Syndication--of a sort

After a lengthy hiatus, your author returns to his blog--following some choice off-script colorful descriptive language--#!!*&--regarding lost passwords, lost lost sign in accounts and so forth.  Savvy and computer are incompatible in this particular case.  The last post on our blog was a few days before Winter Solstice, 2019--from which the date of Christmas is derived three days afterward.  The hope of light and peace in an otherwise darkened world.  We will begin there.

 Crack of Dawn over the Clearwater Range, Winter Solstice, 2019 

Christmas Eve was a small celebratory affair.  Our son and his charming fiance came down to the farm for dinner.  My wife and I are more or less quasi empty-nesters.  Our daughters are in careers away from our rural haunts.  But our son has taken up his grandfather's place, only a rifle shot from our farm...hence quasi empyt-nesters. 

2019, Christmas Eve dinner at the W Farm

The photo shows the spirit of the evening--a 2019 Kichoman Loch Gorm, crafted from only 20 oloroso sherry butts (15,000 bottles released to world market--er, make that 14,999).  The photo is for the benefit of a gentleman, Mr. Scott Copeland of Texas (about whom more later).  It seems Mr. Copeland wrongly alleges that I am in his debt by one bottle of scotch.  How he ever came to that conclusion (or rather delusion) is well beyond my capacity to translate Texan.  A strange language, that. 

Anyhow, Christmas morning did not find what might be considered a more typical cover of deep snow cover.  Indeed, we were able to work the ground relatively late in the season, ripping some furrows (seen in photo) to break it up in preparation for apple transplants in the Spring.

Christmas morning 2019--Buffalo Hump and The Gospels Wilderness in background

What was certainly out of character for our weather was a fog which rolled over the morning.  If your author were a superstitious fellow, perhaps that was a foreboding.  Who'da thunk it ?  Christmas found some items under the tree for the pending 2020 Easter trip to Orkney...headlamps, for example, to explore the inner recesses of several Neolithic tombs on Orkney. 
   

Christmas Day 2019--Idaho County

The good Lord had other plans.  The hiatus in posts hereon, can perhaps be hinged upon the advent of the novel coronavirus which wrapped itself around the world scene unawares in December, and has yet to release its constrictive coils.  But, that would be a convenient excuse.  As such, it'll do.

What this COVID-19 viral snake did do was to total our 2020 Easter sojourn to Scotland's Orkney Islands, now postponed to Easter 2021 (and possibly even later).  If a complaint is to be had, it would be that much (most) of our transportation modes were already prepaid.  And several (like ScotRail and commuter flights with LoganAir in Scotland) are unrecoverable.  So it goes.

Incidentally, our Idaho snows came in late March, 2020--after we knew for certain that our flights and hotels were closed down. The photo is of "the" birdhouse on our drive.  Much like our annual Easter pilgrimage to Scotland, every year swallows and western bluebirds fight it out for several weeks over who has the right to rent this specific "summer vacation" abode.  These days, the swallows have the upper wing. 

March 25, 2020--the "War Zone" bird house

If truth were told, the hiatus from posting is more to be laid upon work here on "The W" than on the coronavirus.  Work caught up with us--everything from tilling two significant vegetable gardens, to planting a new 1/3 acre apple orchard.

Regarding those apples, we had arranged in a very tight schedule to pick up our "orchard in a box"--100 bare root fruit tress from Van Well's in Wenatchee, Washington on April 17 the day after we expected to land--had the original "Orkney plan" carried through.  From the Seattle international return flight out of Dublin and the connector to Spokane, we planned to overnight at Spokane and then drive out to Wenatchee to fetch the trees, before returning to the labors of the farm.

No respite for the wicked it is said.  And so, instead of exploring Neolithic tombs, Iron Age Brochs, hopping island ferries, touring scotch distilleries and enjoying incredible fresh haddock, 2020 rewarded us with...just farm work.  That's not necessarily a complaint, mind you.  Well, okay.  It is.  But it is also a labor not just of love but of fulfillment.

