D�N �ISTEAN: THE SOURCES

Transcript of a talk given at Comunn Eachdraidh Nis
by Dr Domhnall Uilleam Sti�bhart

An-toiseach, tha c�ir agam beagan a r�dh anns a� Gh�idhlig, c�nan na sg�re. �S i obair gu math pr�seil a tha romhainn, obair a chuireas gu m�r ris an e�las a th�againn air eachdraidh Nis, agus gu dearbh eachdraidh na G�idhealtachd air fad. Tha mi�n d�chas nach i a-mh�in gum bi i �na buannachd dha eaconamaidh na sg�re, ach cuideachd gun daingnich i f�in-mhisneachd muinntir na sg�re, gu bheil l�rach cho luachmhor �s cho inntinneach ann an eachdraidh cheann-a-tuath na h-E�rpa air stairsneach a� bhaile. Tha mi duilich gum bi agam ris a� ch�rr de�n obair seo a thoirt seachad anns a� Bheurla, ach as bith d� thig �s an iomairt seo air a� cheann thall, tha mi�n d�il gum bi seasamh a cheart cho �rd �s cho inbheach aig a� Gh�idhlig innte �s a bhios aig a� ch�nan choimheach.

It�s very much a privilege for me to have been asked to contribute to such a project as this, to be able to share knowledge and ideas with arch�ologists on the one hand and local historians on the other. For quite a while now I�ve been stressing the need for historians to have a close knowledge of the places, the culture, the language and the people they claim to be experts in. This may seem a fairly innocuous and self-evident proposal here in Ness, but it�s amazing how dangerously controversial it becomes when you dare to put forward such ideas in front of a group of monoglot historians in Edinburgh, Glasgow or Aberdeen, who have no intention of learning Gaelic, and quite frankly can�t see the point. This lack of real knowledge of the people, this inability really to engage with their supposed subjects, goes a long way to explain the peculiarly abstract quality of a lot of historical writing about the G�idhealtachd today, where Gaels are much more likely to appear as statistics or as clan aggregates � the �Clan MacLeod�, the �Clan Morison� � rather than as fully rounded human beings.

I�m glad to say that there has been much more dialogue � at least for the medi�val era � between historians and arch�ologists, though this is unfortunately not the case for local periods, including my own early modern. I�m putting together a biography of Martin Martin just now, and I�m astonished, not just by how much potential material there is concerning the various forts and castles he described in his book, but also how much insights from arch�ology can help the social historian of this time as well.

This looks like being an extremely important project, in that there�s the possibility of synthesising close knowledge on the ground with the wider historical and arch�ological context. All sides will thus be able to help each other.

Now, after these preliminary remarks, I should turn to the actual project itself, the excavation of D�n �istean. Judging by the research I�ve done already, it looks like there might be bad news and good news from an historical point of view. I think that I should get the bad news out of the way first.

The bad news is, that there is very little indeed about the d�n in historical sources. Firstly, I�ve pored over almost all the writings by travellers, whether in manuscript or in print, which were put together before 1800. There is nothing at all about D�n �istean. Lewis was very distant indeed for travellers of that era, who much preferred to make a quick circuit via Taymouth Castle, Inveraray and Iona rather than venture further north. Those intrepid souls who did tended to follow Dr Johnson�s itinerary, and thus never travelled further than Dunvegan Castle. The few who did go as far as Lewis usually only visited Stornoway � of course, we have to remember the terrible state of island roads at that time � and tended only to have eyes for improvements in the fishing industry. As far as they were concerned, Ness, let alone D�n �istean, was literally off the map.

Secondly, there is very little concerning D�n �istean in the early antiquarian literature about the island. Martin Martin gives it a namecheck, as one of the �natural forts� in the island, as opposed to the artificial ones. After that, however, there is silence. The letter written by Colin Mackenzie and printed in the Arch�ologia Scotica in 1792, entitled �Ane Account of some Remains of Antiquity in the Island of Lewis�, has not a word about the d�n, although Mackenzie does have some interesting things to say about the teampall. Neither does the account of Barvas parish in the Old Statistical Account, composed by the Rev. Donald MacDonald at the end of the eighteenth century, make any mention of it. Finally, a trawl through the Seaforth Papers and the Gillanders of Highfield Papers in the National Archives of Scotland has not come up with anything about the d�n either. Of course, extremely unfortunately, the muniments of the MacLeods of Lewis were apparently destroyed in the aftermath of the Forty-Five. Anyway, all this negative evidence rather suggests that much of the defensive structure of D�n �istean was at the very least considerably ruined by the late eighteenth century.

