Photo of Coeffin Castle by Colin MacDougall
Location: Coeffin Castle is a Hall House which entirely covers its perch on a coastal promontory on the NW shore of Lismore looking westward out over the Lyn of Morvern. It is well situated to cover the vital coastal sea trade routes approaching Lismore and the Great Glen on the mainland. Coeffin Castle is in sight of Achadun Castle to its south so that together they command the western approaches to the isle of Lismore. Coeffin Castle is approachable by a road turning westward from the main road of the island at a point just south of the cathedral church but some visitors describe having to walk the last mile.
Photo of Coeffin Castle by Colin MacDougall
Origin: The island of Lismore became important center of Celtic Christianity upon the death in 592 of Saint Moluag, Patron Saint of Lorn. He was a contemporary of Saint Columba but he proselytized mainly in Pictish areas because he was fluent in their language though he came from Ireland. Two hundred years later Lismore was overrun by the Vikings. Coeffin Castle is likely built on the site an earlier Norse fortification which explains its name “Caisteal Chaifein” (the Castle of Caifean) and was once known by the name of Dun nan Gall “fort of the strangers.” Caifean was said to have been a son of the King of Scandinavia (Righ Lochlann) who lived here. It is said Caifean kept his war galleys in the bay below his fort and never allowed his galleys to rest or his arms to rust lest both should become useless from lack of employment. In the 1100’s Lismore became part of Somerled’s domain and upon his death in 1164 was passed on to his son Dugald. For the next 150 years Lismore occupied a position of political, religious, and strategic importance to the MacDougall Lordship of Lorn. Coeffin lay close to the diocesan cathedral which is known to have been established on the island in the late 12th or early 13th C.
Lismore was so fertile because of its soil and limestone that it was known as Lios Mor “Great Garden”. This unusual occurrence of limestone on the west coast made Lismore valuable and economically strategic as the only source of limestone on the western seaboard. Lime neutralized the acidic soils and when baked in charcoal kilns it became a material essential to making mortar for binding stone walls together. Coeffin Castle was likely built in the 13th C. by the MacDougall Chiefs who may have had a residence there already. The MacDougalls lost possession of Lismore following their defeat at the Pass of Brander in 1308 and briefly regained in 1357from Robert Bruce’s son, King David II, John Gallda 7th Chief of the Clan who married David’s niece Joanna. After John Gallda’s death ca. 1375 Lismore was inherited as part of the Lordship of Lorne by his daughter Isabel and her husband John Stewart of Innermeath.
Coeffin Castle changed hands many times in its earlier years, but the first identifiable reference to it in written records is dated 1469-70 when Colin Campbell, the 1st Earl of Argyll, granted part of Lismore including the castle, to his uncle, Sir Colin Campbell of Glenorchy as recorded in the following record in Origines Parochiales Scotiae OPR church records Vol. 2 on page 169:
“…On the west side of the island stands Castle Coeffin, named in 1470 in a grant to
Sir Colin Campbell of Glenvrquhay the Castell of Chaben, and by Blaeu Castel Kaven.”
Coeffin Castle remained a possession in the lands of the Campbells of Glenorchy until the 18th C., but there is no evidence that it was occupied after medieval times.
Description: The castle commands the Lynn of Morvern. There is a small sheltered bay just below the castle proving a safe anchorage. The remains of a tidal fish trap of unknown age can be found in the small cove immediately southeast of the castle. Coeffin Castle, like Achadun Castle south of it, was constructed of local limestone rubble with prominent red and grey granite boulders. Lime mortar and coarse gravel infilled the walls. Split beach boulders were used in parts of the walls, and remains of the dressed stonework indicates that a buff-colored sandstone was employed, perhaps quarried at Ardtornish.