April 18, 2020--100 bare root fruit trees 

April 18, 2020--north side of the orchard; Camas Prairie Rail trestle in background

 
As to complaints, I return to the gentleman from Texas.  It seems Mr. Copeland is pleading with me to write a weekly piece on politics from the lens of our "pastoral bowers" here in Idaho.  Curiously, the gentleman wishes to post this proposed commentary on his CP-Texas newsletter.  I remain hesitant to do so, being unsure of the audience.  I cannot imagine Texas being much interested in following comments by a guy in Idaho.

But just to test the gentleman's theory (and ignoring his claims upon my scotch) I will put this up as the first edition, under a syndicated by line--"It Occurs to Me."  In any case, the following photo shows pretty much what it's all about here on "The W".

June 14, 2020--rainbow between our apple saplings and our son's place on the ridge

       

Peace.

Autumn Fire

October 19, 2019--Ocktoberfest at the Whitley Place

Given the weather, our potluck was for a while hunkered around our farmhouse’s kitchen table spilling into the kitchen passageways until the appetites were satisfied; the cold rains abated, or rather metamorphosed into a light snow sufficient enough to permit the October Fire.

Having just done a presentation to the Idaho County Historical Society of Neolithic standing stones and circles in Scotland, the Ockoberfest scene around our table struck me as timeless.  It is what we humans do, and have always done.  Community gathering, sharing collective bounty, visiting family, friends, neighbors…and of course tales and stories, fellowship and joy.

 

Since time immemorial, autumn is a reflection at the fore of winter’s dark arrival.  Ockoberfest fires serve as celebratory reminders of our time on this planet.  How it is consumed and spent and why it is celebrated.  This is, and has always been, for as long as humankind has sought to seek it…ever since fire first was controlled by our distant forebears.  Ocktoberfest speaks to purpose, to the ephemeral and yet also to the permanent. 

 Ocktoberfest is a dance with the seasons, a taking them by the hand in customs so deeply imbedded in us they are primordial, beyond our ken in the ancient and evermore.  The Fest’s fire is a leapfrogging over cold times that are neigh upon Idaho as Winter marches.  We meet it upon the hallowed ground of tradition in an ambitious celebration which looks backward to the giants, our ancestors upon whose shoulders we stand.  And yet it also looks forward to Spring’s resurrection, to its warmth and promise, to an enlightenment of eternity and life itself.

Doubtless Idahoans are elsewhere dismissed as “rednecks” or ruffians, an unbecoming ignorant breed of Americans.  So be it.  That denigration misses its mark wide; it prejudges the book by its cover. 

 

Reading deeper, around our table and in our kitchen’s ways and out to the pasture for the Ocktoberfest fire were gathered a diverse group of well-educated mostly young people, employed in their fields of pursuit with earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees spanning a wide spectrum of human knowledge…from medical and veterinary science to community development, from advanced statistics to earth sciences and to IT.  In other words, we are far from the stereotype which exaggerates underestimation.  These may be country folk.  But they certainly are no hicks.

Too many today, no longer young, wring hands and despair at America’s fate being entrusted to this new generation.  I do not.  The book I read last night in the laughter and banter of these young Idahoans gathered at our farmstead gives me great confidence in our succeeding generation. They are prepared, if not confident, even in the face of a seemingly insurmountably troubled future.  Yet, here they dance.

Tradition’s sinews run as strong in these young Idahoans as in any other generation before them.  Their vision, its fine sharpness, reaches far beyond those who despair, those who refuse to dance with them in the festive fires in their seasons and who thus cannot fathom the nobility of compassion that is strong in these young Idahoans, so strong it will be their generation’s calling card.  Strong too their inherent respect (allowing the wry irreverence of youth on occasion…just enough sass to keep an edge).
 

No.  America’s future is not nearly as dire as those who see only the sleets and snows, those who cannot or will not see beyond; those who lack in faith, trust and indeed in humanity.  Instead, I exclaim Selah!  For we are blessed.  Let us celebrate!  To everything there is a season, a time and a purpose under Heaven.  Hallowed be Thy name, oh Lord, hallowed be Thy name.

