Dun Feorlig

Visited on 6/4/17

NG 2993 4235

Easily accessed from the minor road off the A863, signposted Feorlig.   The only place to park nearby is to carefully tuck in a car at one end of a passing place slightly north of the broch.  It is a passing place, not a parking place, so one car max and a short stay if you are not to incur the wrath of locals or delivery vehicles going about their daily lives.  Access to the Dun requires crossing a small field marked "Beware of the bull".  He was not in residence when we visited.

Dun or Broch?

The name Feorlig  appears to be of Norse origin meaning farthing land.

Well, what can you say?   Possibly there is much more interesting stuff which is not visible above ground.  Who knows what an excavation might reveal?  

What is visible above ground is a small circle of raised turf with the occasional visible stone.  Is it a broch?  RCAHMS listed it as "uncertain example of a broch".  

All we could say is that it was a circular stone structure on a small promontory.  Beyond its circular shape, there is nothing to firmly identify it as a broch.

A couple of straight sided stones could indicate an entrance in the west.  There appears to be a small enclosed area to the north or north east, slightly lower than the "broch" which could be the remains of an outer enclosure .....shall we call it the kitchen garden?  courtyard?  Not really big enough to have enclosed any other structures.

Plan from Swanson

Straight edged stone which may indicate an entrance in west.  This would be what MacKie describes as "northern inner corner of the passage"

A hollow is clearly visible slightly north of west, across the "neck" of the promontory.  This has been described as a possible defensive ditch, (Donaldson-Blyth)  the remains of an outwork (Graham ) or simply a shallow ditch (MacKie). 
 


South of the broch are the ruins of another building, possibly a sheiling or black house (we didn't approach to examine it so can only guess) This structure could have been the beneficiary of the re-cycled stones from this broch/dun.

Trying to look into the origin of the name Dun Feorlig brings this description from Forbes

I found this description rather confusing.  Looking up “An Barpannan” reveals

So I began to wonder if there was some confusion with the Vatten chambered cairns which we have not investigated.  Returning to the original description of Dun Feorlig, I concentrated on the “two duns beside each other”.  The only two we were aware of, on our Harlosh visit, were Dun Neill and Dun Feorlig – surely too far apart to be confused. 

Then I considered the current township named Dunanellerich.  Dunan seemed to me, with my limited knowledge of Gaelic to be the plural of Dun.  A quick check on pastmap.org revealed the possible existence of two more duns;

https://canmore.org.uk/site/77972/skye-dunanellerich

https://canmore.org.uk/site/10859/skye-dunelireach

A further check on Forbes place names confused me further.

Dun Elireach, Dunelirich, Dun Mellerick, Dunenillerich, Dunenillcrick… fort of the stranger …but also same as  Dun a Chlerich – fort of the clerics. 

Given the siting of a possibly important, early chapel in the area “Dun a Chlerich may have been a relevant name.  So it seems there has been as much confusion in the past as in the present.

Overall, are we any further on in our understanding of this area?  Probably not much, but there can be no doubt that it has been a very significant area of human habitation, since probably at the very least, iron age and probably much earlier.

 

References:

Donaldson-Blyth, Ian (1995),  In search of Prehistoric Skye, Thistle Press 

Forbes, Alexander Robert (1923) Place names of Skye and Adjacent Islands. Paisley Alexander Gardener (Photostat in Portree Library)

 
 Graham A and Mackie E in Canmore record 

https://canmore.org.uk/site/10864/skye-dun-feorlig retrieved 8/4/17

Swanson, C B. (1988) A contribution to the understanding of brochs, Unpublished Ph D thesis, University of Edinburgh.