MACEACHERN'S CROSS, KILKERRAN CEMETERY, CAMPBELTOWN.
Norman S. Newton
In Kilkerran Cemetery are two portions of the shaft of a cross, erected to commemorate Colin MacEachern and his wife Katherine. The base is on the site of the mediaeval church, surrounded by the graves of later MacEacherns, while the upper part lies with other stones near the cemetery entrance.
INSCRIPTION:
At the top of the front of the shaft is a 12-line inscription in Latin, in a style of lettering known as Lombardic Capitals, suggesting a date of before 1500:
HEC E/ST CR/VX CA/LENI / MACHEA/CHYR/NA ET / KATI/RINE / VXOR/IS E/IVS
"This is the cross of Colin MacEachern and his wife Katherine'
The Latin Calenus or Colinus, is for the Gaelic personal name Cailean. Macheachyrna is from Gaelic Mac, 'son of", each, 'horse' and tighearna, 'lord' - 'son of the horse lords. The name also appears on the Campheltown Cross of around 1380 (from which it may have been copied) commemorating Ivor and Andrew MacEachern, father and son, successive pastors at Kilkivan, near the village of Machrihanish, to the west of Campbeltown. We know from contemporary documents that Colin MacEachern was chief of the MacEacherns of Killellan, in the neighbouring parish of Kilblane (Kilblaan), now part of Southend parish. A royal charter of 1499 confirmed him in the office of inner of South Kintyre, a hereditary post granted to him by John, the last Lord of the Isles; he was also confirmed in grants of land at Killellan and other lands In the parish of Kilblane. As all the lands of the Lordship were forfeited In 1493, Colin MacEachern must have been the chief by that year, and perhaps even by 1475, when John's lands in Kintyre were forfeited.(1) The MacEacherns held Killellan until about 1740, when the male line came to an end.(2) In 1507 Colin was given the office of Chamberlain for South Kintyre, and granted further lands, which he had been leasing previously from the Earl of Argyll. These lands included Glenramskillmore, which we know was given to the church of Kilkerran by Colin before 1507, thus establishing a connection with the church where the cross dedicated to Colin MacEachern and his wife is found.
In 1511 Colin's eldest son Malcolm was granted some of the MacEachern lands, including Killellan. We know that Colin was still alive at that date, as the grant included a provision that he should be allowed to enjoy the fruits of these lands for his lifetime. By 1525 his second son Andrew had succeeded him, but there is no record of Colin's death.
Colin had previously applied to the Church, in 1510,
for legitimation of his six sons: Malcolm, Andrew, John, Donald, Eachann
and Niall, probably in preparation for the grant of lands to Malcolm and
to make the ownership of the clan lands more secure for his successors. Apart
from being born out of wedlock, the most common reason for such an application
at this time was that the parents were too closely related, thus infringing
the forbidden degrees of kinship between partners.
DECORAT ION
Under the Inscription, the front of the MacEachern Cross has two small panels: in the left panel is a pair of shears, perhaps symbolising Colin's involvement in the cloth industry, while the right panel is blank. Below is a niche containing a man and a woman embracing - presumably Colin and Katherine - and a warrior on horseback, with sword, spear, spurs and pointed helmet. At the bottom of the shaft is a galley with sails furled, showing the masts and rigging. The hinged rudder characteristic of the West Highland biorlinn is clearly visible, and there is a shield embossed with a trefoil between the prow and the rigging. Traditionally the adoption of the hinged rudder is attributed to Somerled, ancestor of the MacDonald Lords of the Isles who ruled Kintyre and the Western isles from the 12th century until the last forfeiture in 1493.
The reverse side of the shaft has at its top a square panel of plaitwork interlaced with four rings. Below it, in a niche, is a Crucifixion scene, showing Christ being speared by two soldiers. The rest of the shaft is made up of interlaced foliage, terminating at the bottom in a dragon or griffin attacking another beast. The edges of the shaft are decorated with a variety of patterns: a leaf-scroll (which ends in a dragon's head) and a T-fret design on the right edge; a three-cord ribbon plait and a straight fret on the left edge. (3)(4)
The style of decoration suggests that this cross
is a product of the Kintyre school of carving based at Saddell Abbey from
c 1425 to c 1500.(5) It is very similar to the cross at Kilkerran
commemorating Gliclirist MacKay and his wife, arid to the cross at Saddell
Abbey for an Alexander (the rest of the inscription is missing). Fragments
of a cross-shaft from Kilchousland, two miles north--east of Caupheltown,
can be seen in the Campbeltown Museum. Another fragment of a cross-head has
recently come to light at Saddell. It was common for such crosses to be erected
during the lifetime of the persons honoured, and taking into account the
documentary evidence, artistic style and lettering It seems likely that the
MacEachern Gross was made in the 1490s; thus it is over a hundred years younger
than the Campbeltown Cross, which from its inscription and style was carved
at Iona around 1380.(6)
Apart from the Saddell crosses, nothing survives of the cross-heads to indicate their design. At Saddell, enough survives to be able to say with assurance that the heads had the shape of a cross-patonce.(7) This is seen fully preserved on the cross at inveraray, which, like the disk-headed Campbeltown Cross, was made on Iona. The choice of cross-head was probably a matter of preference by the person commissioning the work.
Recent work on the late mediaeval carved stones of the West Highlands has identified five different schools of carving, based in workshops at Iona, Saddell, Loch Awe (Kilmartin), Loch Sween (Kilmory) and Oronsay. The Iona school dates from 1350, and has its own distinctive style. After 1500 the lettering used in all the workshops changed from Lombardic capitals to the style known as black letter: this transition took place in England about 150 years earlier.
REFERENCES
(1) STEER, K A and BANNERNAN, J.W.M., Late medieval monumental sculpture in the West Highlands, RCAHMS, 1977, no. 99, 157-8.
(2) MCKERRAL, Andrew, Kintyre in the seventeenth century, Oliver and Boyd, 1948, 10-11.
(3) WHITE, T P, Archaeological sketches in Scotland: District of Kintyre, Blackwood, 1873, 95 and Plate VIII.
(4) ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE ANCIENT AND HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF SCOTLAND, Argyll: an inventory of ancient monuments, Vol 1: Kintyre, RCAHMS, 1971, no. 285/3, 126.
(5) STEER and BANNERMAN, op cit, 44-50.
(6) Ibid, no. 104, 159-160.
(7) Ibid, 33, FIg. 7.4
No.24 Autumn 1988
Page 2: Mink - A Disaster
Page 4: Sheriff Court, Tarbert, 1683
Page 5: A Song for St. Clair on His Departure
Page 6: Rathlin // The Tory Hunters
Page 7: A Wedding at Kilchousland
Page 8: By Hill and Shore - from Mr. Angus Martin
Page 9: Daniel Kelly // Aedanus Scotorum Rex // The Auchenhoan Axe Hoard