Fickleness of Mankind

April 14, 2019  Campbeltown Market Cross (front face)

The Campbeltown Market Cross provides insight into the fickleness of humankind...by retrospection. History judges all, as it were.

Campbeltown's Market Cross was something of a wanderer, literally.  In general, today most (but not all) accept that it was carved on Iona, and was probably created by the commission of Andrew MacEachern, pastor at Kilchoman parish church on the Isle of Islay, sometime around 1370 A.D.  Beyond this, the "stories" diverge.

A long enduring dispute exists over whether Campbeltown's Market Cross was originally erected at Kilkivan on Kintyre (as the Kintyriana claim) or was initially sited at Kilchoman on Islay (as the Illeach say) and was then taken (purloined) from Islay to Kintyre.  An intermediate stop, apparently, was the parish church at Kilkivan.  Regardless, the Market Cross eventually made its way to Main Street nearby Campeltown's Town Hall, at some point after 1608 A.D. when Campbeltown became a royal burgh.

One of the privileges of a royal burgh is that it can hold trade markets by its own authority.  Usually, a market cross served as the axis around which trade fairs assembled.  So, the royal burgh of Campbeltown required a Market Cross (or Mercat Cross) by the first decade of the 1600s.  Though perhaps a curious custom to us today, within the "boundaries" of a market cross not only were markets formed, but official public business was transacted as well.  This is evidenced in a royal charter by William III (William of Orange) issued April 19, 1700.

April 15, 2019  The Campbeltown Fair by Archibald MacKinnon (1886) 

The 1700 charter granted the Provost of Campbeltown "full liberty, licence and power...to have and erect a New Market Cross, weighing machine, weigh-house and a tollbooth."  At this Market Cross, it was "lawful for our lieges within the bounds of Kintyre, the Islands of Gigha and Cara to pound and appraise goods."

More onerous powers assigned to the Market Cross were also enumerated.  The Market Cross was where rebels were denounced.  And it was authorized:  "to do all other acts of proclamation and legal executions there at in like manner and as freely in all respects as if the same were the market cross of the principal burgh of the said Sheriffdom."

The royal charter of 1700 was retroactive, however, perhaps issued to recognize the de facto existence of Campbeltown's Market Cross.  Indeed, twenty years earlier, the Campbeltown Cross is known to have been standing.  A.I.B. Stewart ("Campbeltown Cross") noted that it was mentioned in criminal proceedings in 1680. A certain Finvall McCannill was "to be taken to the Mercat Cross of Campbeltwon and there to be whipt and scourgit by the hands of the common executioner."

Exactly when the Market Cross was removed from its ecclesiastical moorings (whether at Kilchoman on Islay of Kilkivan on Kintyre) and made its journey to Campbeltown in the 1600s may not be known.  But what is known is that it certainly did not escape unscathed in its wanderings.  More ardent critics of the era use the terms--desecrated or mutilated.

The Market Cross was indeed greatly "modified".  Figuratively speaking, its head was shamefully shaved by Reformation zealotry aimed at what they defined as graven images.  The Market Cross is emblematic, it bears witness of the fickleness of mankind, the mob.

A.I.B Stewart records that in 1640, at the beginning of the English Civil War (Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads), an act of Parliament declared that "all idolatrous images, crucifixes, pictures of Christ and all other idolatrous pictures were to be demolished and removed forth from all churches, colleges, chapels and other public places."

April 15, 2019  Hogmanay at the Cross, Campbeltown by Archibald MacKinnon (1899) 

On July 8, 1642, the Synod of Argyll ordered every minister (installed to replace Catholic priests) was to report "all idolatrous monuments within their parishes to which the vulgar superstitiously resorts to worship, to the end the same may be demolished." 

