“Highlands and Islands 2” or “Our ancestral homelands“

Tuesday, July 9th – Isle of Skye

First of all, to those of you who get an email with my blog when I post, I apologize that the pictures don’t come through. I have no idea how to fix that but you can see them if you take the link to the actual blog.

Today my blog is going to be a little different. Today is an important day on our trip. Today was the reason I started on this adventure and my sister joined with me. Today we set foot on the Isle of Skye where some of our ancestors originated. Today we saw and took pictures (granted, from a distance) of the remains of the McKinnon clan castle, named Caisteal Maol or Castle Moyle, in a town named Kyleakin. Today we came within less than 100 miles of where we believe our great, great grandfather, Duncan McKinnon was born.

Today I feel a little like life has come full circle. Duncan McKinnon, my great, great grandfather, had a daughter named Amelia who married a fellow named Benjamin. They had several children, one was my grandmother, Edith. Fast forward and my daughter Gillian and her husband Philip had a son 5 years ago and named him Benjamin not knowing our family heritage. Then they had a daughter just over 2 years ago who they named Amelia Edith and I was so pleased that they paid tribute to my heritage using my grandmother’s name, Edith. (Coincidentally, Edith is also the first name of my sister Charlene who is travelling with me. Because her travel documents list Edith as her first name, the crew is calling her Edith, even though she uses her second name Charlene. She’s even given up correcting them. I’m calling her Edi from now on) When I told my siblings about the name Edith being given to the new little Amelia (“Millie”) my (much) older sister Lynn told me about Amelia and Benjamin to my shock. None of us had any idea. Today has been an emotional day.

I knew that there was Scottish blood in our background but I had no idea it was as high as it is until I received the results of my DNA test. Here are the results:

Then I saw this tour of Scotland with Windstar and I knew I had to do it. But I never expected to be able to get as close to important sites in our family history as we have. Now, with that background to put today into context, we resume to regular programming…. I’m sorry to the millennials and younger who will not understand that reference.

Our morning started off with beautiful blue skies and we were so thankful once again for the wonderful weather we’ve experienced. Our excursion today was to travel from the port town of Portree on the Isle of Skye over the bridge to the mainland to the Eileen Donan Castle. This is the ancestral castle of the MacRae Clan, which had fallen into disrepair but was purchased back by the MacRae Clan in 1911 by Lt Colonel John MacRae-Gilstrap. He and Farquhar MacRae painstakingly reconstructed the castle formally completing it in 1932. It is now open to the public and a fee maintains the property. The dependents of the MacRaes do get together there from time to time.

Twenty or so fellow travellers piled on to the bus near the dock and amazingly and with great driving skill on the part of our driver, our bus didn’t scrape the sides of the stone roadway leading up a steep incline out of the harbour with just barely enough room to pass. We got a quick peek at the town of Portree which promised to provide some shopping opportunities before heading out on to the highway. We had a beautiful trip along the coast and through various small towns. Along the way we saw small crofts (farms) with many, many sheep, a thatched roof cottage, a waterfall, a shinty pitch (a game which they claimed was a precursor to hockey in North America), and grand views of the Red Cuillins mountains of Skye.

Finally we crossed over the very nicely designed but controversial Skye Bridge joining the Isle of Skye to the mainland. It seems that most bridges linking islands to the mainland become controversial possibly because there are always those people who don’t want to see their way of life changed. This one had a couple of elements to it. The bridge was financed by a Private Financial Investment program of the government and a Germain company did the planning and development of the bridge. In order to reclaim the cost of the project the company implemented tolls on the bridge that stayed in place until the protests finally caused the government to buy out the Germany company and the tolls were removed 10 years later. The rumour mill claims that a certain woman, now passed, who lived in Buckingham Palace made a call to the German company during their planning stages to ensure her private yacht would be able to get under the bridge. Its centre span is rather high.

We arrived at the Eileen Donan Castle and had an hour and 15 minutes to tour the castle. It feels a little like a cross between a private residence and a museum. Sorry we couldn’t take pictures inside. It was furnished throughout (including some very life-like and a little creepy historical figures), and we were able to tour most areas of the castle. The “keep” or living space was really cozy and warm, and the entertaining space had high ceilings and was rather grand. The bedrooms were tiny, as were the beds. No wonder they had large families back then. The front stairways were narrow enough, but the back staircases were barely large enough for me to get through sideways. There were lots of artifacts on display as well as pictures and some life-like ducks and chickens hanging in the larder along with other animals curing. The brochure notes that weddings can be booked into the castle which would be amazing.

Interesting to us, as Canadians, was that there were two displays that were tributes to Canadian physician, Lt. Col. John McRae who, in 1915, wrote the war poem, “In Flanders Fields”. One of the displays included a huge mock up of the stamp issued by the Canadian post office a few years ago.

We circled around the outside of the castle which is set both strategically and beautifully at the intersection of 4 or 6 lochs (I saw mention in the material to both numbers) to take some pictures, and found that it was already time to get back to the bus. The time had just flown.

We hoped on the bus to head back to the ship but shortly after the bridge we turned off in the town of Kyleakin where we stopped and in the distance and at the end of the street we saw what looked like the McKinnon castle ruins visible on a high point of land. I had spoken to the local tour guide at the beginning of the tour about wanting to see our clan’s castle ruins in Kyleakin and she said that we would be making a Kodak Moment stop there to take pictures of the bridge. When everyone got off I asked the guide if Char and I could get closer to take some pictures. She said she would hold the bus if I hurried down and around the corner where she thought I could get a reasonable picture. So off I went, running! Char came far enough to be able to see the castle ruins and to take a picture of me running. Such a historical event really is picture worthy! My heart was pounding both from the exertion but also because it truly seemed like a momentous moment. You can read about the castle and the McKinnons at this link.

https://ancientmonuments.uk/124930-caisteal-maol-castle-moyle-kyleakin-skye-eilean-cho-ward

Back on board we followed our usual routine of listening to the lectures, attending tomorrow’s port info session and had another lovely dinner in Amphora. By the time we came back to our cabin, no less than 5 people who had been on the bus this morning asked why on earth I’d taken off running down the street at the photo stop. And I’m happy to explain the connection we have to this wonderful place.