Eilean Donan Castle

The MacRae Name
in History

The Castles
of Scotland

Castles of Scotland: A Voyage Through the Centuries (Historic Scotland)

Eilean Donan Castle, Scotland

Strategically placed, Eilean Donan Castle was first built in 1220 by Alexander II as a defence against Viking invasion.

Eilean Donan Castle endured as the island stronghold of the Kintail clans for over four centuries before being reduced to rubble by Hanoverian warships in 1719. For two further centuries the stark ruin mouldered until its restoration in the 1920s permitted it to become the celebrated Scottish tourist attraction of today.

Many modern visitors have been known to enquire 'Who exactly was Eilean Donan?" Indeed, apparently one American tourist turned up who did rejoice in that very name. So preoccupied did she become in the castle called after her' that she inadvertently found herself locked in after closing time.

Of course, 'eilean' (pronounced 'aylan') is Gaelic for island and Donan was a 7th century Celtic monk. Before his time the rocky islet had been the site of a Pictish vitrified fort. The original castle was constructed by the Mathesons, supporters of the MacDonald lords of the
Isles, in the reign of Alexander II (1214-1250). During the rivalry between the lords of the Isles and the Scottish kings in the 14th and 15th centuries it fell to the Mackenzies, who entrusted it to their bodyguards, the Macraes. A descendant of the latter instigated restoration work in 1913. Lieutenant Colonel John Macrae-Gilstrap put up a quarter of a million pounds and engaged a local stonemason, Farquhar Macrae, to supervise the work. It is said that every detail of the former structure was revealed to Macrae in a dream and all later came to be confirmed when old plans for the fortification were discovered in Edinburgh Castle.

Certainly the restoration work is imaginative, yet tasteful and accomplished, now having weathered gracefully to disguise nearly all trace of re-building. Poor Farquhar Macrae missed the ceremonies opening the restored castle in 1932: he died six months before.  Eilean Donan is now no longer an island; it has been joined to the nearby shore by an attractive stone-arched causeway. In the central courtyard the masonry walls yield elegantly to the contours of the parent rock, and look out for the hefty boulder once lifted single-handed by John Murchison of Auchtertyre, a local strongman later killed while fighting under the Jacobite banner at the battle of Sherrifmuir in 1715.

Only two of the castle's main rooms are open to the public. First there is the low-vaulted billeting room, sparsely but neatly furnished in Georgian style and with a craggy-faced portrait of Farquhar Macrae hanging on one wall. Upstairs the banqueting hall has an imposing
stone fireplace and an oak-timbered ceiling. It contains a varied display of military trophies and memorabilia of Clan Macrae, while portraits and photographs of family past and present impart a homely air. Jacobite and other historical relics, including some of the cannonballs shot during the Hanoverian bombardment,  and unearthed in the subsequent restoration work, allure the present-day visitor, as they did the American Ms Eilean Donan, to linger.  In this room too stands the original hand-wrought iron gate, or yett, also uncovered during the restoration. It was found in the well, its freshwater uncontaminated by the sea, which had been sunk 32 feet into the natural rock upon which the castle stands.