Thus, some submit that the Market Cross made its journey to Campbeltown at this time in the early 1640s.   In any case, its carved image of our crucified Savior, which formerly occupied the central position on the disc head, was removed.  Two other figures (clerics--likely the MacEachern who commissioned the Cross) were chiseled away.  Interestingly though, the figure of Mary was left untouched by Reformation iconoclasts, as were images of St. John, the Archangel Michael slaying a dragon, a mermaid and various animals.

Thus, "purged of its Catholic excrescences" as one historian put it, it was erected (or possibly re-erected) as the town's Market Cross.  That it survived the destructiveness of the Protestant Reformation and mobs of iconoclasts at all is a wonder.  Local Reformationists were not so keen to destroy the magnificent artifact...as had been done so many times to countless others.

This was also not the end of its wandering.  In 1939, as the Battle of Britain raged in the skies over the United Kingdom, Campbeltown's Market Cross was taken down from its plinth at the Town Hall for safe keeping from German bombing raids.  After the Second World War, the Market Cross was relocated down Main Street from its former site to its current location at the Old Quay Head in the middle of the traffic roundabout...at Campbeltown's de facto gateway.

April 14, 2019  The Old Quay at Campbeltown

Prominently displayed in the Campbeltown Museum are two paintings by locally acclaimed artist, Archibald MacKinnon.  The Campbeltown Fair and Hogmanay at the Cross (shown above) feature the central place the Market Cross has had in Campbeltown's culture for hundreds of years.  Even today, most weddings and funerals customarily circumnavigate the Cross once before proceeding.

April 18, 2019  Davaar Island at the head of Campbeltown Loch

In 1887, MacKinnon had a dream or a vision that he was to paint the crucifixion of Christ in a sea cave on Davaar Island off Campbeltown.  Davarr is a tidal island off Campbeltown that is connected to the mainland at low tide via a causeway called The Doirlinn.

April 18, 2019  Davaar from the Doirlinn at low tide

We made the trek out to Davaar on Good Friday, an "appropriate" pilgrimage as one gentleman we met walking out to the sea caves styled it.  A few words of caution are necessary.  First, the ground is loose rounded cobble and boulder strewn.  It is challenging because you must mind your feet or risk turning your ankles severely.  A hiking staff would be helpful.  (The gentleman we met was using two staffs.)

April 18, 2019  Boulder field below the sea cliffs on Davaar Island

Second, care regarding tide tables is absolutely required when visiting Davaar.  For example, we were told by our Campbeltown hosts (Earadale B&B) that only a few days before we made our trek out to MacKinnon's sea cave painting a couple tourists had to be rescued off the Doirlinn beacon by the Royal Navy Life Boat Station at Campbeltown.

April 18, 2019  The Doirlinn Beacon; Campbeltown Loch in background

April 18, 2019  The Doirlinn Beacon

Though acclaimed today, MacKinnon was actually driven out of Campbeltown--in yet another testament of the fickleness of mankind's mob.  MacKinnon's painting was eventually discovered by fishermen.  Not knowing the source of the painting, locals declared it a miracle, a divine revelation.

April 18, 2019  Tidal flats on The Doirlinn

Once the source of the painting was known, MacKinnon suffered the indignation of public denouncements in the press...accused as an egotistical fame seeker, he was run off.  MacKinnon returned to Campbeltown to retouch his painting in 1902 and again in 1934.  

By then, the Campbeltown public opinion had markedly changed regarding MacKinnon.  He would be celebrated as a local artist, likely because many people came to Campbeltown to see the masterpiece.  Money (from enhancing the business of tourism)  certainly has a way of changing opinions.

Over the past century, many thousands have made a pilgrimage out to the Davaar sea cave.  When we visited, votive offerings and small crucifixes below the painting were evident. 

April 18, 2019  Votive offerings left at the Davaar sea cave painting  

Given more than a century since MacKinnon painted his sea cave work, some damage to the painting has been incurred due to water and the cave's humidity.  Restoration work has been done to the painting since MacKinnon last visited it in 1934.  A metal strip was installed above it help keep water from above running directly down the painting.  But all in all, given where it is--at sea level--the painting has survived well.

