Massacre Cave gives up its grisly secrets af ter 450 years
IT is one of Scotland’s most horrific episodes of bitter clan rivalry – when almost 400 islanders were massacred as they hid in a cave.
The story of the slaughter of 390 men, women and children of the MacDonald clan on the Hebridean island of Eigg remains largely untold.
Now more clues about the terrible history of Massacre Cave have been revealed. Last October, tourists stumbled across 53 bones in the cave. They informed police, who in turn contacted Historic Environment Scotland (HES).
Archaeologists have now dated the bones to the time of the massacre.
The cave on Eigg’s south coast gets its name from the story of a party of MacLeods who visited the isle in 1577. Legend has it they caused trouble with the local girls.
As a result, the men of Eigg rounded them up and cast them adrift on a boat. They were rescued but vowed to return and take their revenge – and the following spring did just that.
When the islanders saw the MacLeods approaching from Skye, they fled to the Cave of Francis. The entrance was low and covered in undergrowth but the islanders crawled into a larger cavern, where they hid.
After a fruitless two-day search the MacLeods decided to return to Skye but as they sailed for home they spotted an islander who had left the cave.
The MacLeods returned to the island and followed his route to the islanders’ hiding place.
They piled thatch and timbers at the cave entrance and set fire to it, damping the flames so that the cave filled with smoke.
Some 390 people died, either by smoke inhalation or from the heat and oxygen deprivation. Only one family escaped to tell the tale.
Almost 250 years later, author Sir Walter Scott visited the cave and found human bones. In 1979, a boy on holiday visited the cave and found a human skull.
Yet the recent find of 53 bones has baffled islanders.
Maggie Fyffe of the Eigg Heritage Trust said: ‘It is puzzling that in all the years that people have visited the cave, they were only found last October. It is not like it’s one or two. We are glad the archaeologists have cleared up the mystery and we would like them returned so they can be interred in the graveyard.’
Dr Kirsty Owen, senior archaeology manager at HES, said the bones were radiocarbon dated to between AD 1430 and 1620. She added: ‘This would tie in with the cave being the resting place of most of the population of Eigg following the massacre of 1577.
‘This is an extremely tragic story that is not widely known or fully understood. There are likely to be more bones in the cave – but we are treating it like a war grave and will not proactively look for them.
‘But if more finds are discovered, we would like to be informed.’