If you have any doubts about your
ability to drive a car then this little excursion is definitely
not for you. Ask yourself the following questions
1) Can I drive on a single track roads?
2) Can I drive in reverse?
3) Can I do a hill start?
4) Can I do a hill start in reverse?
5) Can I do a hill start in reverse and on sharp bend?
If the answer to any or all of these is "no" then please don't bother with the Ord road. I hasten to add that the road itself has a decent surface on it but it is single track with passing places and there are quite few sharp hills and blind bends.
So for those of you who have not been put off by what I have said up to now, this is quite a scenic little excursion. It does not really matter which way you do the route because it starts and ends on the main road which goes from Armadale to Broadford. so do it clockwise, or anti- clockwise, take your pick.
The principal points of interest are a rather pretty beach at Ord which overlooks Loch Eishort and the ruined Castle at Dunscaith
You can be glad that this site does not incorporate smellorama.
In 1979 I was at Dunscaith and my eyes, and more especially my nose, alerted me to the fact that a smallish whale had died on the beach. I say smallish, I mean it by whale standards. Actually it was the size of a decent sized truck and was decomposing with a considerable pong.
I don't suppose there was much to be done about it. Would you like to take responsibility for burying something the size of a couple of minibuses which had expired on rocky ground?
I am told that the name "Dunscaith" means in the Gaelic language "the fort of gloom ".
I know little of the history of the Castle, apart from the fact that it was a seat of the Macdonalds, of Sleat. the earliest documentary evidence of the castle is in 1505 and the last recorded mention of it is in 1572.
One of my prized posessions is an old 1905 guide to Skye (now sadly out of print and almost forgotten) by J.C. MacCulloch. Of Dunscaith he says:
"It stands on an isolated
rock, separated from the land by a deep ravine once crossed by
a drawbridge, and the existing ruins show traces of the ancient
dungeon and draw-well.....
In 1449 when the lands of Skye passed formally to the Macdonalds,
Dunskaith (sic) became the property of Hugh of Sleat, son of John,
Lord of the Isles. Yet after, when it had passed into the hands
of his collateral descendant, Donald Gruamach or the grim (after
a series of rapid changes of owners, sieges, and treacherous murders),
his cousin Ranald came on a visit to Dunskaith from North Uist.
The Gruamach's wife was a Clanranald, and was entertaining twelve
of her clansmen on Ranald's arrival. Perhaps he had a private
feud with Clanranald, perhaps he was of a morbidly touchy nature,
but disgust seized his soul, and early one morning he slew the
twelve men and hung them up on a wall opposite the lady's window.
Then he sought his cousin and told him he must go. Donald pressed
him to stay until his wife could bid him farewell. "No, I
must go; for she will not thank me for my morning's work when
she looks out of her bedroom window." Nor did she; and sometime
after, Ranald was assassinated by her steward and at her order."
To me one of the saddest things about ruins on Skye is that they
are getting increasingly ruinous. Nobody seems to care for them.
Ancient monuments in England are usually in the care of an organisation
called English Heritage. There does not seem to be any Scottish
equivalent covering Skye. It is sad to think that not many more
generations will see many of these ruins. They will have crumbled
away completely. That is a pity.
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Copyright © Gareth Boote 2007