April 18, 2019  View from inside the Davaar sea cave

A note on the location, besides being on a boulder and shingled beach, the cave itself (despite claims on various websites) is not sign posted.  It is in what is claimed to be the seventh and final cave.  And so, we visited the various caves until we found what is today known as "The Crucifixion Cave".  But such is the stuff of pilgrimages...a search for quiet constancy beyond the howls of fickle mankind.

That is, as it has always been, a difficult path.      

April 18, 2019  The Crucifixion Cave, Davaar Island; by Archibald MacKinnon (1887)  

Seize quickly!

In 2019, we made our third annual Easter sojourn to west Scotland, again taking up our pilgrimage under the Celtic Cross.  Our journey took us to Campbeltown on the Kintyre Peninsula...to its Market Cross.

April 14, 2019  Campbeltown Market Cross (back face)

Standing 11 feet in height, Campbeltown's Market Cross (a disc head cross carved in the style of the "Iona School") is the largest of its type in Scotland.  Its front face was carved in about 1380 A.D.; commissioned by pastor Andrew MacEachern of Kilchoman Parish, Islay to memorialize his father Sir Ivor MacEachern.  Its back is a maze of Celtic interlaced carved designs.

The Kilchoman Cross on Islay (at just over 8 feet in height) is so similar to the Campbeltown Market Cross (See:  January 19, 2019 Whitley's World blog post "Intricacies of a Gaelic Cross") many believe they were both created by the same craftsman.  In fact, the Illeach (proud natives of Islay) claim the Campbeltown Cross originally stood at Kilchoman and was removed (or purloined) from Islay and re-erected on Kintyre some time after 1608, when Campbeltown became a royal burgh.

A historian described the Campbeltown Market Cross, as "a 14th-century ecclesiastical memorial subsequently appropriated to municipal use."  The Market Cross was certainly standing at Campbletown by 1680 A.D.  For their part, Kintyre natives claim the Market Cross once stood at the parish church Kilkivan (or Kilkavan), near Machrihanish west of Campbeltown.

Kilvivan chapel near Trodigal Cottages on B843

Kilkivan is considered to have been among the last of Kintyre's ancient churches to practice public religious rites before the iconoclasts of the Reformation wrecked so much havoc upon the institution of the Celtic Church.  It is fortunate indeed that the Campbeltown Market Cross survived.

Ancient Kilkivan is seldom on travel itineraries.  Most visitors to this part of South Kintyre are bound for Machrihanish Dunes, its famous golf course and resort.

The ruin of Kilvivan chapel and burial ground, just south of the B843 Machrihanish Road which runs westward from Campbeltown, is worth the visit.  It is not for difficulty to reach it that Kilkivan is off the typical tourist grid.  Rather, it is for the lack of knowledge of its existence, that or a general lack of interest in such sites altogether.

The ruin of Kilkivan Church can be spotted from the road, below the hill line south of B843 near Trodigal Cottages...if one is looking for them.  A road sign marks it simply: "Cemetery".

Sign marking Kilkivan church ruin and burial ground at Trodigal Cottages

For our part, we visited Kilkivan on our return to Campbeltown, having spent most of the morning  hours touring better known heritage sites on the Mull of Kintyre at Southend--specifically Dunaverty Rock and St. Columba's Footprint.  We had lonesome Kilkivan to ourselves on a very windy, misty and somewhat cold Monday morning.  "Windy, misty and cold" cannot be overstated.

April 15, 2019  A windy day at Southend, Kintyre

After picking up our rental VW from Kintyre Hire in Campbeltown, we headed to Southend by 9:00 a.m.  Nominally, weather conditions in Campbeltown (at 40˚F) were not terribly different from what Idaho experiences at this same time of year...nominally that is.

