Tiree, Dunan Nighean

NL94SE 1 9559 4014.

(NL 9559 4014) Dunan Nighean (NR)

OS 6"map, Argyllshire, 2nd ed., (1900)

A dun, with an interior diameter of about 18 ft, standing within an enclosure, 50 ft by 60 ft, which occupies the summit of the outer element of a segmented peninsula. Traces of one or two smaller erections lie on lower ground to the SW, and a series of small kitchen-middens lie along the N edge of the site. The inner segment of the peninsula, (separated from the outer by a 'sloc' 2 1/2 ft wide and from the shore by one 5ft wide) bears on its summit the foundations of an old building about 15 ft by 19 ft over the walls. Pottery from the dun is in the Beveridge Collection in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS).

E Beveridge 1903; C M Piggott 1954.

All that survives at this site is an amorphous turf- covered mound with a few large boulders protruding from the top. There are no intelligible remains of a dun although midden material protrudes from several places around the promontory, which is reached by a narrow artificial causeway.

Visited by OS (R D) 27 June 1972.

The name should be either Dun na Nighean or Dun nan Nighean, depending on whether the meaning is 'Fort of the Maiden' or 'Fort of the Maidens'.

Information from I Fraser, (School of Scottish Studies) 24 October 1974.

(NL 9559 4014) Dunan Nighean (NR) (site of)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1976)

Dun, Dunan Nighean: The severely denuded remains of this dun occupy the NE corner of a large rocky stack situated on the seashore immediately W of Balephuil village. The sides of the stack present sheer or steeply sloping rock-faces up to 10m high, but access may be gained from the E across the narrow fissure that separates the stack from the rocky boss lying immediately to landward.

The dun appears to have been roughly oval on plan and to have measured approximately 17m from NE to SW by 12m transversely within a stone wall, which has been reduced to an irregular band of stony debris, nowhere more than 4m thick and now largely grass-covered. A single stretch and two individual stones of the outer face can still be seen about 2m below the summit of the stack on the N, but no inner facing-stones appear to have survived. The entrance probably lay on the NE, facing the mainland, but its exact position is no longer apparent. The interior has been extensively disturbed, probably in the course of robbing stone from the dun wall. Additional protection has been provided on the landward side by an outer wall, which now appears for the most part as a scatter of core material, although a short stretch of outer face can still be seen at one point, filling up a natural cleft in the rock.

The deposit of sand, stones and midden material that chokes the N end of the gully lying immediately to the E of the dun appears to have been revetted with stone on its N side, presumably to form a causeway providing a less precarious means of access to the stack. However, the single large boulder that is at present wedged at the narrowest point of the gully on the S side of the causeway has probably fallen from the ruins of the dun wall. The provision of this causeway suggests that in a secondary phase the dun ceased to serve a purely defensive purpose and as at Dun Mor, Vaul (NM04NW 3) passed into domestic use. The sub-rectangular foundations occupying the summit of the rocky boss to landward are presumably of comparatively recent date.

Among the artifacts found in the middens adjacent to the dun (noted by

E Beveridge and C M Piggott 1954) are sherds of coarse native pottery similar to that found in brochs and wheel-houses, tools of stone and bone, the upper stone of a rotary quern, and spindle-whorls, as well as a deposit of clay probably intended for the manufacture of pottery.

RCAHMS 1980, visited 1974.