in the loch, suggesting that somebody of high status was resident at the time.
The crannog was refurbished in the 7th century, and a lintel grave of the same date was found on Eilean Mòr. The authors of the excavation report speculate as to whether this grave is indicative of an early religious presence on the island, but decide against it. The name of Finlaggan is first found in a charter of 1427, when Eilean Mòr is referred to as the Island of St Findlugán. This saint was a companion of St Columba (AD 521-597), the Irish missionary who founded the abbey on Iona and brought Christianity to Scotland (see CA 292 and 381). Findlugán is mentioned in Adomnán’s Life of Columba (c.AD 640), but nothing connects him to the Finlaggan area other than a similarity of name, and it is probable that the association with the saint was brought to Islay comparatively late in the Middle Ages.
The point at which Finlaggan begins to stand out as especially significant comes in the 12th century, with the transformation of the two islands into a lordly residence. A large stone tower, or donjon, was built on top of the former dun on Eilean na Comhairle. A causeway was constructed to connect the donjon to a substantial bailey on Eilean Mòr, which in turn was connected to the loch-side by another causeway. Within the limits of the excavation area, it was only possible to confirm the presence of a hall and chapel within the bailey, but it is likely that there were kitchens, workshops, a forge, accommodation, and storage buildings as well.
The square donjon is estimated to have had sides measuring 21m (69ft), including the plinth, which compares in size with some of the largest similar structures in England and Ireland. The remains of the hall showed that it was built with local stone, but with imported sandstone quoins as well as window and door surrounds under a slate roof. The doorway was decorated with an arched drip mould terminating in label stops carved to form human heads. Bones recovered from midden material showed that prime joints from cattle, sheep, pig, and deer were being roasted and consumed at feasts, while the absence of bones from overwintering wildfowl is taken as evidence that the tower was used only for summer occupation. The food refuse included imported luxuries such as almonds, walnuts, and cherries, and there were also wine jugs from the Saintonge region of France.
Rise of the Lord of the Isles
The later medieval period at Finlaggan (1300-1500) coincides with the time when the chiefs of Clan Donald come to the fore as Lords of the Isles and the former castle was transformed into a palace. The excavators describe this as ‘a great rebuild’, with former structures like the donjon being taken down to ground level and new buildings constructed to a preconceived plan.
Above & below: A plan and reconstruction of the earlier medieval structures on Finlaggan when, in the 12th century, the two islands were transformed into a lordly residence with a large stone tower (or donjon) and a substantial bailey with hall and chapel, gatehouse, workshops, a forge, and accommodation and storage buildings. Image: David Simon
A new jetty was built on the western side of Eilean Mòr for access by boat from the loch. From there, roads led to the great hall, rebuilt chapel, and to the causeway linking the two islands, with lesser cobbled paths branching off to individual buildings which served as a gatehouse, kitchens, guesthouses, and stores. These were built in an ordered row, side by side and parallel to each other, like the plots on contemporary urban streets. Many were of lime-mortared and dressed freestone under slate roofs, perhaps using masonry from earlier buildings. Finlaggan was open and undefended, as if its primary purpose was to look welcoming and accessible, unlike the tower-house residences of other clan chiefs of the time, which were designed to project an image of strength.
Three structures on Eilean na Comhairle replaced the former donjon: a single-storey hall with a thatched roof; a rectangular building with an earthen floor and stonework set in poor-quality lime mortar; and a largely unexcavated and probably later building. Following Donald Monro’s 1549 description, the excavators interpret the first of these as the building in which the Council of the Isles would meet in the time of the Lordship. It resembled the private hall of a lord and was perhaps used by a high-ranking officer of the lord’s household when not required for Council business.
The other hall, on Eilean Mòr, was built on the footprint of its predecessor and incorporated a significant proportion of its walls. This was a large building, measuring 6m (20m) by 16m (52ft) internally. A wall divided the service end from the hall, and there was a fireplace in the east gable wall. There was an upper chamber, too, with a latrine at the eastern end.
