St Moluag's Cathedral, Lismore

St Moluag’s Cathedral stands on the island of Lismore, a small limestone ridge in the Inner Hebrides off Oban. The present church was built in 1749 as the parish church but it occupies the choir of a much older cathedral from the 13th century. The medieval builders used local stone and the remains of earlier structures to create a modest bishop’s seat for the medieval Diocese of Argyll. The cathedral began as a monastery founded in the 6th century by Saint Moluag, a contemporary of Columba. By the 13th century it had become the seat of the Bishop of Argyll or the Isles, though the diocese was one of Scotland’s poorest. Bishop Laurence de Ergadia started the cathedral around 1262 and Bishop Martin added the western tower between 1342 and 1387. In 1749 the choir was lowered, new windows were cut, and the nave and tower were reduced to foundations. Inside the church three medieval doorways survive, one blocked and another once leading through the pulpitum screen. A piscina and a triple-arched sedilia remain in the sanctuary. Late medieval grave slabs lie in the church and the adjoining graveyard. The building still serves the Lismore congregation of the Church of Scotland, linked with Appin Parish Church on the mainland.