Glen Shiel

Glen Shiel is the site of the Battle of Glen Shiel (10 June 1719), the last significant engagement of the Jacobite rising of that year. A small force of Jacobites supported by Spanish marines landed at Eilean Donan and marched east up the glen, attempting to raise the Mackenzies and Macraes for an invasion of Inverness. They were intercepted by a government force under General Joseph Wightman; the battle was fought on the steep slopes at the head of the glen below the peak now known as Sgurr nan Spainteach — "peak of the Spaniards" — where Spanish troops took position. The Jacobites and their Spanish allies were defeated; the Spanish surrendered honourably the next day. The 1719 rising collapsed.

The glen was the territory of the Mackenzies of Kintail and the Macraes who served as the clan's "shirt of mail." Eilean Donan Castle at the mouth of the glen, slighted by government warships in 1719, lay in ruins for two centuries before being reconstructed by Lieutenant-Colonel John Macrae-Gilstrap between 1912 and 1932. The reconstruction is celebrated for its scale and condemned for its historical liberties; the building visible today is largely Edwardian work on the original footprint.