Fragments of copper-alloy ewers provide evidence of hand-washing at the start and end of meals, and the small finds from Finlaggan include pins and lengths of wire identified as harp pegs and strings, so music was probably part of the entertainment in the hall. Historical accounts show that the Lords of the Isles retained the services of a family of hereditary harpists, the MacIlschenochs.
The kitchens were located to the east and north-east of the hall, taking the form of a long multi-roomed building with several ovens and at least one large metal cooking pot, all indicative of catering on a large scale. The chapel of late 14th-century date included material from an earlier building, and a charnel deposit of disarticulated human bones packed into the foundation trench of the chapel’s north wall suggests an earlier burial ground from which the remains were gathered. Chapels within residences were not common in medieval Scotland, so this again supports the identification of Finlaggan as a royal palace. So, too, does the large number of small finds of keys and copper-alloy mounts from caskets and clasps from books – all suggestive of the storage of documents and other valuables and the maintenance of administrative registers – while two iron hasps could have secured the lids of large chests.
The archaeological evidence indicates a major change from c.1500: from administrative centre to more diverse settlement. This coincides with the documentary evidence for the demise of the Lordship of the Isles. Clan histories record that agents for James IV of Scotland were despatched to Islay to suppress the Lordship, arrest leading contenders for the role, and destroy Finlaggan to prevent further inauguration ceremonies and council conventions.
The loch-side and inter-island causeways were dismantled shortly afterwards, and the buildings were destroyed, built over, or left in ruins. The chapel and burial ground remained in use amid a new farming township of houses, barns, and cultivation plots, along with one higher-status residential complex at the western end of Eilean Mòr and a timber and earthwork fortification at the eastern end.
The excavators found few artefacts later than the mid-17th century, after which it appears there was no defensive need to be cut off from the mainland by the waters of the loch, and the Lord of Islay encouraged the settlement to relocate to Portanellan at the head of the loch (known since the mid-19th century as just Finlaggan).
Above & below: This plan of later medieval Finlaggan shows the stone-paved paths and the disposition of individual buildings, side-by-side and parallel to each other, like burgage plots in an urban setting. Pictured alongside is a reconstruction of the great hall, whose imported sandstone quoins and door- and window-surrounds are indicative of the structure’s high status.
Examining the evidence
Donald Monro’s identification of Finlaggan as the place where Lords of the Isles were inaugurated and council meetings held was written 56 years after the demise of the Lordship, though still close enough to the time to be based on genuine information. His text names 14 councillors, all of whom can be identified as clan leaders, along with the Bishop of the Isles and the Abbot of Iona. He states that in their time there was ‘great peace and wealth in the Isles’, thanks to their ‘ministration of justice’.
Later historians have either elaborated on Monro’s description, or embellished it with folklore. The traveller Thomas Pennant, visiting in 1772, was informed by local people that Eilean Mòr was the traditional burial place for the wives and children of the Lords of the Isles. Monro does not specify where inauguration ceremonies took place, nor the form that such rituals took. One later 17th-century historian, however, the unknown author of a history of the MacDonalds written between 1660 and 1685, gave an account that might have been based on orally transmitted memories, though some of the details could have equally been drawn from contemporary descriptions of the coronation of Charles II after the Restoration (1661) and some of the language reflects that of the supplications and canticles in the recently republished Book of Common Prayer (1662).
Above & below: This trench gives a sense of the quality of the earlier medieval keep on Eilean na Comhairle: the original external walls were removed when later structures were built, but the castle’s mortared floor survived (1m ranging rod) along with a well-built internal wall (2m ranging rod). The plan of post-medieval structures on Eilean Mòr includes the circular gatehouse and earthwork fortification (top) and the refurbished chapel (green).
He describes ‘a square stone, seven or eight feet long, and the tract of a man’s foot cut thereon’. The new Lord of the Isles stood on the footprint ‘denoting that he should walk in the footsteps and uprightness of his predecessors’. He is ‘clothed in a white habit to shew his innocence and integrity of heart, that he would be a light to his people, and maintain the true religion’. He was given ‘his forefather’s sword, signifying that his duty was to protect and defend [his people] from the incursions of their enemies in peace or war’.
