Scotland · Ruin
Castle Sween
Castle Sween is an early medieval stone castle on the eastern shore of Loch Sween in Knapdale, Argyll, Scotland. Built in the late 11th century and later augmented with stone towers, its surviving curtain walls and towers stand on a rocky knoll above the loch and are managed by Historic Environment Scotland.
Its prime
1550
Today
Ruin
As it stood in 1550
What Castle Sween looked like in its prime.
Perched on a rocky knoll at the waterline of Loch Sween, the castle reads as an irregular rectangular curtain enclosing a grass-covered interior, built of grey, weathered rubble masonry. Two roughly square stone towers project from the curtain, one with an external stone stair, and there are wide gaps where entrances and window openings puncture the walls. Roofs are absent at prime but the walls and towers rise as continuous stone forms above the surrounding grassy slope and coastal rocks.
Its story
The story of Castle Sween.
Suibhne's Stone Castle on Loch Sween
Castle Sween — Caisteal Suibhne — stands on the eastern shore of Loch Sween in Knapdale, south of Achnamara on the west coast of Argyll, and is thought to be one of the earliest stone castles built in Scotland. The building is dated to the late 11th century and attributed to Suibhne, son of Hugh Anrahan and brother of the king of Ulster and High King of Ireland, from whom it takes its name.
What went up in stone did not go up all at once. The towers were later additions to wooden structures that have since vanished entirely.
The MacSweens Dispossessed, and Edward II's Grant of 1310
The MacSweens still held the lands around the castle as late as the thirteenth century, but by the second half of it Knapdale had passed to the Stewart/Menteith family. The dispossessed line did not let the claim go. In 1310 Edward II of England granted John MacSween and his brothers their family's ancestral lands of Knapdale — on the condition that they oust John Menteith.
The Gaelic poem Dál chabhlaigh ar Chaistéal Suibhne may be about that attempt: if MacSween and his lost Scottish homeland are indeed its subject, the poem may well record an expedition to retake Castle Sween in about 1310. The Menteiths kept it regardless. When John Menteith died in 1323 the Lordship of Arran and Knapdale passed in turn to his son and his grandson.
The Lords of the Isles and Their Castellans, 1376–1490
In 1376 half of Knapdale, the castle included, came to John MacDonald I, Lord of the Isles, by a grant from his father-in-law Robert II. The MacDonalds held it for a century and a half and set others over it as castellans: MacNeils first, and later MacMillans.
One of those constables is remembered because his widow wrote about him. Aithbhreac Inghean Coirceadal, who flourished around 1460, composed a lament addressed to the rosary of her late husband, a tacksman of Clan MacNeil and a former constable of Castle Sween. Preserved in the 16th-century manuscript known as The Book of the Dean of Lismore, it remains a highly important poem in Scottish Gaelic literature. In 1490 James IV granted the castle to Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll.
Burnt by Alasdair MacColla, 1647
The castle's end as a working stronghold came during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In 1647 Alasdair MacColla and his Irish Confederate followers attacked Castle Sween and burnt it.
In 1933 the castle was placed in the care of the Historic Building and Monuments Directorate, and it is now protected as a scheduled monument under Historic Environment Scotland, which in a 2018 report judged the site to be at "very high risk" of coastal erosion driven by climate change.
Step inside
6 places to explore in 1550.
The record describes 6 distinct spots at Castle Sween, including 1 interior: inner courtyard (bailey). Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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Clans who held Castle Sween.
The families that held Castle Sween for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
MacSween
The MacSweens' ancestral seat in Knapdale; Edward II granted John MacSween the family's lost lands in 1310 on condition he oust John Menteith.
Menteith
Held by the Stewart/Menteith family; after John Menteith's death in 1323 Knapdale passed to his son and grandson.
Granted with half of Knapdale to John MacDonald I, Lord of the Isles, by Robert II in 1376.
Granted to Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll, by James IV in 1490.
