‘KORY FINMACKOUL # TIR A 1 NGR NM027487
G ‘the hollow of Finn mac Cumaill’

Kory Finmackoul, 1654 Blaeu
No longer known in the oral tradition of the island

Balephetrish | At the centre of a natural amphitheatre created by the raised beach above the Balephetrish shoreline is a rock known as G Clach a’ Choire ‘the rock of the hollow’ (Mairi MacKinnon, pers. comm.). More commonly today it is called The Ringing Stone, because of the sound it produces when struck (Canmore ID 21529). This rounded glacial erratic stands as a perched boulder 1.8 m high. It has been pock-marked by over sixty cup markings. Some may be Neolithic in origin, but many have been enlarged during historical times (Tertia Barnett, pers. comm.). It is unique in Scotland: ‘A rock gong … listed by John MacKenzie as one of the seven wonders of Scotland … Clach a’ Choire was “said to contain a crock of gold, but if it ever split Tiree will disappear beneath the waves”‘ (Black 2008, 396–7).

Photogrammetry on SCRAP by James McComas, NOSAS

There are other rock gongs or lithophones in Scotland: for example, the Iron Stone at Huntly in Aberdeenshire (Canmore ID 17827), which, like The Ringing Stone, ‘has been wedged off the ground by small rocks placed at both ends’ (Fagg 1997, 5). This is possibly to enhance the stone’s resonance. There are also two Ringing Rocks on Iona. Lithophones are common in Africa, where ‘the voice of the rock is believed to be the voice of an ancestor or other spirit with power to summon the supernatural’ (Fagg 1997, 3). It is possible it was played as a musical instrument: ‘Two people working at the same site, knocking stone upon stone, might well have set up quite complex rhythms, as Nigerian tribesmen do to this day using resonant rocks, sometimes singing through bits of tubing and other items to distort their voices, which are intended to be those of their ancestors speaking from another world’ (Purser 1992, 25). Limestone and granite seem to be the commonest rocks forming rock gongs, the most important characteristic being their crystalline structure (Fagg 1997, 6).

Kory Finmackoul, which may be transcribed Coire Finn Mac Cumaill, is a Gaelic construction in G coire ‘circular hollow surrounded by hills’ (Dwelly). Coire occurs in two other locations on Tiree: G Poll a’ Choire ‘the pool of the hollow’ in Hynish, and G An Coire Geur ‘the sharp hollow’, a low-lying area of croft land in Barrapol. It is a very common element throughout Gaelic-speaking Scotland: for example, Coire Liath in Torosay, Mull (SP).

The specific is the mythic Old Gaelic personal name Finn mac Cumaill (Fionn mac Cumhaill, Campbell 1891, 16). Finn-names based on this warrior-hunter, who lived ‘outside society in a wilderness boundary zone’ (Fitzpatrick et al. 2015, 28), are found throughout Europe, but particularly in Ireland, Man and Scotland: for example, Seefin in County Wicklow and Suidhe Coire Fhionn or Fingal’s Cauldron Seat (Canmore ID 39705), two stone circles on Arran. These names derive from Gaelic ballads including the Finn Cycle of Tales (the Fiannaigheacht), which appear for the first time in Ireland as early as the seventh century (Fitzpatrick et al. 2015, 25). Most of the Scottish Gaelic ballads that survive were composed in the later Middle Ages In both Ireland and Scotland (Meek 1998). Finn-names are particularly located in places of geological transition or prehistoric significance (Fitzpatrick et al. 2015). This isolated spot on the northern shore of Tiree appears to have been a place of story and mystery in both prehistoric and medieval times (see An Uamh Mhòr; and see Martin 1994 (1695, 206).’ (extract from Holliday, J. (2021) Longships in the Sand, pp. 529–30)

Picture of Dr Tertia Barnett, the leader of the Scottish Rock Art project, on the Ringing Stone.
Photogrammetry by Alan Thompson, NOSAS