What we are lucky enough to have is Capt. F.W.L. Thomas� account of the d�n in his paper �On the duns of the Outer Hebrides� published in the Arch�ologia Scotica of 1890. Capt. Thomas worked with the admiralty as a surveyor, and did extremely important work not only in recording the physical antiquities of the islands, but also in writing down the traditions, the beul-aithris, of the people themselves, both from their own accounts and from other manuscript collections, a number of which now appear to be lost. It�s worth noting that he appears to have had Old Norse, judging from the parallels he draws between the traditions of Lewis and tales in the sagas. Much of Capt. Thomas� information, including his description of D�n �istean, appears to have been related to him by the Rev. Malcolm MacPhail, who himself often drew upon the seanchas of Norman Murray, Tarmod Ruadh, of T�bost, and Angus Gunn, An Guinneach, of Dail-fo-Thuath. Capt. Thomas� papers are preserved in the Royal Museum of Scotland, but the original of the article referred to above is in exactly the same form as it was printed after his death. There is no additional information about D�n �istean.

I had better come up with some good news, and that is that, even though we have very little direct evidence about D�n �istean itself, what we do have is a great deal of traditional material about Clann MhicGilleMhoire, the Morisons who, at least in the historical period, actually used the fort. Before them, we can only speculate. Capt. Thomas recorded over fifty pages of traditional material about the Morison kindred in a paper printed in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1878. This material, together with the notebooks of William Watson (1867-8) and Alexander Carmichael (1873), and more recent accounts recorded by later collectors and Comann Eachdraidh Nis should, if used carefully, allow us to recreate the wider context, the historical landscape, in which the d�n was situated, and perhaps also to come up with some conjectures about when we might expect it to have been refortified and destroyed. I�m rather nervous about telling traditions of the Morisons to Nisich who know considerably more about the kindred than I will ever do. What follows, then, are a few suggestions from an ignorant Bacach which I hope might spur you more knowledgeable individuals on to make a few more learned suggestions of your own.

Prof. William Matheson was one of the greatest Gaelic scholars of the twentieth century. Although many of his papers remain unpublished in the National Library of Scotland, we are lucky enough that the fruit of his extremely valuable work on the Morisons was printed in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness. In the paper, �The Morisons of Ness�, he makes a good case for a pre-Norse Celtic origin for the kindred, a case not necessarily undermined by W.D.H. Sellar�s recent article in the same Transactions, �The ancestry of the MacLeods reconsidered�. To my mind, however, Prof. Matheson somewhat overplays the longstanding hostility between MacLeods and Morisons. In the early medi�val period both kindreds would appear to have shared a power-base in Caolas na Hearadh, possibly even together on the Island of Pabaidh.

The later migration of some of the Morisons to Ness and the Taobh Siar must have been at the instigation of S�ol Torcail. Given the tradition that Iain mac �isdein, the last of the brieves, who was assassinated round about 1600, was reckoned the twelfth of their number, Prof. Matheson dates the Morison presence in Ness back to between 1300 and 1350 � �if we deduct one or two generations to allow for the possibility of a brother or collateral succeeding to the office�. As he remarks, this is very soon after the Norse domination of the western Hebrides comes to an end. It is probable that this is not a coincidence, and we might imagine Morisons being settled in the north of Lewis to replace Norse landlords, and to strengthen the grip of the MacLeods on such a strategic area. In this respect, we might also note the persistent traditions that Ness was declared a sanctuary by the MacLeods, possibly to encourage further settlement. I wonder if arch�ological investigations might find any evidence of such a new order coming in about the beginning of the fourteenth century.

Again, it is crucial not to look at the district of Ness as if it were solely a Morison enclave. First of all, the area was just as much a MacLeod stronghold as a Morison one. S�ol Torcail had a mansion at E�rapaidh, close by the important ecclesiastical site of Teampall Mholuidh. Indeed, in the seanchas of Ness collected by Watson in the late 1860s the MacLeods of Lewis are referred to as Clann Le�id E�ropaidh. Although inevitably tradition stresses the episodes of enmity between them, another strand suggests that the two kindreds generally co-operated closely in the late medi�val period � for instance, Ness beul-aithris says that there is a stone basin at the Morison seat of T�bost where the people of the district would shell barley as a rent for their MacLeod masters.

