⚔ Battlefields of Britain

Battle of Dunaverty 1647

Battle of Dunaverty
Image: Steve Partridge, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Marker: recorded battle location (no official boundary).

Key facts

Date (year)1647Wikidata P585 point in time
Century17th centuryderived
PeriodCivil Warsderived
CountryScotlandderived
ParticipantsCovenantersWikidata

About the battle

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 to 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.

Visiting the battlefield

Location

  • Recorded location (Wikidata; may be approximate): 55.3075, -5.6447

Battlefields are often on private farmland: please keep to public rights of way and respect landowners.

Directions (Google Maps) OpenStreetMap

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Dunaverty (revision 1370109929), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations removed. No text added.

Battle location from Wikidata (CC0).

Further reading