This photograph shows Duart Castle on Argyll’s Isle of Mull, seat of the Chief of Clan Maclean since it was reopened in 1912.

Built as a fortress, it sits on a ‘the black height’, commanding the Sound of Lorn and the approaches to the Sound of Mull. From its battlements you can see south west to the Isle of Scarbha, south east across the south end of the Isle of Lismore to Oban, north east to Ben Nevis and north to the great hulking landmass of Morvern.

The eldest daughter of the Maclean Clan Chief carries the title of the Maid of Morvern.

Duart also overlooks a rock off the Isle of Lismore, where an ancestor of the current Clan Chief, Sir Lachlan Maclean, chained his wife at low tide. She had borne no sons but, as sister to the then Earl of Argyll could not be easily set aside. The rising tide was to do the job. However, unknown to Maclean, his wife’s brother discovered where she was and set sail to her rescue.

That night a distressed Maclean revealed to the Earl of Argyll the awful news that his wife had drowned. The Earl received the news with a degree of equanimity, saying simply that there would only be one guest for dinner that night. Curtains were drawn back from the door and the ‘guest’ came in. The conversation that came next must have been an interesting one.

The Macleans twice lost Duart to the Campbells. The first time, in 1674, was when they were pressed to repay substantial debts to the Duke of Argyll. They recovered it when the King fell out with Argyll, only to lose it again in 1691 when Argyll returned to the King’s favour. Such was the capricious nature of the time.

Duart became ruined, roofless and crumbling. In 1910 Sir Fitzroy Maclean bought Duart back and set himself to rebuild and restore it as the seat of the Clan Chief. Work began in 1911 and was finished in around three years, before the first World War broke out in June 1914. There were around forty men employed on the site but the challenge was literally monumental. Forty men today, with today’s equipment, might well not complete that job in that time.

The first World War saw a unique return of emigrant Macleans to their home continent. Canadian Macleans, largely in New Brunswick, raised the 236th Overseas Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, known as the ‘Maclean Kilties‘.

They were eventually based in Fredericton in New Brunswick, their name – ‘The Maclean Kilties of New Brunswick’. After training, they were finally  embarked for England on HMT Canada (His Majesty’s Troopship), arriving in Liverpool on November 19th  1917. They then had a final name change to ‘The Maclean Kilties of America’.

They were used as a reserve battalion, broken up and deployed to bring other depleted battalions up to strength. Many members saw distinguished action in the war and then witnessed the Battalion’s disbanding at the end of it in 1918.

The battalion colours were presented to them shortly after their arrival in England, at Seaford Camp, by Sir Fitzroy Maclean, Clan Chief of the time. The colours now hang in the Great Hall at Duart, a sight rarely seen in a private house. The battalion in turn presented Sir Fitzroy with a Sgian Dubh which is also still at Duart.

Sir Fitzroy Maclean, epic rebuilder of Duart – fittingly for a man of such prodigious energies – lived into his nineties. He saw off his eldest son who died in his early sixties without becoming Clan Chief. This meant that Fitzroy’s grandson, Charles – Chips Maclean, a major figure in British scouting – became chief in his late teens. As Sir Lachlan says, this was a hard transition. His father had little guidance or example to follow and had to work out his role as he went along.

His son, the 28th Clan Chief, Sir Lachlan Maclean,sees his contribution to Duart as conservationist – repairing and developing the building, creating not a museum but a living home to which his children regularly return. To keep the roof on the place – owners of castles are perpetually stressed about roofing – he has progressively opened it to the public, hosting a range of family oriented events like orienteering and treasure hunts for children.

Last year, in 2008, Duart Castle received the Award for Tourism Excellence, sponsored by Caledonian MacBrayne. Yesterday (2nd March), organised for Duart by Oban-based Pure Shores Public Relations and Events company and supported by Tobermory Distillery, the castle launched an extended programme of events for 2009.

