Grimsay
View from my lovely modern cottage in Grimsay. I stayed here for a week and explored Grimsay, North Uist, Benbecula and Berneray.
I got spoiled by the most stunning rainbow on my first night in Grimsay.
Teampull na Trionaid
The next morning I drove over the causeway to get to North Uist – a bit of the usual traffic jam included.
My first stop of the day was to visit the Trinity Temple – Teampull na Trionaid. I parked my car at the temple parking spot and walked over the grass towards the temple.
Teampull na Trionaid, the Church of the Holy Trinity, was probably built around 1200 on the site of an earlier site, maybe a monastery.
The Book of Clan Ranald, written in the 1600s, says that Teampull na Trionaid was founded in the late 1100s by Bethag, daughter of Somerled. It was subsequently enlarged in the second half of the 1300s by Amy MacRuari, the first wife of John, Lord of the Isles, before being reconstructed in the 1500s. (Scotland Undiscovered)
After the Reformation, the church felt out of use and the building started to decline.
There are references to Teampull na Trionaid having served as a monastery in its early life, and it is believed to have been an important centre of learning in the middle ages (and possibly until well beyond the Reformation). The early scholar John Duns Scotus, who lived from 1265 to 1308, is said to have briefly studied here. (Scotland Undiscovered)
