St Moluag’s Cathedral, Lismore: Medieval Seat of the Bishop of Argyll
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- British, Kingdom of Scotland
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page14 sections
History
St Moluag’s Cathedral, Lismore is a medieval cathedral in Lismore, United Kingdom, built for the Christian church during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It became the seat of the Diocese of Argyll, an ecclesiastical jurisdiction covering medieval Argyll and its associated western islands, and remained a parish church after the medieval diocese was dissolved.
Early Christian foundation
Tradition places the foundation of a Christian community or monastery on Lismore between 561 and 564 by Moluag, an Irish missionary and saint associated with the conversion of parts of western Scotland. Moluag died in 592 and was a contemporary of Columba, the influential sixth-century missionary based at Iona. A Culdee settlement, belonging to a type of medieval religious community found in Scotland and Ireland, may later have occupied the cathedral site in the twelfth century. Excavations have not identified remains from the earliest Christian period.
Lismore became the seat of the Diocese of Argyll, founded in the late twelfth century, by no later than 1225. The island may have been chosen because of its connection with Moluag, its central position within the diocese, its access by sea, and its place within the main area of MacDougall influence. Its distance from Lothian, then Scotland’s political and cultural centre, soon caused concern. In 1248 and 1249, Clement, Bishop of Dunblane and administrator of the vacant diocese, unsuccessfully tried to transfer the see to the mainland. In 1512, James IV of Scots also failed in an attempt to move it to Saddell Abbey on the Kintyre peninsula.
Medieval cathedral
Construction continued over several decades, reflecting the limited resources of Argyll, which was the poorest of Scotland’s dioceses. The precise building date is uncertain. The choir may have been erected around the middle of the thirteenth century and was probably finished during the episcopate of Bishop Laurence in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. The cathedral served as the bishop’s seat, while its restrained and practical design may have been influenced by the ascetic ideals of the Dominican Order, a Catholic order associated with preaching and an austere religious life. Bishop Laurence and the next two bishops of Argyll belonged to that order.
In the early sixteenth century, James MacGregor, the cathedral’s dean, and his brother compiled Gaelic ballads in the manuscript now known as the Book of the Dean of Lismore. The book contains the oldest surviving works in Scottish Gaelic and is held by the National Library of Scotland.
Reformation and later parish use
During the Reformation, the Church of Scotland, a Presbyterian national church whose government did not retain the medieval system of diocesan bishops, took over the diocese and greatly restricted episcopal authority. The Diocese of Argyll was dissolved in 1689, along with Scotland’s other dioceses.
The cathedral was already regarded as dilapidated in the sixteenth century and stood roofless by 1679. In 1749, its choir was reconstructed as a parish church. It has continued in that role within the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The work raised the choir floor by about 61 centimetres, reduced the external walls in height, and provided the building with a new roof.
Modern alteration and investigation
A major remodelling in 1900 moved the principal entrance from the west to the east, added a vestry at the west end, installed a roof turret on the east gable, and substantially changed the interior. Ian Lindsay restored parts of the church in 1956, including the removal of plaster from blocked entrances and from the medieval sedilia. Excavations took place on the former cathedral site between 1950 and 1953, again in 1970, and in 2016. The church has been protected as a Category B listed building and a Scheduled Monument since 20 July 1971.
Remains
The surviving church is chiefly the medieval cathedral’s choir, later altered and incorporated into a rectangular parish church. It is white-rendered on the outside and covered by a pitched roof, with a bell hanging in a turret above the east gable. The medieval building was aligned from east to west and measured approximately 38 by 9.3 metres. Its original plan comprised a single-aisled choir and nave. The choir floor lay about one metre below the nave, probably because the building occupied uneven, rocky ground. This difference in level may also indicate that the cathedral replaced an earlier chapel or Culdee church.
Church fabric and medieval plan
The medieval foundations were made from massive slate. The walls were about one metre thick, with footings of dressed sandstone, rubble cores, and outer layers of pumice and limestone bonded with mortar made from sand and shell. Other descriptions identify local limestone and dark whinstone, a hard Scottish building stone, together with some sandstone from Ardtornish. Thick slate slabs covered the medieval roof.
Choir
The choir measures approximately 15.6 by 7.2 metres. Before the 1749 rebuilding, its floor stood at the medieval level. The external walls were then lowered by approximately 2.7 to 3 metres before the new roof was fitted. The present interior is a lightly plastered rectangle with a wooden vaulted ceiling. Its windows belong either to the eighteenth-century reconstruction or to the 1900 remodelling, and most of the furnishings date from the later work.
Entrances and internal features
An arch beside the pulpit at the west end is known as the Dorus Mor, meaning “great door.” It formerly separated the choir from the nave. The south wall retains a medieval piscina, a basin for washing sacred vessels, together with sedilia, the seats provided for clergy in the sanctuary, and a blocked doorway. The sedilia appear unusually low because the floor was raised in 1749.
A second blocked doorway on the north side formerly opened into a small chapel and is decorated with an elaborate arch frieze. Heads ornament both the interior and exterior sides of the blocked southern entrance. Two further heads decorate the northern passage. The left may represent Bishop Martin, who perhaps completed the cathedral, while the right depicts a lower-ranking cleric. Mason’s marks survive in the church, including a mark on the left arch of the piscina that also occurs at Achanduin Castle, suggesting that the two buildings formed part of one building project.
Buttresses and later additions
Medieval buttresses remain at the north-east and south-east corners and along the south wall, where they divide the wall into three bays. Each bay contains a round-arched eighteenth-century window. The central south bay once held a round-arched doorway, which was blocked in 1900, while a round window remains high in the west facade. An extension at the north-east of the medieval choir may have served as a vestry or chapel. The modern vestry occupies the west end, and the eastern porch now contains the principal entrance.
A stone set into the eastern end commemorates Duncan Stewart of Appin, who was murdered at Duart Castle in the early sixteenth century. The church also contains seven stained-glass windows. On the south wall, windows depict Jesus and the fishermen, the Good Shepherd, and Dorcas. Roland Mitton made the first in 1987, while the latter two date from 1911. Three Art Nouveau windows, a style known for flowing organic forms, occupy the east gallery. Mary I. Wood made them in 1928, and they include depictions of Moluag and Columba. A north-wall window depicts the Sower.
Churchyard and surrounding enclosure
The churchyard remains in use as a cemetery and contains numerous medieval grave slabs. Eight slabs in the church and churchyard are associated with the Loch Awe school of sculpture. One slab outside the church and another inside show one and two tau-staves respectively. A tau-staff is a T-shaped symbol associated here with the office of the precentor, a cleric who helped lead singing and ceremonial functions.
Sixteenth-century grave slab
One sixteenth-century grave slab serves as the cover of a stone coffin. An independent sculptor produced it, and its work cannot be assigned to a particular school. The carving shows a claymore surmounted by a lion and a griffin.
Churchyard boundary
A roughly circular stone boundary encloses the churchyard on its north, east, and south sides. It has a diameter of about 240 metres and may represent an early medieval enclosure of the type associated with monasteries of the Irish-Scottish church.
Sanctuary Stone
The Sanctuary Stone stands across the road, 11 metres south-east of the church. It probably marked the boundary between ecclesiastical and secular authority.
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