Qualla: Duntulm Castle

Duntulm Castle: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrew Wood, CC BY-SA 2.0. Walk to the edge of the cliff at the top of Trotternish and the castle is barely a castle anymore. A few sections of wall, a corner that might have been a tower, the green and stone footprint of what was once the seat of the MacDonalds of Sleat. The Minch opens to the north, the Outer Hebrides smudging the horizon, and the wind has the place largely to itself. Duntulm was once the loudest power on Skye. Now it is a scheduled monument that the sheep wander past. The story it tells is not about defence. It is about what happened to clan chieftains when their world ran out.

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Image: Andrew Wood | CC BY-SA 2.0

Duntulm Castle: Before the Castle, a Dun

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shitha Valsan, CC BY-SA 4.0. Locals long believed that, in prehistoric times, a broch or dun called Dun David - Dun Dhaibhidh in Gaelic - stood on this headland. The position invites it: a sheer drop to the sea on three sides, a clear sightline up and down the coast, water at the foot of the cliff. No archae...

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Image: Shitha Valsan | CC BY-SA 4.0

Duntulm Castle: MacLeod and MacDonald

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dave Fergusson, CC BY-SA 2.0. The medieval castle was built in the 14th and 15th centuries, when northern Skye was being torn between two clans. The MacLeods held Trotternish from their seat at Dunvegan in the west. The Macdonalds, descendants of the Lords of the Isles, pushed up from the south. Trotternish c...

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Image: Dave Fergusson | CC BY-SA 2.0

Duntulm Castle: A Roof, Then No Roof

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MarieStockholm, CC BY 3.0. By the early 18th century, the MacDonalds had moved their main seat south to Monkstadt and then to Armadale, on the more sheltered Sleat peninsula at the southern end of Skye. Duntulm was abandoned. Like many highland castles unroofed by their owners, it began to dissolve back in...

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Image: MarieStockholm | CC BY 3.0