MacEachern Cross at Kilkerran Cemetery

From: Carlton McEachern    carlton.mceachern@sympatico.ca

Ian. Here is a follow up to an article from 1999 Kintyre Mag by Norman S Newton. I was in Kilkerran this past July and managed to get a shot of the two pieces of the cross despite the fact that I almost got washed away by the downpour. I have attached the 2 photos to this email in low res format. You may want to use this in the next issue along with a reprint of the original article. I loved Islay and the rest of Scotland all the way to the Orkneys. I'll be back.

Just a reminder to your readers that my genealogy site is growing - visitors are welcome
http://www3.sympatico.ca/carlton.mceachern/Genealogy/surname.htm
 

Carlton writes:

    It was one of those days that tourists hate.  Wet, cold, foggy and wet.  Did I mention wet.  My son Andrew and I were on the Kintyre in search of the McEachern cross at Kilkerran Cemetery.  Back in Canada we would have been out in the canoe on a fine day in July but here in Scotland we sat peering through the windscreen of our rented Kia van as we wove our way down the peninsula to Campbeltown.

    We stopped at the Kennacraig ferry terminal to buy our tickets for the crossing to Islay later that day and then we made the final dash the rest of the way to grab a quick lunch in Campbeltown before going in search of the cemetery.

    Kilkerran refers to a location on the Kintyre peninsula, which is now a suburb of Campbeltown.  Kilkerran means Ciaran's Church or place and for many centuries, Campbeltown was known as Kinloch Kilkerran or 'The Head of the Loch of the Church of Ciaran'.  Who was Ciaran you might well ask?  He was an Irish monk who first journeyed to Kintyre in 536 AD, a full 27 years before the arrival of his famous contemporary Columba.  It is said he made his home in a cave on the shore of Auchenhoan, about a mile along the coast from the mouth of the Campbeltown Loch.  He began his missionary work in the Campbeltown area, founding the first Christian church on the site of what is now Kilkerran Cemetery.   The shaft of the cross with the McEachern name still stands at the entrance to the cemetery.  This damaged Celtic cross represents a significant historical artifact for the McEachern family.

    I first learned of the McEachern cross at Kilkerran in the Web Edition of Kintyre Magazine, a publication of the Kintyre Antiquarian and Natural History Society.  An article by Norman S. Newton provided a detailed description and narrative about the inscription on the shaft of the MacEachern Cross at Kilkerran as well as comments on its style.  It appears on page 3 of the Web Edition #27 from March 1999. 

    I was anxious to see if the remains of the cross still existed since efforts to ascertain this by email had proven futile.  Were the fragments of the cross still there?  Would the inscriptions still be readable?  Would it be possible to find the cross and photograph it?  This then was our mission on this rainy afternoon in July as we snaked our way toward Campbeltown. 

    The pictures below are what remains of the cross and can be referred to as you read Newton’s article.  The pictures were taken in a heavy downpour.  I would like to thank a nameless employee at the cemetery for directing me to the standing shaft of the cross and unlocking the gate to this part of the cemetery for me even though it was raining hard and he was on his way home.

    I cannot tell you what a thrill it was to have seen the cross fragments at Kilkerran.  They represent some of the earliest evidence of McEacherns on the Kintyre and satisfied my quest to find these fragments and see them with my own eyes.  My son Andrew was also impressed as evidenced by his determination to have me photograph every other McEachern marker in the cemetery that he could find, despite the fact that we were drenched to the skin.

Reproduced below is the Norman S Newton article to which Carlton refers:

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.

DECORATION

     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