April 15, 2019  Our stout VW rental at Southend's Dunaverty Golf Club 

Weather at Campbeltown (protected on the lee of the Kintyre Peninsula) is not as "vigorous" as what is encountered at Southend or at Macrahanish directly on the sea.  Kintrye, called "Scotland's Mainland Island," is 40 miles in length.  At no point is it more than 11 miles in width, which means at no place is Kintyre far removed from the sea.  And the sea is the indisputable driver of weather in Argyll and the Hebrides. 

April 15, 2019  Rocks below Dunaverty; where 300 MacDonalds were murdered in 1647 

Skies were overcast as we began our excursion in Campbeltown, with a fine drizzle driven by strong breezes (Beaufort scale)...in gusts topping 40 mph.  But at Southend, directly on the North Channel coast and at Macrahanish, sustained winds easily neared gale force based upon our difficulty in keeping our feet firmly planted in the onshore winds, particularly on top of Dunaverty Rock.  And for the record, no.  Campbeltown's high quality scotch elixir played no part at so early a morning hour (borrowing a surety upon the subject from Acts 2:15).

April 15, 2019  The Mull of Kintyre, at Southend

With Kilkivan little more than a mile from the Jura Sound on the western windward side of lower Kintyre (the Sound is visible from the chapel ruin), winds and mist were forceful on Kilkivan's high ground.  Little interrupted the ocean winds which, mist laden, stung the skin.  One thing was certain, having experimented with the effort.  It was not possible to unzip the parka and pull out an Ordnance Survey map, not if we wanted to keep it.

April 15, 2019  Kilkivan Church ruins and cemetery; Jura sound in background

So this weather affected our visit at Kilkivan.  It hustled us.  We were reluctant to dawdle on hilltops or increase our exposure.  Had the weather been more clement, we would have explored Kilkivan's surroundings more extensively.  But being only our second day in Scotland on our 2019 sojourn, we are unwilling to tempt hypothermia (as we certainly did on Hadrian's Wall last year in 2018 on our last touring day in the U.K.)   

Like so many early Christian sites in Argyll, Kilkivan was founded near a prehistoric site.  Interestingly, it may be that prehistoric practices found their way into Kilkivan's liturgical traditions. 

May 12, 1930 Proceedings, Kintyre Hist. Soc.

At Kilvivan are three unusual prehistoric "cairns" (assuming these are in fact cairns--which remains unknown).  A knoll at Kilkivan named Cnocan a' Chluig (Gaelic: "Hill of the Bell") has a pair of ring bank enclosures (or saucer cairns) that are currently attributed to the Bronze Age.

A slightly higher hillock also has a concentric ringed turf construction that is associated with a standing stone.

It should be noted that, being situated on working farms under cultivation, the plow has obliterated substantial portions of these constructions.  That said, the Kilkivan constructions are protected historical monuments today.  But the damage has been done.

The Kilkivan prehistoric earthworks are circular or oval concentric turf rings that "may" be built from a rock core covered by turf, are about 25 to 35 feet in diameter, and are little more than one foot in height.  The concentric turf banks are perhaps five feet in width.  In rough grassland, these low banks (little more than a foot in height) are somewhat imperceptible.

A Bronze Age dating for these constructions is far from certain, however.  They have not been excavated...at least not scientifically.  As early as the 19th century, surveys noted that square holes had been dug into the center of these ring bank enclosures at some point in antiquity.  Whatever may have been there was either removed or so disturbed that archaeological context cannot be determined.

May 12, 1930 Proceedings, Kintyre Hist. Soc.

While a few graves are known to subsequently have been added to other similar ring "cairns" elsewhere in the U.K. (doubtless the assumption of the early looters), that does not seem to be their original purpose.  Current thought is that these were not funerary monuments.  And the purpose of these features remains unknown.

Similar low profile ring constructions are unusual in Argyll.  And the small "saucer barrow" is not known elsewhere in Argyll.  In that sense, the Kilkivan constructions--whatever they are--are somewhat "unique".  Concentric ring enclosures are more commonly located in Wales and Cornwall.  Thus, it may be that these Kilkivan works were built by a new group of people who moved into lower Kintrye.

