Easdale of the Slate Isles

Easdale was a significant milestone, as it was the final island on my final cruise as a guide on Hjalmar Bjørge. We'd spent the morning on na h-EiIeacha Naomha of the Garvellachs. Upon learning none of the guests had been to Easdale, I decided to make it the last island of the cruise.

And so, on a scorching hot, cloudless September afternoon, Skipper Tony motored Hjalmar Bjørge to an anchorage near the east entrance of the Sound of Easdale. We loaded into the inflatable and set off to the Easdale slipway. The slipway lies atop a slate-shard beach, and we had to get ashore quickly as the island ferry was fast approaching with a full load of passengers.

With seven quarries, some reaching 300 ft below sea level, Easdale had been the centre of the slate industry. As described by Patrick Gillies in Netherlorn, Argyllshire and its Neighbourhood, the island was severely damaged during a storm in 1881.

The working of this quarry came to a sudden and disastrous end. In the early morning of the 22nd November 1881, after a very severe gale of south-west wind followed by an exceptionally high tide, a large rocky buttress which supported a sea wall gave way under the excessive pressure of water, and at daybreak the quarry, which had been wrought to a depth of 250 feet below tide level, was found flooded, and two hundred and forty men and boys were thrown out of employment. Since then Easdale has not been prosperous. Lately, however, some of the old workings, abandoned about a century ago on account of the then inadequate machinery, have been reopened, and with sufficient capital and cautious management it is to be hoped that a long period of prosperity may ensue.

The slate works on Easdale ceased in 1911. Other quarries continued to operate for a few years. But, unable to compete with cheaper, imported slates and the use of clay tiles, they, too, became a thing of the past.

We were a bit thirsty - well, I was, anyway - so we went in search of The Puffer, the island cafe/pub. We found it thanks to this helpful sign, which also told us that Sydney was only 11,275 miles away. 

After refreshments, we walked the island paths before visiting the excellent museum, where there were as many ‘No Photography’ signs as there were displays. I was sorely tempted but refrained from taking photos of the 'No Photos' signs. 

The island was quiet as we walked the paths along the flooded quarries. The largest quarry, at the southeast corner of the island (pictured below), is where slate skimming competitions are held every year.

Fortunately for us, the skimming competition had taken place two weeks before. Nearly a thousand people would have been here, many of them clustered around this flooded quarry. Skimmers must launch from a rectangular slab of slate lying at the north end of the pond. We each stood on the slab and gave it a try. My attempts were pitiful. I blame it on the fact that there were no good skimming slates near the launch point. The area had been picked clean, and all the good stones lay at the bottom of the pond.

Each contestant must use Easdale slates no larger than three inches in diameter. They get three tries to see how far they can skim, and the stone has to bounce at least twice. The point where it sinks is deemed the length of the skim. The flooded quarry used for the competition is square, about 200 feet on a side (63 metres). If the skimmer hits the quarry’s far wall, they are given a score of 63 metres. The winner in 2024 skipped a total of 155 metres over three tries (a perfect score would be 189).

Later that evening, as Easdale disappeared astern, we set a course to Loch Spelve on Mull. An overnight anchorage at Spelve allows for a quick sail to Oban in the morning. And we needed to be quick. It would be a Friday, and the pontoons fill up fast on weekends. All the tour boats have to make a mad dash to Oban if they hope to secure a parking spot.

That Friday happened to be the last day of summer. As I carried my gear up the marina ramp to the busy streets of Oban, I thought back to a spring day eight years before, when I’d set out from Oban on my first guide trip. I also recalled a summer’s day in 2004 when I’d set out on my first cruise as a guest on Hjalmar Bjørge with skipper Mark Henrys. Over those twenty years of magic, I’ve been aboard her for fourteen cruises, spending over 140 nights in her snug bunks. I want to thank Debbie, Sally, Skipper Tony Morrison, Deckhand/Steward Colin McKinnon, Chef Steve Milne, and owner David Lambie for making the 2024 cruise memorable.

Na h-Eileacha Naomha of the Isles of the Sea

After exploring Inchkenneth, we set a course to na h-Eileacha Naomha, one of the Garvellachs, also known as The Isles of the Sea. On the island are the ruins of St Brendan's Monastery, which include two of the largest beehive cells in the Hebrides. The island is unusual in that it has four names: na h-Eileacha Naomha, Eileach an Naoimh, Aileach, and, to some, Hinba.

It's a tricky approach to get near the island. A series of black reefs known as Sgeirean Dubha guard the east side, so you must carefully motor around the south tip of the reefs before heading to the anchorage off the small inlet below the monastic ruins. The tide was high enough so that Colin, skippering the RIB, could set the three of us ashore near the head of the inlet.

Once ashore, I led Sally and Debbie up past St Columba's Well, a welcome sight for sea kayakers running low on fresh water.

