EILEAN DONAN CASTLE~SCOTLAND

? EILEAN DONAN CASTLE~SCOTLAND ?

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? Eilean Donan Castle near Dornie, is one of the most easily recognised castles in Scotland.

The story of Eilean Donan Castle and of Eilean Donan, the island on which it stands, is an ancient one.

Traces remained of what was probably an Iron Age fort and settlement on the island, right up to the 1920’s

? By the late 500s, it seems that the island was the site of a monastic cell founded by the Irish missionary of St Donan, and the name Eilean Donan or “Island of Donan” has stuck ever since.

In the mid 1200s, Kenneth MacKenzie held the island for the Scottish crown against Norse incursions, with the help of a large medieval stone castle he built here.

This seems to have enclosed virtually the whole area of the island with a curtain wall, supplemented by a keep and a massive northern tower built with walls some 4.3m thick.

? Some claim that Robert the Bruce sheltered at Eilean Donan during the winter of 1306 to 1307.

In 1331 Randolph, Earl of Moray, had 50 men executed here, and had their decapitated heads put on display along the castle walls.

Around 1400, for reasons that remain unclear, the castle was dramatically reduced in size.

The massive Northern Tower and much of the curtain wall were demolished.

? During the 1500s, the construction began of a heptagonal bastion to the east of the main castle.
This was linked to it by a tapering extension of the courtyard.

This seems to have been built as a platform for cannons, and provided a new and more easily defended main entrance to the castle.

? Eilean Donan then spent the next two centuries as a romantic island ruin.
The castle you see today was only rebuilt from earlier ruins, in the years between 1913 and 1932.

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