The orienteering and treasure hunts for children continue but are joined by Childrens’ Tours. Sir Lachlan seems to have taken particular pleasure in devising these. Remembering his own boyhood – with the standard punishment for misbehaviour being 250 turns of the butter churn – he has created ‘the alternative tour’.

This will not be a matter of parading carefully around the major rooms of the castle, getting to know something of its history and of its succession of Maclean occupants. This will be about dungeons, spiral stairs, cannonballs found lodged in the walls of the castle when Sir Fitzroy rebuilt it – and about role playing, with groups of children cast as different branches of the Maclean clan. This could be anarchy.

Then there will be:

• two free reenactments by the Fraser Dragooners of the 1647 Siege of Duart by the Campbells
• ceilidhs – family ceilidhs and adult ceilidhs, held in a restored byre below the castle and led by Mull’s Calum Maclean and his ceilidh band
• a performance of Island Nights, ending in a ceilidh, and presented by Mull Theatre
• regular storytelling about Macleans, from the scurrilous to the romantic to the poignant – and plaid demostrations, from Clan Bard, or Seanachaidh, Scot Ansgeulaiche
• a performance within the annual Mendelssohn on Mull Festival, celebrating the composer’s Hebridean Overture, also known as Fingal’s Cave and written out of the experience of a visit to that cave on the nearby Isle of Staffa

A major development is a series of intimate tours of the castle, adding some of the private rooms to those normally open to the public and led by the Clan Chief himself. These tours will be for 15-20 people and will be pre-booked. They will finish up in the sitting room where, over refreshments, visitors will have the chance to chat informally to Sir Lachlan.

He has stories to tell that grip the imagination. One is of his Great Great Grandmother who died in childbirth, as did her son. The baby died after twelve days and she died on the following day. The first thought is of the cruelty that let her live just long enough to know that her son had died. Sir Lachlan’s insight is that she lived for twelve days, willing her baby to survive and that when he died she had no fight left for herself. She and her husband, Charles, were a devoted couple. He never remarried and died at the age of thirty six.

His wife and child were said to have been buried in Gibraltar. Some years ago Sir Lachlan and his late wife, Lady Mary, went to Gibraltar and found the grave, still in good condition in a heavily overgrown and neglected graveyard.

And there are stories of the first recorded Maclean – Gilleain of the Battleaxe, of Hector Mor, of Lachlan Cattanach… These tours will be a unique experience to hear and see clan and family history and, like the castle itself, brought back to life not preserved in formaldehyde but living again in the man telling the tale.

Details and dates of the Duart events for 2009 can be found on the Duart Castle website or from Pure Shores at +44 (0) 1631 569 651 (Mob: 07791573247).

Getting there is very straightforward. The  CalMac ferry from Oban delivers visitors to the jetty at Craignure on Mull, two minutes from the Isle of Mull Hotel and twenty minutes drive from Duart. And CalMac offer a ticket that includes the return ferry crossing from Oban to Mull, a coach return to Duart and entry to the Castle.

Recruiting Poster for the 236th Battalion, the Maclean Kilties.

The photographs above are by copyright holder Dee Rudiger of DeeVA Design. They show, from the top:

• Castle Duart from the west
• the inner courtyard at Castle Duart, restored and developed by Sir Fitzroy Maclean
• Sir Lachlan Maclean, the current and 28th Chief of Clan Maclean
• Cannon balls found lodged in the walls of Duart Castle during Sir Fitzroy’s restoration
• A glimpse into the spiral stair running the height of the castle to the battlements
• The Clan Chief’s Standard flying from Duart Castle

Related Posts

• Video News: Sir Lachlan Maclean on developments at Duart Castle (0)
• Highland Chief meets Northern Belle (2)
• This is Argyll: Tobermory, Mull (4)
• Mull Theatre take children time travelling at Duart Castle (0)
• Duart Castle welcomes invaders for 2010 (0)

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