Intricacies of a Gaelic Cross

Loch Gruinart takes its name from the Norse (as do many places in the Hebrides).  It means "shallow fjord"...and indeed it is.  At low tide,  Loch Gruinart becomes a tidal flat.  During our visit, however, the tide was in.  On the western shore of Loch Gruinart, with Ardmore peninsula behind it, Kilnave enjoys some leeward protection however slight from the prevailing North Atlantic westerlies.

"Prevailing" is a key word.  It means usually, but not always.  Point being, when we walked toward the enigmatic almost gossamer stone (if such a thing exists) of Kilnave's High Cross, we leaned into a very strong opposing and cold easterly coming directly across the Loch's full tide.

I note this by way of comparison--Kilnave versus Kilchoman.  For if it was windy at Kilnave, it was even more so at Kilchoman.

March 22, 2017 Kilchoman Military Cemetery Grave of Earnest Davidson, Captain of S.S. Otranto

From Kilnave Chapel, dodging aggressive "birder" Land Rovers in Loch Gruinart Nature Reserve, we pushed on to Kilchoman.  By the time we arrived at Kilchoman, the "wind rose" shifted back to its prevailing westerly compass...and as we sought to pay homage to the S.S. Otranto fallen at Kilchoman Military Cemetery, once again we faced a "leaning wind"...to the point that several times we turned our backs to it and peddled our steps backwards across the sheep-clipped pasture toward the ocean.  Kilchoman--a contrast of silence amidst roars.

Mind you, we are no strangers to wind here on the Greater Camas Prairie in Idaho, windward of the Bitterroots.  Even so, it is not remotely comparable.  The power of the North Atlantic is awe inspiring...a well-worn phrase, but  I know of no other term.  Perhaps, it is a fearsome majesty at the sight of such eternal power.  Keep in mind, the North Atlantic pushes entire continents around.  Kilchoman's pastures ("machir"), where we walked, lay entirely open to that power, without resistance.

March 22, 2017  Kilchoman Cross, east face; The Crucifixion can be made out in the cross' disc

At the churchyard, the Kilchoman Cross (the one most known--there is another) is a marvel of intricate craftsmanship, ornate from top to bottom with tortuous Celtic designs.  Within its east facing "disc" is a depiction of the Crucifixion, carved with angels lifting up the shoulders of Christ.  There is also a Latin inscription of dedication, translated in part:  This cross is erected by Thomas, son of Patrick the doctor.  This permits an approximate date for the Kilchoman Cross...roughly 1500 A.D....or, about the same time Columbus discovered America over on this side of the Atlantic.

The elder Patrick, to whom the Cross was dedicated, is believed to have been in the "Beaton medical kindred"...the Clan MacBeth...a family dynasty of physicians who practiced classical Gaelic medicine throughout Scotland from the Middle Ages to the early modern era (roughly from 1300 to 1720 A.D.)  The Beatons were "hereditary physicians" in the same sense that royalty and kingship is hereditary...a somewhat foreign concept to our American republican sentiments.

Apparently originating in Ireland, "the medical kindred" are thought to have come to Islay in the early 1400s, and would have been patronized by the MacDonald Lords of the Isles.  The MacBeth were also royal physicians of Scottish kings--from Robert the Bruce (1329) until Charles I (executed in 1649).  It is said that the last of "the medical kindred" died in 1714.  Sometime before that, Clan MacBeth had ceased being hereditary physicians.

March 22, 2017  Kilchoman Cross west face; cottages in background are recent constructiion

The Kilchoman Cross' west face is adorned as well, with a boggling array of interlaced Celtic ropes that seem to be fire or breath coming out of the mouths of two dragon creatures on the lower shaft. At its base are what are known as "cup marks"--a remnant practice that has its beginnings at least as deep the Mesolithic Age.  These merit comments.Their history is somewhat surprising.

March 22, 2017 Cup Marked stone at Kilchoman

Cup marked stones are essentially mortar and pestle made, using a grindstone.  These human artifacts proliferate across Argyll and much of the Hebrides.  Many are well beyond antiquity in age.  For example, very ancient cup marked stones (originally recumbent) were often "quarried" (lifted) and subsequently used in standing stone arrangements by a later prehistoric people...thousands of years after the stones were first cupped.  This suggests that, where these cup marked stones are used as standing stones (or in a henge), prehistoric people were aware of, and paid respect to, more ancient forebears. 

A variant of the cup marked stones includes "rings"...circular petroglyphs carved around cup marks.  These prehistoric features--cup and ring marked stones--date across an incredibly extensive human time span...easily encompassing 10,000 years of history from the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age...and (as the Kilchoman Cross shows) well into our own modern time.

That the practice of cup marks continued into the Christian Era is a curiosity.  It attests to the longevity of human cultural practices...themselves having become almost hereditary traits as well.  Beyond memory at any rate.  At Kilchoman, lore has it that expectant mothers would grind the cup marks in prayer that they would deliver healthy boys.  "Wishing ceremonies" these are called.   

[An aside: this year in 2019, we plan to return to Argyll and take an extensive tour of  Stone Age works--in Knapdale at Kilmartin Glen, on Kintyre and at Machrie Moor on Arran.]

March 22, 2017  Grave mistakenly said to be MacLean's

Before leaving Kilchoman's burial ground, it should be mentioned that its grave slabs are admixed--from medieval to more modern times.

For a couple hundred years, locals mistakenly attributed one grave, which is actually a high relief effigy slab memorializing an unknown priest, as being that of Lauchlan MacLean, killed at the Battle of Gruinart Strand in 1598 in a fight for control of Islay between the MacLeans and the MacDonalds. 

This battle, fought in the general area of Loch Gruinart Nature Reserve was something of a final straw.  Given the lawless ambitions of the MacDonalds, King James VI of Scotland (who became King James I of England) granted "a commission of fire and sword" against the MacDonalds to MacLean's son and heir.

Islay was laid to waste later that same year, burned to the ground, with remorseless barbarity.  Eventually, to stem the warring clans, King James VI gave over the MacDonald lands to to Clan Campbell.

In any case, the grave of Lauchlan MacLean is not at Kilchoman; it is south of Kilnave at a considerable distance from Kilchoman burial ground.

At Kilchoman, Viking graves are said to exist.  Many slabs (as is the general case for medieval graves) are recumbent by design.  Some, formerly erect, have fallen and are covered with sod or rest face down.

March 22, 2017  Possible Viking grave at Kilchoman

Distinguishing these is difficult at best for amateurs like us.  We simply could not tell Viking from Gael, with one exception perhaps.  A pillar type of grave monument was still standing that seemed to be quite different from all others.

Whether this is a Viking grave or not, we are uncertain.  It could be. 
  
A last note, one of the more modern graves is a memorial to Neil McAlpine, author of the Gaelic dictionary, originally published in 1831.  MacAlpine was a parochial schoolmaster on Islay, and died in 1867.

MacAlpine's "pronouncing dictionary" and grammar in effect helped saved the Gaelic language from extinction.  A memorial was erected by his grateful Illeach kinsmen.  On his headstone is inscribed:

"An honest man's the noblest work of God.  And one lies here."