The Mighty MacCailean Mór

No Scottish clan is as controversial as the Campbells. Yet, says Ian Bradley, the opening of its Argyll Mausoleum offers a chance to re-assess a contentious past.

The recent restoration and opening to the public of one of Scotland's most intriguing and long-hidden buildings provides an opportunity to re-assess the achievements of a clan that has provoked more controversy and animosity than any other.

The Argyll Mausoleum, a strange circular structure that stands behind the parish church at Kilmun on the Holy Loch in the Cowal peninsula north of Dunoon, houses the bodies of virtually all the chiefs of the Clan Campbell who died between 1453 and 1949. It is difficult to think of any other building which encapsulates the history of a leading family over five centuries so powerfully and evocatively. The inscriptions on its tombs, which have hitherto been sealed up and hidden from public view, and the stories told of successive earls and dukes of Argyll in the excellent museum, which has been established in the entrance area of the adjacent church, bring to life the exploits and ethos of the clan that long dominated the religious, political and cultural life of the West Highlands and Islands of Scotland and had an influence far beyond that region.

The Campbells could certainly do with some good publicity. They have not had a good press, perhaps inevitably considering their power and also because they have had their share of black sheep and have sometimes shown arrogance and insensitivity. The unpopularity of the Campbell lairds of Jura, whose hold over the island lasted from 1666 to 1938, is perpetuated in the name of the most expensive and long matured Jura single malt whisky. It is called Prophecy, after the prediction of an elderly woman that the line would eventually come to an end with a one-eyed man leaving the island on a white horse. In the event, the personal possessions of the last laird, Charles Campbell, who had a glass eye, were carried to the pier at Craighouse in a cart drawn by a white horse.


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