As for possible prehistoric practices that found their way into Christian rites, Cnocan a' Chluig became associated with Christian services at Kilkivan.   For some centuries before being recorded in Pennant's 1772 guide book "Voyage to the Hebrides," parishioners were called to devotions by ringing a hand bell from atop Cnocan a' Chluig.

April 15, 2019   Hills at Kilkivan; unknown stone feature with turf rings (?) 

This hand bell itself was actually consecrated, and was named "ceolan naomha"--meaning:  the holy music.  Following the Reformation, this bell was also "appropriated" for municipal use and was incorporated into everyday life in the burgh of Campbeltown.  The town crier (the "news anchor" back in the day) used Kilkivan's "ceolan naomha" to make announcements to the town folk.  The bell was in use at least as late as the mid 1700s, according to Cuthbert Bede's geography on Kintyre (published in 1861 as "Glencreggan").  The location of the bell is now unknown.

Bede also described a most unusual practice at Kilkivan, a matrimonial blind man's bluff of sorts and one that has long been attributed in local lore to St. Kevin (or Coivin) directly.  The medieval ruin of Kilkivan is thought to have been constructed in the 1200s, at or near the chapel established in early 7th century by St. Kevin.  With little doubt, the church at Kilkivan is ancient.

April 15, 2019  Old road into Kilkivan church grounds  

It is said that St. Kevin originally called the people to devotions on the hillock of the standing stone and "ring cairn" at Kilkivan.  Eventually, the congregation grew in number, and a proper building was required.  The peculiar procedure of divorce carried on at Kilkivan is therefore older than the existing ruin, and is possibly older than the original chapel itself.  If so, the rite must have derived from the  prehistoric practices of the former pagan population. 

A solemn rite of divorce was apparently instituted once a year at Kilkivan.  Unhappy couples were invited to Kilkivan late at night.  At midnight, St. Kevin and his assistants would blindfold the unhappy couples and stampede them in a pell-mell race around the chapel three times in the dark...which is curiously a number suggestive of the prehistorical concentric turf rings there.

April 15, 2019  Interior of Kilkivan Church ruin; (double gable) 

Immediately upon the race being completed in confusion, Kevin is said to have shouted:  "Cabhag! (meaning "Seize quickly!)  Every man would then lay hold of the first female near him, and that would be his wife--young, old, pretty or not--at least until the next year's blind race.

Of architectural interest, the remaining gable wall of Kilkivan Church looks like it supported a double gable roof.  If this was the building's roof configuration, it would have been fairly unique in its day.  Possibly, the double gable resulted from a subsequent addition being shouldered against an earlier, more typical, narrow rectangular single gable medieval chapel.  In any case, the ruins show several additions were made to the chapel prior to 1772, when Pennent described Kilkivan as a ruin.

April 15, 2019  Medieval grave slabs at Kilkivan Church, Kintyre

In Kilkivan cemetery itself, a generally unheralded group of medieval grave slabs can still be seen in place.  This is somewhat surprising.  Normally such a collection of medieval slabs would, by now, have been removed and displayed ex situ in a museum somewhere for their protection.  

As would also more normally be the case, such an exquisite large group of medieval slabs would be more prominently featured in various travel guides.  Perhaps it is a blessing that it has not been.

April 15, 2019  A row of ruined dwellings at Kilkivan

Lastly, on the upper "kit" of Kilkivan, we inspected what looked like a group of row houses.  Whether this was the parsonage of the church, or part of the old settlement of Kilkivan, was uncertain.  Interpretive signage was not present on the site.  If these were row houses and part of Kilkivan settlement, then these ruins probably resulted from the Highland Clearances.

By the 1740s, only 30 years before Pennent's 1772 description of Kilkivan as a ruin, a large number of lower Kintyre's people had migrated to the Cape Fear Settlements in North Carolina.  The emptying of the Highlands would continue for another 150 years.

Ancient Kilkivan, now empty and silent except for the wind once had a relatively significant population, was a parish of considerable importance...over no inconsiderable length of time.