The first stop on any tour is the island’s oldest ruin, a seventh-century double beehive cell. The corbelled stone roofs have collapsed, and the cells were altered for sheep pens at some point. These are the most massive beehives in Scotland, a dozen feet in diameter, with three-foot thick walls that once would have looked like the intact cloghauns on Sceilg Mhichil of Star Wars fame.

Just below the cells is an odd pillar about twelve feet high. Its top end overhangs to one side, creating a sheltered spot. It is a perfect preaching place that has come to be known as St Columba's Pulpit. We took turns preaching, but other than soaring seabirds, there was no one to appreciate our sermons.

From the pulpit, we climbed the ridge to the monastery. The most interesting ruin is an underground beehive cell, where we took turns sliding feet first into the small space. Patrick Gillies describes the cell in Netherlorn, Argyllshire and its Neighbourhood (1909):

Close to the chapel is an underground cell called Am Priosan, and tradition tells very circumstantially the mode of confining prisoners. There was a large stone in the bottom of the cell with a V-shaped depression; the prisoner placed his clasped hands in the hollow, and a wedge-shaped stone was securely fastened down over the palms of the hands, and so tightly that it was impossible to extricate them: the whole arrangement was called, a' ghlas laimh (the hand-lock). Probably, however, the underground cavity was a well, or maybe a cellar for storing the ‘elements.' 

In The Isles and the Gospel (1907), Hugh MacMillan describes a somewhat horrific way punishment was inflicted on the guilty miscreant. The cell can fill with water when it rains, and MacMillan speculates about a ‘curious custom’ of the Columban Church, where if a monk was guilty of a ‘grave offence’ he was required to seclude himself, and that:

Another punishment often inflicted for light offences was the recitation of the whole or part of the Psalter, with the body entirely immersed in water. This penance may have been carried out in the curious underground cell near the oratory, which, as I have said, is often half-filled with water during rainy weather. I was informed by some of the old people at Easdale that thirty or forty years ago, a curious stone was found near these beehive cells with a narrow aperture in it, which was used in the administration of justice. The accused was required to put his hand through it, when if innocent, he could withdraw it easily, but if guilty, his hand became swollen to such an extent that he was held fast.

The following photo is of the altar inside the underground cell and dates my first visit to Aileach (1997). There was no sign of the stone handcuffs.

On the hillside above the monastery lay the heart of Aileach: the circular mound of Cladh Eithne, the grave of Eithne, the mother of St Columba. Ten feet in diameter, it is rimmed by stones and marked by two upright slabs, one incised with a simple cross. Hugh MacMillan (quoted earlier) gives the lineage of Eithne as ‘the daughter of Dima, son of Ner, descended from Cathaeir Mor, King of Leinster, and afterwards all of Ireland.’

Is it truly Eithne’s grave? Maybe, maybe not. Even if not, it is the burial site of someone important, someone whose tomb is marked by one of the two remaining cross-stones on the island. There were once many such stones here, but they’ve been stolen.

Sitting at Eithne's Grave, overlooking one of the oldest Christian sites in the Hebrides, I wondered if this was Columba's Hinba. Many books on the Hebrides state, some with complete certainty, that it is, but in The Celtic Placenames of Scotland (1926), William Watson makes a convincing argument it is not. Based on the few written clues about Hinba, he concludes it was likely Jura. A few of the clues are:

Clue 1: When Columba founded the monastery on Hinba, he placed his uncle Ernan in charge.
Ernan, Columba’s uncle, was one of the men who’d come with him from Ireland. On Jura, ten miles south of Columba’s Cell at Tarbert, is Cill Ernadail, the cell of St Ernan.

Clue 2: Hinba has a Muirbolc Mar, a large sea bay.
Aileach does not have a large bay. Jura’s Loch Tarbert is certainly large. It is a mile wide at its western mouth at Ruantallain, where you’ll find one of the most remote bothies in the Hebrides. From there, as you sail east, it quickly narrows to 300 feet at the raised beaches at Cumhann Mòr, the big narrows. It continues to cleave its way across Jura, at one point narrowing to 100 feet at Cumhann Beag. The loch ends a mile and a half farther west at a point a half mile from the Sound of Jura, where—and here is another clue that Jura could be Hinba—you’ll find the chapel and well of St Columba.

Clue 3: Hinba was on the sea lanes from Ireland to the monastic settlements of the Hebrides.
After crossing from Ireland to Islay, a direct route north would be to go with the strong tides up the Sound of Islay, where Loch Tarbert was just around the corner. Alternately, if it was stormy or the tides were not favourable, a route east would lead up the Sound of Jura to Tarbert Bay. Columba had a cell at Tarbert, and from there, it would be a short portage to transport currachs to Loch Tarbert. 