The remains of Castle Coeffin comprise an oblong Hall House and an irregularly shaped bailey. The hall had a mural fireplace and may be ascribed to the 13th C. Together they occupy the entire the summit of a small rocky promontory on the NW coast of Lismore. All the buildings are ruinous. The small narrow rocky promontory base controlled the shape of the Hall House built upon it. The Hall House is an irregular oblong measuring 65 ft. (20.3 m) from NE to SW and 35 ft. (10.4 m) transversely over walls 7 to 8 ft. (2.1 to 2.4 m) thick. The north angle was probably square cut originally but later rounded in the reconstruction of the mural staircase in that NE corner. These stairs within the walls in the N corner once led to the castle’s second floor and to the wall-walk that surrounded the roof. A short section of this stairway still survives.
The principal doorway to Coeffin Castle was situated in the NE wall and was probably approached from the bailey outside by climbing the steps of an outside stairway to ascend to the main doorway of the Hall House. A second doorway in the SW with a draw-bar socket gave access to the shore. A third doorway in the center of the NW wall was probably used as a hoisting-door for stores. Little remains of the courtyard or bailey from which the castle’s first floor was entered through a series of defenses and a fore stair leading to the main entrance door in the northeast wall. The bailey appears to have been designed principally to protect the main entrance, but the precise defenses are uncertain. Evidence of a mural chamber can be seen in the NE portion of the bailey wall. Most of the bailey appears to be of a later date, though some portions of it may date to the same period as the Hall House.
Photo of Coeffin Castle by Colin MacDougall
The Legend of Beothail and Castle Coeffin
In the days when Coeffin was a Norse stronghold Prince Caifean had a sister, and her name was Beothail. She was very beautiful and very good, and very dear not only to the hearts of her own but also to those of the native people as well; for she often tempered the fierce rudeness of her brother, Caifean.
Bha ‘gnuis mar ghatha na greine; Her countenance resembled the beams of the sun
Bha ‘ceuma mar cheol nan dan. Her steps resembled the music of songs.
Beothail of the golden hair lived here. She was very much in love with a young Viking warrior. When in far-off Lochlann (Scandinavia) her warrior lover was killed in the fierce wars of the North. Beothail grew pale with her grief and died of a broken heart. She was buried on top of a nearby escarpment. Though her grave was in a beautiful place she could not rest. In the wind that buffeted the walls of Coeffin came the pleading voice of the dead maiden begging her brother Caifean, to carry her bones to Lochlann. Hearing her grief, her father sent a ship from Lochlann to bring her body home. Finally, her bones were washed in the sacred spring of Saint Moluag (still called Tobar Cnamh Beothail, “Well of Beothail’s Bones”) at Clachan and, thus blessed, were carried home to Lochlann. Beothail was buried beside her lover’s grave. Still the voice came upon the ceaseless winds of the Lynn of Morvern. A bone was missing; she could not rest. The ship came back to find the bone left behind. A search was made, and the bone of her toe was found in the well where her remains had been washed. It too was carried to Lochlann and buried with her. Then the pleading ceased, though the restless winds often sound a maiden’s sigh around the walls of Coeffin.
Photo of Coeffin Castle by Colin MacDougall
References:
1 – Technical information has been provided by the Canmore Database of Historic Environment Scotland and their Coeffin Castle site may be visited at: https://canmore.org.uk/site/23093/lismore-castle-coeffin
2 – See also the Gazetteer for Scotland site Coeffin Castle at:
3 – Journeying in MacDougall Country by Walter M. Macdougall, Past President of the Clan MacDougall Society of North America on pages 25, 26, 193, 217, 218, 259, 260 contains descriptions and notes on this site. This excellent book is available from Lulu.com with profits going to the Dunollie Preservation Fund from its book sales at http://www.lulu.com/shop/walter-macdougall/journeying-in-macdougall-country/paperback/product-2242050.html
4 – The story of The Legend of Beothail and Castle Coeffin is recorded on pages 329-333 of Records of Argyll published by William Blackwood and Sons of Edinburgh and London in 1885.
5 – The Hazel Tree web site has good descriptions and lovely photos of Coffin Castle at http://www.thehazeltree.co.uk/2014/05/24/castle-coeffin-guarding-a-broken-heart/