INCHBUIE*
Inchbuie, or Innis Buidhe,
the Yellow Island, situated in the River Dochart, has from time
immemorial been the burial place of the Macnabs. It is approached
down a flight of stone steps from the east side of the Bridge
of Dochart. The whole island measures some two hundred yards from
east to west. Near the steps are two massive pillars, and a little
beyond them is a high wall that stretches across the island, having
in it three open arches. The entire island is divided into three
sections by two artificial earthen mounds that run parallel to
each other across it, at a distance of about one hundred and fifty
yards apart. These mounds were, no doubt, thrown up at some remote
period in the past, when the island was used for defensive purposes.
The burying ground proper is in the eastmost section of the island.
Here, within a walled enclosure, are the graves of the chiefs.
On a great slab of mica-schist there is carved the effigy of a
warrior. The art is rude and primitive. Tradition says that this
slab was taken from the shoulder of Ben Lawers, and that it marks
the grave of one of the earliest chiefs. Another stone, also recumbent,
covers the grave of Finlay Macnab, the tenth Laird, and his wife
Katherine Campbell. The ordinary members of the clan admitted
for burial to Inchbuie were interred outside the enclosure to
the east. Here there are many grave mounds, some of them with
quaint carvings and inscriptions, dating from the end of the eighteenth
century and the beginning of the nineteenth.
As the visitor treads upon the soft, golden
turf that has given the name, Innis Buidhe, to this sacred spot
and proceeds under the shade of the sombre firs to the graveyard,
one cannot but be filled with regret at the failure and almost
entire disappearance of the wild warrior clan which for so many
centuries dominated Glendochart, and played so prominent a part
in Scottish history! The Macnabs are now scattered to the ends
of the earth, but the traditions of the chiefs and their clan
will cling to this beautiful and romantic countryside so long
as the waters of the Dochart continue to surge and roar around
the rocky foundations of the island where the dust of their dead
reposes.
*From IN FAMED BREADALBANE by
the Rev. William A. Gillies
Walled enclosure surrounding the graves of Macnab
Chiefs, island of Inchbuie
Photo by Charles E. MacNab
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