Visualising Lord of the Isles’ lost Islay home

Experts at St Andrews University have digitally recreated the lost medieval home of the Lords of the Isles.

Major archaeological work by the National Museum of Scotland has enabled the Fife university’s Open Virtual Worlds Team, and spin-out company Smart History, to visually reconstruct Finlaggan in the early 15th Century – a time when it was the administrative and ceremonial centre of the Lordship of the Isles.

The Lords of the Isles ruled the Hebrides and parts of mainland Scotland and Ulster during the Middle Ages, with the Lordship traditionally held by the MacDonald family.

Scottish kings sought to curtail the MacDonalds’ influence and James IV sent a military expedition to sack Finlaggan on Islay in the 1490s.

The reconstruction shows what Finlaggan may have resembled at its height.

Documentary research and comparison with other sites has been used to ensure the reconstruction is as accurate as possible.