The Star Chamber—Mull

There, at Laggan, stands the MacLaines’ mausoleum, its iron door so tightly locked, its sombre interior softly lit by tiny, star-shaped windows of coloured glass let into the roof.

The Ghost Book—Alasdair Alpin MacGregor (1955)

It was an April day in 2010, when I first made the walk from Lochbuie to the mausoleum at Laggan. The door was not tightly locked, as Alasdair Alpin MacGregor complained about in 1955, so it was easy to get inside. Cumulus clouds had eclipsed the sun, preventing the colourful stars embedded in the roof from shining brightly. The dank smell of dirt permeated the interior as a meagre shaft of light pierced the open doorway. The feeble light partly illuminated the high walls, which were embedded with memorials to long-dead chiefs of the MacLaines of Lochbuie. 

This was once a chapel dedicated to St Kenneth, with roots dating to the twelfth century. In the 1860s, the MacLaines converted it into a mausoleum, and they made additional renovations in 1972. The chapel is believed to have been consecrated in 1500, and the earliest recorded burial was for a Chief of the MacLaines in 1701.

Since it is off the beaten path, the chapel, also known as Caibeal Mheomhair, the Burial Place of Remembrance, sees few visitors. But it should be seen, for it lies in a beautiful spot above Loch Buie. The attraction for me was its association with St Kenneth, who established a monastery on Inchkenneth. Several MacLaine chiefs are interred here, most commemorated with simple memorials, although the marker for Murdoch MacLaine, the twenty-first chief (1791-1844), is extensive and mentions his wife and nine children.

A good source for stories about the MacLaines of Mull is Thomas Hannan's The Beautiful Island of Mull (1926). It tells of another Murdoch MacLaine, the twenty-second chief. When he died in 1909, a steamer full of dignitaries set out from Oban to attend the funeral. But, as Hannan describes, they did not make it:

His funeral was a thoroughly Highland ceremony, carried out in one of those intense sea-fogs which occasionally shroud the island. A steamer had set out from Oban with a great company of Chiefs and others from the mainland, but it was not able to enter the loch. Those on board were able to hear the wailing of the pipes as they played the lament, but the steamer had to return without its passengers taking part in the funeral service.

It must have been quite moving, hearing the pipes echo across the sea from a fog-shrouded chapel on this remote headland of Mull.

* * *

I returned to Caibeal Mheomhair last month. It was a sunny, August day, and the star chamber was in full splendour. Eight constellations spanned the roof; each a cross of five stars with a kaleidoscopic mix of colours: some emerald green, others the brilliant white of Sirius, the blood red of the Garnet Star, and the deep amber and intense blue of Albireo, the stunning double star of Cygnus.

An Iona Day

Last month I had the opportunity to spend a day on Iona. I wanted to revisit a few favourite spots and see something I'd missed on previous visits: Clach a Choire Ì, the Ringing Stone of Iona. Once ashore, I walked the road to the north, continued past the busy abbey, then made my way to the Duchess's Cross: a memorial to Elizabeth Campbell, the first of the three wives of the eighth Duke of Argyll. 

Halfway between the cross and the shore, a massive, flat-topped boulder lay at the edge of a field (NM 2892 2491). This chunk of Ross of Mull granite, carried here by ice long ago, is sometimes called the refectory stone, supposedly for its use as a table in the early monastery. James Bonwick, in Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions (1894), relates that the stone has two names: ‘Moel-blatha’ and ‘Blathnat,’ and it is just one of the multitude of stones associated with St Columba:

St. Columba had a reputation for stones. There is his Red Stone, his Blue Egg Stone in Skye, his Blue Stone of Glen Columkillo, his stony beds of penitence, his Lingam Stones, which worked miracles. He was born on a stone, he was sustained in famine by sucking meal from the Holy Stone of Moel-blatha.

Moel-blatha is also mentioned in Edward Trenholme's The Story of Iona (1909):

   The great tabular glacial boulder lies between lomaire an Achd and the Sound, and Skene has pointed out how well it answers to a stone which some old Irish documents say was in the refectory of St. Columba's monastery. One scribe's preface to St. Columba's great poem Altus Prosator speaks of "the stone that is in the refectory in Hi; and the name of that stone is Moel-blatha, and luck was left on all food that is put thereon." 
   The stone survived the monastery, for the scribes who say "it still exists" wrote in the eleventh century. It was so remarkable that it had a special name, which is considered to mean "flat stone of division." The scribes mention the stone in order to relate how Columba composed a certain hymn, Adjutor laborantium, while carrying a heavy sack of oats, taken from off the stone, to the mill. Everything fits the stone, which is still to be seen in Iona, near the spot which there are independent reasons for regarding as the site of the first monastery. The refectory which enclosed the stone, to serve as a table or sideboard, was no doubt a wood and wattle building of the old Irish kind.

After a look at Moel-blatha, I walked a quarter mile north until I came to a gate on the east side of the road. I went through it, then made a gentle descent across a grassy field to Port na Fraing. My destination was easy to spot: Clach a Choire Ì, the ringing stone of Iona; a large boulder with a cup-mark near its top (NM 2911 2527). Like its better-known cousin on Tiree, the stone can be made to sing out a high-pitched metallic tone. The boulder is one of several lithophonic stones in Scotland. In addition to Tiree’s (NM 0268 4869), there is one near Ballater (NJ 2998 0157), and the ‘Iron Stone’ north of Huntly (NJ 5316 4563). 

A stone, conveniently set in the cup-mark, can be used to make the stone ring. (The best place to strike is just below the cup.) After some feeble attempts to play the stone, I returned to the road, then made my way to the top of Dun-I. It's an easy 100-metre climb, and I was fortunate to find the top deserted, as it's usually swarming with tourists. 

I wandered over to the nearby knoll where I scattered some of my mother's ashes in 2018, then took a seat next to Tobar na h-Aoise, the Well of Youth (NM 2843 2529). It is a triangular pool set below a large outcropping of bedrock. It’s said your youth will be restored if you touch the waters as the first rays of the morning sun fall. (I had a beer instead and felt quite restored.)

Once back down at the road, I followed the path to Cobhain Cuildich, the Secluded Hollow of the Hermit’s Cell. To find the path to the cell, you enter the gate to the MacLeod Centre, walk 150 feet west, then veer off to the right. The route is vague at times and very boggy, but keep heading west, and in half a mile you'll come to the Hermit's Cell.

The cell is a circular foundation of stones, eighteen feet in diameter, with an opening for a vestibule—all that’s left of what may have been a substantial beehive cell. Behind it is a large rock outcropping, with the walls of a sheep fank encircling its base, probably built from the stones of the cell. This may have been the monastery’s place of retreat, described as being ‘amongst the bushes, remote from men and meet for prayer, where Columba went to pray one day, and beheld hosts of demons fighting with darts (lightning) in the sky.’

I decided to keep going west to the coast. There was no path, just more soupy ground and heather. An hour's bumble through the brush led to Port Ban, a stunning pocket beach of white-shell sand. There were no golfers about, so I took an easy shortcut across the 12th hole of the course to reach the machair above Camus Cùl an Taibh, the Bay at the back of the ocean.

I was now back in the land of the tourists and joined a mob of a hundred or so for the ferry back to Mull. Next stop: Caibeal Mheomhair, the Star Chamber of Mull.