Monument record 606 - AN DOIRLINN, SOUTH UIST

NF71NW 5 7302 1734.

(NF 7302 1734) Between the Island of Orosay, about 3/4 mile west of South Boisdale, South Uist, and the shore there is a smaller tidal islet, about 50 yards long and 20 yards broad, which seems to have been surrounded by a slight wall. A massive causeway 120 yards long and 9 to 12ft wide, formed of large blocks of stone, connects it with the mainland.
RCAHMS 1965.

There is no trace of a dun on the islet. The causeway still exists betwhether it is modern or formerly part of a dun, now destroyed, is impossible to say.
Visited by OS (R D) 16 May 1965.

NF 733 336-NF 758 140 Almost half of the South Uist machair has been surveyed between 1993 and 1995, in a single stretch from West Kilbride in the extreme S of the island to the N of the Ard Michael promontory, a distance of 20km with the width of the machair averaging about 1km (see unpublished reports, Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield). Existing RCAHMS records for prehistoric and early historic settlement sites number some 20 locations within this zone. The machair project has now increased this number to 81. Two of the RCAHMS sites, the broch/dun at Orosay (NF 730 173) and the broch of Dun Ruaidh (NF72SW 7), are misidentifications.
The area most responsive to field survey on the machair is the section between Kildonan and Stoneybridge, the N 5km portion of the survey area. Here, where most of the surviving machair plain has not been covered by dunes, some 44 sites have been recognised. along with a grouping of Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age settlement mounds in the Kildonan area, the main settlement pattern is a set of clusters of Iron Age to Viking Age settlement mounds for each of the five townships. These Iron Age-Viking Age clusters may be viewed as predecessors to the township system first mapped in 1805 and still in use today.
A second concentration of sites has been found further S in the machair of Daliburgh and Kilpheder, where a total of 19 sites have been discovered in an area of 3 square kilometres. This density is all the more remarkable given the large extent of dune incursion on to the machair plain in this area. Within this zone two key house sites, both well preserved, have been excavated. One is Kilpheder wheelhouse (NF72SW 1) of Middle Iron Age date and the other is the Cladh Hallan double roundhouse (NF 72SW 17) of Late Bronze Age date. The most remarkable feature of prehistoric settlement in this area is the 500m long string of Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age settlement W of the modern cemetery. However, there is considerable potential for good preservation, as indicated by the 1994-95 excavations.
The results of the recent survey are by no means exhaustive but they do indicate a remarkable density of later prehistoric and early historic settlements on the machair. The pattern of proto-townships throughout the survey area holds reasonably well but there are gaps for the townships of Garrynamonie and Garryheillie.
Sponsor: Historic Scotland.
M Parker Pearson 1995.


Excavation at An Doirlinn in 2012 by the Universities of Reading & Southampton of the remains of the tidal island deposits. The site comprised of a deeply stratified settlement that included stone walls, hearths, post holes, pits and midden deposits.
The site date range covered the Early Neolithic through to the Early Bronze Age and comprised of a significant ceramic and flint assemblage. The pottery types represented were Hebridean wares, Grooved ware and Beaker.
Also recovered were well preserved charcoal remains that enabled a well dated sequence of approximatley 1000 years (c.3350 to 2330 BC).

K.Murphy (CnES Archaeologist) 09/2017

RCAHMS, 1928, The RCAHMCS 9th Report & Inventory: Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles, 123, No. 435 (Bibliographic reference). SWE5587.

2017, Neolithic Stepping Stones (Monograph). SWE41220.