Dunvegan Castle

Dunvegan Castle

A stronghold on Skye

On a rock above a sea loch on the Isle of Skye stands Dunvegan Castle, one of the most remarkable homes in Scotland. For around eight hundred years it has been the seat of the chiefs of Clan MacLeod, which makes it the oldest continuously inhabited castle in the whole country — a place where the same family has lived, in an unbroken line, since the Middle Ages. The MacLeod chiefs still call it home today.

Eight hundred years of Clan MacLeod

The first castle at Dunvegan was built in the thirteenth century, on a rock that was once cut off from the land and reached only by a gate facing the sea. Over the centuries the chiefs added towers, halls and grand rooms, and in the nineteenth century the whole castle was given the romantic, turreted "Scots Baronial" appearance it wears today. Through wars, feuds and the great upheavals that swept the Highlands — when many clans lost their lands forever — the MacLeods held on to Dunvegan, gathering within it a treasure-house of clan history. The chiefs even kept their own hereditary pipers, the famous MacCrimmons, who ran a celebrated school of bagpipe music nearby.

The Fairy Flag and other treasures

Dunvegan's greatest treasure is the Fairy Flag, known in Gaelic as Am Bratach Sìth. It is a fragile, ancient piece of silk, and according to legend it was given to the clan by the fairies and carries magical powers. The story says that if the flag is waved in a moment of deadly danger it will save the MacLeods — but it may only be used three times, and two of those have, it is said, already been spent. Historians believe the silk is genuinely very old and may have travelled from far away long ago, but the magic, of course, belongs to legend.

Among the castle's other famous treasures are the Dunvegan Cup, an old ceremonial drinking cup, and Sir Rory Mor's Horn, a great drinking horn which, by tradition, each new chief must drain of red wine in a single draught to prove his worth.

Visiting today

Today visitors can explore Dunvegan's rooms, see the Fairy Flag and the clan treasures, and wander its gardens overlooking the loch. Boat trips set out from below the castle to visit a nearby colony of seals, while the wild mountains of Skye rise all around. Dunvegan is far more than a castle — it is the living heart of a clan, a place where history and legend have been kept faithfully side by side for eight centuries.