Township: Barrapol,Ceann a’ Bharra

Map Reference: Kenavara 32

Name Type: cave

Meaning: See Ruth in Longships on the Sand.

Other Forms:

Related Places:

Information:This is the cave into which the piper and his dog entered. There was a hole in the cave roof through which cattle sometimes fell - David McClounnan, Balephuil, 4/1994.

Extracts from 'The Gaelic Otherworld' by John Gregorson Campbell, Edited with commentary by Ronald Black, (Edinburgh; Birlinn, 2005), p 38:
A man who went to fish on a Saturday afternoon at a rock in Beinn Chinn a’ bhara (Kenavara Hill, the extreme west point of Tiree) did not make his appearance at home until six o’ clock the following morning. He said that after leaving the rock the evening before he remembered nothing but passing a number of beaches. The white beaches of Tiree, from the surrounding land being a dead level, are at night the most noticeable features in the scenery. On coming to his senses, he found himself on the top of the Dùn at Caolas in the extreme east end of the island, twelve miles from his starting point.


“The other cave is a few hundred yards to the south-west...there is no access to it except by means of a rope.” - Handbook to the Islands of Coll and Tiree, Hector MacDougall and Rev. Hector Cameron, Archibald Sinclair, p 101.


Local Form:

Languages : Norse, English

Informants: David McClounnan, Balephuil, 4/1994

Informant 2: Hugh MacLean, Barrapol, collected by Ailean Boyd

Informant 3: Donald MacKinnon (The Plumber), Sandaig, 12/1995