Clue 4: ‘Hinba’ may derive from the Old Irish word inbe, an incision or a great gap.
Loch Tarbert cuts a seven-mile-long incision into the west coast of Jura. If it went another half a mile, Jura would be two islands. Rising sea levels may make that a reality, as only a fifty-foot increase will flood the ‘Tarbert.’ The following photo shows the site of Columba's Chapel at Tarbert. It is a charming spot, and in springtime, blooming daffodils tint its edges a bright yellow.

The sparse trail of clues to the location of Hinba is a fascinating one. Jura sounds most likely, but we will never know for sure. That may be a good thing. It is a mystery that has led many of those seeking Hinba to the remote shores of na h-Eileacha Naomha, Jura, Scarba, Oronsay, Canna, and several other isles of the magic west: a seeking that, in its fulfilment, is a blessing handed down the centuries from Columba and Ernan.

When the time came to leave, Sally, Debbie, and I returned to St Columba's Well. Unfortunately, the tide had dropped, and the inlet was dry. That required us to scramble across the rocks to a spot where Colin could get close with the RIB. It was not easy, but it was exhilarating to safely slide into the RIB after a day ashore on St Brendan's Aileach. 

Leaving the Garvellachs in our wake, we set a course for the final island of the cruise: Easdale of the Slate Isles

Inchkenneth

After a night at anchor in Lon Bearnus, we set a course west to circle around Ulva and Gometra. With the always-tempting Treshnish isles dotting the horizon to the west, we made our way along the southern coast of Ulva. Once past the collonaded castles, we motored into the shallow waters between Inchkenneth and Mull. The anchor was set, and we loaded into the inflatable to seek a landing on St Kenneth's Isle.

The tide was low, and the reefs that pierce the sea meant we had to putter a mile to the south, where we went ashore on the sandy beach of Chapel Bay. From there, it was an easy climb to the chapel. 

The thirteenth-century chapel sits on the site of St Kenneth’s monastery. Three chapel walls still stand, but the south wall is mostly missing. Entering through a door in its north wall, we came across a collection of carved medieval tombstones. Two lancet windows in the east gable let the sun shine on the scant remains of an altar. James Boswell, writing in 1773, mentions the presence of a Celtic handbell on the altar. Unfortunately, it disappeared sometime in the last 200 years.

Above the chapel, set among the tombstones of the burial ground, is the Inchkenneth cross. It is made from a single piece of grey-blue slate with zigzag designs carved along its edges. The elegant ring-headed cross stands five feet tall and dates to the sixteenth century. Most of the decoration has worn off, but a pair of shears is still visible at the bottom of the shaft. Below them, and hardly discernible, is something with bristles, possibly a brush or comb. The significance of the shears and comb may come from their ceremonial use in cutting the tonsure.

Twenty years had passed since my first visit to Inchkenneth. Seeing the chapel, burial ground, and the elegant cross made me a bit nostalgic. It can be a bad idea to revisit a special place like this, as you risk marring a cherished memory. I would not have come back here on my own, but guiding people who’d never been there gave the visit a vastly different perspective. I was bringing a cherished memory to like-minded souls. The visit would not mar a memory but make a new one.

After a look at the well, its waters bubbling down to the sea, we climbed the hillside above Inchkenneth House. The house has quite a history. It was once the home to Harold Boulton, who was known for writing lyrics for The Skye Boat Song.  After that, it was a holiday home for the Mitfords. It is unlikely, but there is a rumour Hitler visited the island.

Near the high point, we came to a semi-circular enclosure containing a small bench. Twenty years ago, I was told by the fellow who managed the island for the Barlows (the current owners) that it was called Poets' Corner. No poets are buried here, but it is a spot that could inspire a verse or two.

Several famous folks found refuge on Inchkenneth, and all of them would have come to the corner to revel in the isolation. The corner deserves a poem from all visitors. Here’s a go:

In 1773, Boswell, and Johnson, too,

  Stood at Poets’ Corner to enjoy the view.

In 1930, came Harold Bolton, in the last years of life,

  He’d make the climb from the house, along with his loving wife.

Then there were the Mitford girls: Unity plus five,

  A sad fascist, she left, barely alive.

And rumors are afloat, that from a U-boat,

  Came a man named Adolf, too.

When the time came to leave, the tide had dropped several feet, which meant there was no way the inflatable could come ashore. And so we descended the short cliff to the kelp beach below the house, then made our way north across a beautiful, white-sand beach to a spot where the inflatable could come close. The boots had to come off, and it was a cold wade 100 feet out to where the RIB was barely afloat.

Under a gloriously blue Hebridean sky, we set off from Inchkenneth. The itinerary for the next day was exciting: Eileach an Naoimh of the Isles of the Sea, the site of St Brendan's Monastery.