For 5,000 years, southern Argyll has been home to people of culture, ideas, skills and power. The standing stones, cairns and cists of Mid Argyll signal an area of importance in ancient times almost unequalled throughout the British Isles. In the first millennium of the Christian era, the south of Argyll became the heart of Celtic Christianity and its missionaries influenced the whole of Scotland. It was also the cradle of a nation as the kings of Dalriada pushed east to create a united kingdom of Scotland.
It is an area which is more geographically accessible than northern Argyll, but in the past that access was achieved more often by water than over land. Only the drovers pushed their black cattle through passes in the spines of rolling hills which mark each of its many peninsulas.
Settlements arose where there was fertile land, access to a generous sea, a need for strategic protection and sometimes all three.
Southend * Drumlemble * Saddell * Campbeltown * Tarbert * Tighnabruaich * Kames * Millhouse * Kilberry * Tayvallich * Crinan * Bellanoch * Newton * Slockavullin * Kilmichael Glassary * Lochgilphead
Marian Pallister was raised in Glasgow's west end where easy access to Argyll led to a 40-year love affair with the county which was consummated when she moved there in the 1990s. She has been a journalist since 1965 and has worked all over the world, particularly in Africa, India and The Balkans. She has won awards for feature writing and has been Scottish Journalist of the Year. She founded Strong Women Fragile Lives to aid women in rural India and is involved in community radio in Zambia, which she believes feeds from her experience of life in rural Argyll.
Also available: Villages of Northern Argyll, ISBN 0859765849, ?9.99
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