Forgotten Old Rugged Cross

The intricacies of the Celtic carved Kilchoman Cross obviously are indicative of wealth.  Indeed, the Beaton "medical kindred" who erected the Kilchoman Cross (c. 1500 A.D.) were physicians to Scottish kings and the local MacDonald Lords.  They were fairly well to do in their time.



But there is another Cross at Kilchoman, one far older and much more humble in its expression.  "Crudely carved" is how the archeological professionals put it, when giving it the name Kilchoman Cross 2.  

March 22, 2017  Kilchoman Cross 2 at a precarious lean in a linear rubble feature

Of the few who visit the ruin of Kilchoman Church, fewer still would notice the Cross 2 stone.  About 3 feet in length, Cross 2 stands, or rather lists precariously, in a low pile of rocks approximately 1/5th mile southwest of the Kilchoman churchyard out in a sheep pasture.

Cross 2 has almost given up standing erect.  Before too much more time passes, under gravity and the elements, Cross 2 will likely lay its burdens down upon the earth.

March 22, 2017  Kilchoman Cross 2; Kilchoman Military Cemetery in background; view north

The rocks in which Cross 2 is found seem to be a linear feature, and perhaps one could fancy out of it a rectangular foundation.  Whether or not this may actually be a foundation of some earlier edifice, we could not tell.

Like so many sites in Scotland, this one has apparently not been excavated by archeologists.  While that may seem odd to Americans given the antiquity of the Cross 2 site, the fact is ancient sites exist everywhere in Argyll...more numerous than are archeological budgets.



No one seems to know exactly when Cross 2 was created.  At best is a guess, with nothing to corroborate it.  "Probably sometime in the 9th century" (c. 800s A.D.), the professionals put it.

Nor does anyone know exactly what Cross 2 was.

Some suggest it is a sanctuary monument, marking holy ground.  Some say it marked the site of a holy well, though no well is known there.  Some claim it was a crude memorial, possibly a grave marker made by an Illeach local for a now unknown inhabitant of Islay. Some think it was a very early High Cross, possibly a relic from the earliest Kilchoman Church.  Again, no one knows.

Ruin of the 1827 Kilchoman Church; collapsed roof timbers can be seen

What is known is that the church ruin visible today at Kilchoman is not, in fact, very old.  It was erected on top of the site of a the former medieval church, known to exist (in clerical records) at Kilchoman in the 1200s.

Over time (roughly 600 years!) that medieval church became too hazardous to use.  So, it was taken down in 1824.
The present church (the ruin visible today) was completed for services in 1827.

After "only" 150 years, this church was "given up" in 1977, and allowed to decay in the elements and time.

That is testament to two things.

First, the general trend in the majority of the Western World is that Christian Churches are dying off.  Parishioners, on average, get older by the day.   The youth have drifted away.  Whether that was by disinterest in matters of faith, or from economic reasons (lack of employment) in rural areas like Islay, is speculative.  Perhaps it is both.

Second, Kilchoman Church is a monument to the extreme social cultural damage by the Highland Clearances.  Medieval Kilchoman Parish had a sizeable population, being the best agricultural ground on Islay.

The Clearances, which peaked bout two decades after the current Kilchoman Church ruin was built, decimated Scottish populations in the Highlands.  Today among Gaelic Scots the term "genocide" is often heard by way of reference.  (And indeed, under most definitions the forced removal and relocation of an ethnic  population is precisely that.)

Kilchoman was among the earliest Churches established on Islay.  A Celtic Church was said to have been established by St. Coman on the Rinns of Islay in the 6th century (c. mid-500 A.D.), as chronicled by St. Admanan in his Life of St Columba.  Coman was referred to by Admanan (March 18, 688 A.D.) by as "Honorablis presbyter". 

Cross 2 is a a "Celtic Ring Cross" albeit a disc head slab...which means it is quite an early work.  Carved from nearby Lewsian amphibolite, the rock itself is amoung the oldest exposed geologic strata in Europe.

I found the Kilchoman Cross 2 , evoked more wonder in its simplicity, and its rugged weathered age than even the exquisite and intricately carved Kilchoman High Cross. The Kilchoman High Cross can be explained and understood...as a monument by a relatively wealthy son for his father in the "medical kindred".  It can be dated to c. 1500 A.D. rather closely.

Not so the distant Kilchoman Cross 2.

Wealth did not carve it.  Faith did. It is "Known unto God".