Dunscaith Castle

Dunscaith Castle stands on a rocky outcrop off the Sleat peninsula on the Isle of Skye. The rock rises twelve metres above the sea and is separated from the mainland by a six-metre gap. A stone bridge once crossed this gap, its arches spaced one point eight metres apart, ending in a drawbridge whose pivot holes remain. Beyond the drawbridge a doorway led to a walled stairway that climbed to the castle. The castle is also called the Fortress of Shadows and is linked to the warrior maiden Scáthach, who trained the hero Cú Chulainn here. The castle began in the 1300s as a stronghold for Gilbert MacAskill, grandson of the Norse explorer Ascall mac Ragnaill. The MacAskills held it until the Clan MacDonald of Sleat took it before 1395. In the 14th century the Clan MacLeod seized the castle, only for the MacAskills to regain it briefly with MacLeod support. The MacDonalds recaptured it in the 15th century and later lost it to King James IV of Scotland, who allowed them to keep it. By the early 17th century the MacDonalds had abandoned the site and it gradually fell into ruin. Parts of the curtain wall still stand on the cliff edge, about one point five metres thick, while the inner buildings have disappeared. A well survives in the courtyard along with the remains of a stairway that once rose to a tower. The castle appears in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology as the training ground of Scáthach, whose name gives the site its Irish form, Dún Scáthaigh. The setting offers views across the Sound of Sleat towards the mainland hills.