Dunaverty Massacre

The Battle of Dunaverty involved a battle and the siege of Dunaverty Castle in Kintyre, Scotland in 1647. The events involved the Covenanter Army under the command of General David Leslie on one side and 200–300 Highland troops under the command of Archibald Og of Sanda on the other.

After the Battle of Rhunahaorine Moss, the remaining royalist army of Alasdair Mac Colla fled to Kinlochkilkerran, where a fleet of birlinns transported many of the troops to Ireland, while others fled to Dunaverty to be transported to Ireland as well as Dunyvaig Castle. About 200–300 men who could not be transported or did not wish to leave Scotland prepared to defend the castle.

When the Covenanter Army arrived, they laid siege to the castle and made small raids against the forces inside. Once the attackers had captured the stronghold's water supply, the defenders–by now running out of water–requested a surrender on fair terms. After agreeing to surrender and leaving the castle, the men, women and children were put to the sword at the request of Reverend John Naves and Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll. However, a number of people appear to have survived the massacre, including Flora McCambridge, the infant Ranald MacDonald of Sanda, James Stewart and a MacDougall of Kilmun.

More than 300 MacDougalls and followers, men, women and children, were slaughtered at Dunaverty, despite the promised quarter from the Covenanters. According to Volume II of the Highland Papers published in 1916:

In May 1647 Montrose's well-known lieutenant, Sir Alexander Macdonald, the son of Colla Ciotach Macdonald (Alastair Mac Coll Ciotach) left a garrison of some 500 men in Dunavertie Castle in Kintyre, which was besieged by the Covenanters under David Leslie, afterwards Lord Newark. According to Sir James Turner, who was Leslie's Adjutant-General, "after some fighting inexorable thirst made them desire a parley. I was ordered to speak with them. Neither could the Lieutenant-General be moved to grant any other conditions then that they should yeeld on discretion or mercy ; and it seemed strange to me to heare the Lieutenant-General's nice distinction that they sould yield themselves to the kingdomes mercy and not to his. At length they did so, and after they were comd out of the Castle they were put to the sword everie mothers sonne except one young man Mackoull, whose life I begd to be sent to France with a hundredth countrey fellows whom we had smoked out of a cave as they doe foxes, who were given to Captain Campbell, the Chancellors brother.'

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