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Half Hung Archie McPhun

            The name McPhun is found as a Sept of both Lamont and Campbell Clans. Their location in Strachur is much closer to Inverary than to the Lamont areas of Cowal.  After reading this information you can form you own opinion.

            Of these MacPhuns, the Duke of Argyll remarks in a letter to the Oban Times, 18 February 1917:Original charters show this family as flourishing in Cowal chiefly in the parish of Kilmalish, alias Strachur, at least as early as 1525… The main branch of the MacPhuns were those designated of Invernaodan and those called of Driep were an offshoot.

            The story of Half Hung Archie, Archibald MacPhunn of Dripp, dates from the 17th century, possibly 1608, with various versions being reported. Archibald MacPhunn has been described as a local laird who fell on hard times, and survived with his wife by running a small ferry between Strachur and Inveraray across Loch Fyne. That said, there is a reference to Lady Macphunn on the label of the Machphunn whisky, and the title would be expected to have come from her husband, if the story on the label is accurate. Alternatively, he has been described as the blackguard (a scoundrel) of the MacPhunn family, who came to be known in the area as a notorious sheep stealer. His career came to an end when he was arrested, tried, found guilty and sentenced to hang by the neck at Inveraray Jail. On completion of the sentence, his body was cut down from the gallows and returned to his wife for burial.

            MacPhunn may have been lucky, although one account suggests the passing of a bribe, but while his wife (described as nursing a young baby at the time) was rowing his body home across the loch, she is said to seen it twitch. Tearing the shroud open, she mixed some of her own milk with some whisky (some accounts say brandy) and forced the mixture between his lips, causing him to revive by the time they reached shore. Under Scottish Law, Archibald MacPhunn could not be hanged a second time for the same crime, and he lived on with his wife, to be buried with the rest of the MacPhunns of Dripp in the cemetery of Strachur Parish Church. Another version of the story reports that MacPhunn was tried and hanged at Inveraray for murder, rather than sheep stealing, and that his burial in the church cemetery confirms the story of his revival, and that his eventual death was unrelated to criminal activity.

            Today, the Creggans Inn stands near the spot where Archie MacPhunn reportedly reached shore, and where the bar and restaurant are named after him, and the cairn marks, or marked, the place where the MacPhunns landed, a few hundred yards north of the inn. Loch Fyne Whiskies has produced a “MacPhunn” whisky is described as an exceptional whisky, produced from a selected single cask of an 18 year old sherry matured Speyside single malt, with a yield of under 300 bottles.   

            With the start of the following Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Lamont was sent a charter by Charles I of Scotland to crush the rebels - the Campbells.  Even though the Lamont chief was a Royalist sympathizer he had no choice but to join forces with the superior forces of the Earl of Argyll.  After the Covenanter loss at the Battle of Inverlochy, Sir James was released by the Royalist victors and then sided with the Marquess of Montrose and actively supported the Royalist cause. Sir James Lamont of that Ilk then joined forces with Alasdair MacColla and together they invaded the lands of the Campbells.  Sir James' brother, Archibald, led a force of Lamonts across Loch Long and together with MacColla's Irish contingent they landed at the Point of Strone.  Their force then laid waste to large areas under Campbell control. The Lamonts were particularly brutal in North Cowal, and singled out Dunoon - the scene of an earlier massacre of Lamonts by Campbells^. During the destruction their forces wrought on the Campbells, MacColla's men committed many atrocities and even the Lamonts themselves when they attacked the Tower of Kilmun. Once the tower had surrendered under promise of their lives being spared, the prisoners were then "taken thrie myles from the place and most cruelly put to Death, except one who was in the hot fever".  Sir James Lamont ravaged the lands of Strachur, killing thirty-three men, women and children. His force destroyed much grain and drove off 340 cattle and horses.

Driep Castle

            Located near Strachur – a Campbell castle attacked in early 1646 by Sir James Lamont along with Kilmun, where the Lamonts are said to have taken the Provost's kinsmen from the tower and killed them, and Strachur, where he killed 33 men, women and children and destroyed homes, barns and cattle, on his return to Toward, an action for which the reprisal was the Toward massacre of the Lamonts. Sir James was also accused of taking Archibald MacPhum of Driep from his house, stripping him of his clothing and leaving him to die in the frost and snow. There are old MacPhunn gravestones in Strachur churchyard. Mary Queen of Scots is reputed to have stayed a night at Driep during her Cowal tour in 1563. Only a pile of stones now remain of the castle. 

McPhun's Cairn is depicted on old maps, lying on the eastern shore of Loch Fyne and just over half a mile north of the old jetty at Creggans Point. The cairn has been seen on maps dating from 1870, up to the 1960s, but seems to be omitted on later editions.

            The spelling is uncertain, as there is a gravestone at Creggans which carries the inscription "THE BURYING PLACE OF THE MACPHUNN'S OF DRIPP", and this form is echoed in most period accounts, while maps usually show McPhun's Cairn. The continued existence of the cairn is also in doubt, its absence from later mapping suggesting it may have been lost during past road widening schemes on the A815.