Blethering Skite

If you climb the steps you find that the top of the outcrop bears two footprints. The more southerly is laid parallel to the shore, while the other is at 90 degrees to it. Each print is a little less than a third of a metre in length, and between them is carved the number "564". Footprints caved into stones are found in a number of places in Ireland and Scotland, and are usually associated with king-making ceremonies. As there was a major fortress of the Kingdom of Dalriada at nearby Dunaverty from the 500s it is quite possible that at least one of the footprints might well be associated with it, like the carved footprint at the other Dalriadan centre at Dunadd in northern Argyll.

The story is blurred, however, because St Columba and 12 followers briefly landed in this part of Kintyre in early 563 at the start of his exile from Ireland. The "best guess" about the real story of the footprints is that a single footprint dating back to the Dalriadan era became associated over the centuries with St Columba, and is why St Columba's Chapel was established immediately to the east. Then, according to a story told many years later by his grandson, in 1856 a local mason called Daniel McIlreavie helped the legend along a little by carving a second footprint into the rock and adding the (wrong) date for Columba's landing of 564.