Mass was celebrated after the ceremony, with prayers for the success and prosperity of the new lord, who then presided over a week of feasting at which he gave ‘liberally, without any exception of persons’. He adds that the table of stone around which the members of the council met, along with the stone on which the lord sat when in council, were ‘carried away by Argyle [the Marquess of Argyle, d. 1661] along with the bells that were at Iona’.
Archaeological evidence seems to support the very limited historical record for Finlaggan, but the possibility must be considered that the tradition of councils and inaugurations was invented in the later medieval period to explain the remains that Monro saw on his travels. Even so, David Caldwell, the main author of the Finlaggan archaeological report, is confident in describing these two islands as ‘the centre of the isles’.
In arguing for this, he refers first to the prominent mound at the head of the loch, overlooking the two islands, and an adjacent standing stone. Called Cnoc Seannda, the mound itself is natural, but when Time Team investigated the smaller mound on its summit in 1994, they found a very large Bronze Age burial cairn, with a diameter of 50m (164ft) and a height of 6m (20ft). The use of such mounds, with standing stones close by for king-making ceremonies and assemblies in Scotland, Ireland, the north of England, and the Isle of Man, dates back to late prehistory. Tynwald in the Isle of Man and Tara in County Meath are well-studied examples. It is probably not coincidental, either, that the burial cairn resembles the nipple on a large breast – for which again there are parallels in Ireland, both architecturally and as a feature of ancient kingship ceremonies.
Final thoughts on Finlaggan
The presence of a large mound and the reuse of an earlier monument, along with a sheltered position and proximity to fresh water, are further characteristics that Finlaggan shares with a large number of sites of assembly and ritual in the Scandinavian and Irish worlds. Recent place-name studies and fieldwork have revealed the existence of an extensive early medieval network of such sites, some of which were probably used for purely local business while others were of regional or royal significance. The use of the Finlaggan islands as a medieval centre of power becomes more understandable if the Cnoc Seandda mound had been a local assembly site earlier in its history.
When and how did that change in status take place? One possibility is the division of the Kingdom of the Isles that occurred after the defeat and death of Somerled at the Battle of Renfrew in 1164 and the power struggles between his sons that ensued. David Caldwell describes in detail the territorial changes that resulted from this break-up, and argues that the construction of the donjon on Eilean na Comhairle could have been intended to make ‘a strong statement about a new order, a takeover by a new force that replaced or suppressed the existing power structure’.
This makes it probable that Ranald, son of Somerled, was the builder of the donjon and bailey, and it would be consistent with Sir Donald Monro’s account of 1549, in which he says that the 14 members of the Council of the Isles based their judgements on ‘the laws made by Renald McSomharfle, callit in his time King of the Occident Isles’. The tower may well have been built as a continuation of meetings at Finlaggan from an earlier period, but shifting from open-air to enclosed assemblies.
Possibly, too, Finlaggan might have been the inspiration for the selection of islands in other lakes for meeting places, paralleled at this time by the council island of the MacDonald chiefs in Loch Treig, especially as it was that clan (lineal descendants of Somerled and Ranald) that came to regard the Lordship of the Isles as their hereditary right, marked by the island’s 14th-century ‘great rebuild’.
David Caldwell imagines the scene at that newly created palace complex: approaching along the route that passed along the western side of the loch, visitors would see the great hall in the centre of Eilean Mòr, the island’s largest and most imposing structure, partnered, on higher ground, by the chapel and the council chamber on Eilean na Comhairle. Access by boat to the main island restricted visits to dignitaries who were watched by onlookers standing on the loch-side, perhaps serving as witnesses to new proclamations.
Today, this evocative site is maintained by the Finlaggan Trust. Formed in 1984, the Trust has renovated a derelict cottage close to the northern shores of the loch to house a small museum and interpretation centre, including a virtual-reality reconstruction of the site during the height of the Lords’ power in the 15th century. A timber walkway provides access to Eilean Mòr, where several of the late medieval buildings remain visible as turf-covered ruins.
Further reading:
David Caldwell (2025) The Archaeology of Finlaggan, Islay: excavations at the centre of the Lordship of the Isles 1989-1998 (Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, ISBN 978-1908332363, £40).