Not only were Morisons to be found right down the Taobh Siar, at least as far as Bradhagair, later patterns of expansion of the kindred closely follow those of the MacLeods of Lewis. Just as S�ol Torcail appear to have migrated over into Assynt, C�igeach and Gairloch � or at any rate had their occupation of these territories officially recognised � in the aftermath of the Wars of Independence, so the Morisons moved into Durness and Eddrachillis on the other side of the Minch. This drive to the east might be compared to the later push by the MacDonalds into the earldom of Ross, and the late medi�val expansion of the Campbells, with MacGregor help, into Breadalbane. These two parallel drives, by MacLeods and Morisons, to consolidate Lewis control over the opposite coast of the Minch must have been organised together. Judging from similarities in the traditions of the two areas, and hints in the historical record, there must have been sustained contact between Morisons in northern Lewis, and their kind in north-west Sutherland � what we now call D�thaich MhicAoidh � at least until the years of the Mackenzie takeover in the early seventeenth century. Again, I�d very much stress that, just as you can�t look at the history of the MacLeods of Lewis without dealing with the history of their close relations in Assynt and Gairloch, so you have to look at the Morisons also as a kindred on both sides of the Minch � gatekeepers, as it were, to any shipping coming from and going to the north. This has obvious implications for any study of the context of D�n �istean.

If we are to look for causes of the eventual split between the MacLeods of Lewis and their erstwhile allies the Morisons, it has to be because of the latters� r�le as brieves, judges in both secular and ecclesiastical matters, although whether just local lawgivers or with an authority throughout the entire Lordship of the Isles we are not in a position to say. As Prof. Matheson suggests, it appears that the collapse of the lordship at the end of the fifteenth century was a signal for a beginning of hostilities between the two kindreds. He suggests two dates for Morison expeditions into Harris against MacLeods � 1506 and 1544 � both of which apparently ended in defeat. In the first of these, the Morisons advanced through Uig, devastating the land of their (apparently) long-term enemies the MacAulays, before suffering a heavy defeat at the hands of the MacLeods at Cadha an Tairbeirt. The 1544 expedition appears to have been more of a raid, the Morisons laying waste to much of Harris before overreaching themselves and crossing over to Tarasaidh, where they were once more defeated by the MacLeods. A man who Prof. Matheson suggests was none other than the brieve himself barely escaped with his life. We might find evidence of D�n �istean being strengthened or even rebuilt during this period.

The first appearance of D�n �istean itself in a historical source seems to be during the �evill trubles of the Lews�, that confused and confusing era of civil war in the island at the end of the sixteenth century, ending with the forfeiture of S�ol Torcail, and the Mackenzies gaining control. After the recognised MacLeod heir Torcail Dubh was treacherously betrayed by the brieve and beheaded by the Mackenzies in July 1597, the MacLeods under Niall the illegitimate half-brother of Torcail Dubh took revenge on the Morisons. Sir Robert Gordon describes the episode as follows: the brieve and his kin �returned into the Lewis and strenthened themselfes within a fort in ye Iland called Ness. Bot Neill mcleod the bastard brother of Torq: dow persewed them[,] killed divers of them and constrained them to Leave the fort of neise.�

I believe that we can be relatively certain, especially given the supporting evidence of tradition, that �the fort of neise� is D�n �istean itself. We would certainly expect its strengthening and doubtless its subsequent razing by Niall MacLeod to appear in the arch�ological record. Incidentally, it is during Niall�s siege that Ailean M�r, son of Iain the brieve, is said to have �sprang across the ravine which separated Dun Eystein from the adjacent cliff�. Even though the cliff face is certainly being eroded, the lichen record tells us that unfortunately this feat would have been as impossible four hundred years ago as it would be today.

It is unlikely that the fort was repaired by Morison refugees after they returned from the mainland following the eventual triumph of the Mackenzies. Rather, it must have been left in a ruined condition or even further dismantled by the new landlords. If Capt. Thomas� remarks that �through the wall there are said to have been squints or loopholes for observation and defence� refer to living memory, then the razing of the d�n might not have been complete as it might have. However, it seems unlikely that stones from the fort were taken across the ravine for the building work which must have been going on in Ness during the 1820s, when the new fishing villages were being constructed, especially given that there were other more accessible monuments to plunder.