If there was a Viking fort on the site of Mingary Castle all evidence is lost. The main sections of the present fortification’s curtain walls and the NW entrance doorway were built during the 13th century when Ardnamurchan lay in the lordship of the MacDougals of Lome.
At the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the MacDougals sided with the English against Robert the Bruce. Angus Og MacDonald, great-grandson of Somerled, the man who had first united Norse and Scot, supported the Bruce. As a reward, he received, amongst other lands, the territory of Ardnamurchan and the castle. However, he chartered it to his younger brother, Iain Sprangach (the Bold), the founder of the Clan MacIain of Ardnamurchan.
Mingary from the CalMac Pier
John MacDonald of Islay inherited the lands from Angus Og, but he sided with the English puppet John Balliol in the war against David II, the Bruce’s successor. When David returned from exile in 1341 to reclaim his crown, he confiscated some of John of Islay’s possessions, granting Ardnamurchan to Iain Sprangash’s son, Angus MacIain. For the next 300 years it was to remain in the hands of the MacIains.
The first written record of the castle dates from the reign of James IV, when the King occupied it in 1493 following his destruction of the MacDonalds’ power as Lords of the Isles. The then Lord of the Isles, John MacDonald, forfeited his lands to the King and left to die in Inverness, but the MacIains, having sworn loyalty to the young King, kept Ardnamurchan. The King was back in 1495, when the MacIains assisted him in putting down a rebellion by Donald MacDonald of Lochalsh.
In the years that followed, the Ardnamurchan MacIains reached the peak of their power and influence. This crest, courtesy Thomas Steifer, is the MacIains': the ship is significant, for much of their power depended on Mingary Castle's control of the Sound of Mull.
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