Massacre Cave - Eigg

If you like crawling into dark caves with even darker histories, then Uamh Fhraing is for you. The name has been translated as St Francis Cave, but it's usually called Massacre Cave. Sometime in the 16th century (some sources say 1577), about 400 residents of Eigg were smoke-smothered in the cave by the Macleods.

The cave can be reached by a one mile walk from the pier. The first time I crawled into the cave was in 1997, when I took MV Shearwater to Eigg from Arisaig. Most of the passengers were hillwalkers intent on bagging the Sguir. I was the only one who'd come to see the cave (which was fine by me). After walking a quarter-mile up the road from the jetty I crossed a stile and headed south across a stretch of boggy ground. After passing a derelict croft house, a turn to the southwest led to the bluffs above the shore. A trail down a ravine led to the shore, and after walking a little way to the east I found the small mouth of the cave.

The entrance was three feet high and two wide. Flashlight in hand I crawled inside. After a dozen feet the cave expanded enough for me to stand. I wished I'd brought a powerful lantern, for my small flashlight barely lit the way as I walked two hundred feet to the end of the cave.

The cave was full of bones for a long time after the massacre. The geologist Hugh Miller entered the cave in 1844 and wrote this about it in The Cruise of the Betsey (1869):

The floor, for about a hundred feet inwards from the narrow vestibule, resembles that of a charnel house…the skulls, with the exception of a few broken fragments, have disappeared…but enough remains to show that the hapless islanders died under the walls in families, each little group separated by a few feet from the others.

At some point the bones were gathered up and buried. But even so, in 1979 a skull was found here. Once you've found the tiny entrance to the cave, and crawled inside to see how large it is, you'll realize what a good refuge it had been. But not good enough on a winter's day four centuries ago, when footprints in the snow are said to have allowed the Macleods to find it. See this CANMORE page for more on Massacre Cave.

The Carved Stones of Eigg - 1

There are some remarkable carved stones on the island of Eigg. Most are thought to have originated in Kildonnan, a monastery founded by St Donnan in the 7th century. The only building on the site today is a church that dates to the 16th century, but remnants of the original monastery have been uncovered under the turf between the shore and the church.

Mounted on a pedestal in a field next to the roofless church is an ornately carved shaft of a cross. The cross, of the Iona type, is thought to date to the late 14th century, and is carved from Loch Sween schist, so perhaps it was carved on the mainland near Kilmory Knap, and then shipped to Eigg. 

The cross shaft at Kildonnan

As you can see in the photo, at some point in the last 500 years the cross must have fallen, as the cross-head has broken off. Unfortunately it's gone missing; either lost or taken by thieves. Today you will find an unrelated cross-head propped up against the cross-pedestal. I read somewhere that it was intended as a replacement head, and is a copy of the top of Prior Colin's Cross on Oronsay.

Eigg cross shaft with the stand-in head on the ground

The crucifixion scene on the face of the stand-in head has been heavily worn by the elements and is barely discernible. However, the beautiful carving on the reverse side is still in good shape.

Reverse side of the Eigg stand-in

The cross slab also graces the cover of the 1927 edition of Kenneth Macleod's The Road to the Isles. (Macleod was born on Eigg.)

There is not much information on the headless shaft. It's not mentioned in Romilly Allen's Early Christian Monuments of Scotland, and the only thing TS Muir has to say of it in his Ecclesiological Notes on the Islands of Scotland is: ...within it (the chapel) is a slab covered with folaige. That description was from 1856, so it was at some point after that that the slab was erected on a pedestal outside the church. The next photo is a side-by-side comparison of the Oronsay cross and the replacement head. They do look similar. See this RCAHMS page for more on Kildonnan, and be sure to see this Eigg History Society page for a information on excavation work that has uncovered some of the old monastery, and includes a drawing of what it may have looked like.

Eigg stand-in (left) and the Oronsay Cross (right)

Cave View - 2

Here is another view from inside a cave. This one is from Eigg's Uamh Chrabhadh, the Cave of Devotion. Also known as Cathedral Cave, it was used to hold Mass during times of Catholic persecution. Next time we will jump to Jura to see the view from inside Breacan's Cave.

Cave View - 1

It is always great fun to find a cave on the islands, crawl in, and take a photo looking back to the light of day. This one is from inside the infamous Massacre Cave on Eigg. Next time we'll visit nearby Cathedral Cave.