Castle Maol
Caisteal Maol or Castle Maol
Location, a ruined castle located near the harbour of the village of Kyleakin, Isle of Skye, Scotland.
During the later Middle Ages the castle was known as ‘Dunakin’. As with the place-name Kylcakin, this echoes a vestigial memory of the Noregian king Haakon, who sailed through the narrows with his fleet in 1263 to be defeated at the hands of Alexander the third at the Battle of Largs. Following desertion and gradual collapse, the castle assumed its present name. Tradition relates that the castle was built by a Norwegian princess known as ‘Saucy Mary’, wife of a Mackinnon chief. Here income was said to have derived from tolls levied on ships sailing through the narrows. Only ships of her native land were exempt, and, to assure all others paid their dues, a massive stout chain was stretched across the Kyle. At her death, her remains were interred beneath a cairn on nearby Beinn na Caillaich so that the winds from her native land might pass over her final resting place. The present castle is a simple rectangular tower of three stories, with garret space in a roof projecting above the crenulated wall-head.
The basement level containing the kitchen and storage area remains filled with collapsed debris and unexplored. Over the centuries rubble collapse has built up against the outside walls concealing the fact that the visitor now enters at the first floor level. Here would have stood a doorway into the castle, opening into the main hall with its dining tables and large fireplace to welcome visitors. A well preserved window in the south wall appears to have its counterpart in the wall opposite. Stairs, perhaps in the thickness of the walls, led to the private suite of rooms above, the floor level indicated by a line of joist-holes. Here too is evidence of at least one further window below the battlement line.
This castle was built as a Mackinnon strong hold, its architecture indicating a date for construction sometime in the later 15th or earlier 16th centuries. Historical documentation supports the dating for upon the death of James the forth at Flodden Field in 1513, a meeting of the rebellious chiefs was held at ‘Dunakin’ when it was resolved to raise Sir Donald MacDonald to the dignity of Lord of the Isles. During restoration radiocarbon examination of a joist-end recovered from the second floor level independently confirmed the high probability of a date for construction sometime between 1490 and 1513.
The last occupant of the castle was Neill, a nephew of the 26th chief of clan Mackinnon. His father, Iain Og, was killed in the final conflict between the MacLeods and MacDonalds fought at Coire na Creiche in Cuillin in 1601.
Here at the castle under the care of his aunt Jane, the young Neill spent his early years.
- -transcribed from the Caisteal Maol Information board (see below)
