Where to even begin…….This one image has so many threads that are woven into a fabric that produces a visually and palatably beautiful tapestry, as well as, a tactile touch that is both comforting and soothing. I guess the best place to begin is with the significance of where this represents the past.
From https://www.islayinfo.com/finlaggan_clan_donald.html:
It is no joy without Clan Donald;
it is no strength to be without them;
the best race in the round world,
To them belongs every goodly man.
The noblest race of all created,
in whom dwelt prowess and terribleness;
a race to whom tyrants bowed,
In whom dwelt wisdom and piety.
The staves of the Gaelic lament by the Mac-Mhuirich Bard in the Book of the Dean of Lismore at the loss of the MacDonald Lords still echo through the Isles. The line of the Great Sea-Lord Somerled, with whom the history of the western seaboard in the Middle Ages began, has run its course, and with the death of Angus Og at Finlaggan in 1490, it has, for all intents, met its tragic end. The Lordship, that vast, eternal sea kingdom, with its heart in ancient Finlaggan, has faded to near obscurity. But let there be no dirge for the Lost Lordship, no retrospective on the place of the Lords of the Isles in Scottish history – what’s here at Finlaggan is history, a pervading sense of the political and social ambience that underscored the significance and magnificence of the place in the medieval Gaelic seaworld.
If it were solely from this heritage, recently revealed to me, this single bottle would represent one of the most prized possessions of Scotch I have or have had. However, there are other threads to this cloth that endears this particular bottle deeply to my soul – more on those later.
