Birlinns - ancient galleys

At Dunollie House, Oban, volunteers are restoring a wooden birlinn, Galley Aileach. She was constructed in Ireland in 1991, after an ancient design, and named after a Scottish princess who married an Irish King
(See the Dunollie website for more details).

Stone carvings of birlinns appear through the Highlands and islands:  there is a lovely example carved on a cross in the Abbey Museum on Iona.

 

Perhaps the most famous carved stone birlinn is found on the tomb of Alasdair Crotach Macleod, in St Clement's Church, Rodel, on the Isle of Harris.

There is a birlinn on the base of the Celtic cross at Dunollie Castle, Oban - a memorial to James MacDougall who died in 1953.  The memorial is covered in lichen and the birlinn is a little difficult to see clearly.

Indeed, birlinns feature on the MacDougall coat of arms - here the personal arms of Madam MacDougall of MacDougall, the present clan chief.  This birlinn is the famous 'Galley of Lorne' and is a tribute to the Norse origins of the MacDougalls, who are descended from Somerled, the Norse/Gaelic warlord who held power in the West of Scotland in the mid twelfth century.