Island volunteers helped uncover an early monastery on Lismore

A historical society on Lismore, an island of about 170 people in the Inner Hebrides, hired archaeologists and helped fund a dig that has changed the picture of an early monastery. Good News Network reported on October 26, 2026, on research published in the journal Antiquity.

Clare Ellis of Argyll Archaeology, who led the excavation for the Lismore Historical Society, said Lios Mòr was known from records, place names, and local tradition, but hardly from archaeology. The question was whether the later medieval cathedral stood on the monastery St Mo Luóc founded in the sixth century, and how large that settlement was.

Geophysical survey and trenches turned up burial grounds, high-status craft areas, and early buildings. Six burials dated between 650 and 1040 were found among fragments of carved stone crosses. Another area held handmade pottery, toolmaking debris, and an oval building with a limestone-paved floor. A third trench produced about 1,000 pieces of debris from precious-metal work, including small crucibles and molds for copper, silver, or gold. Co-author Gordon Noble, of the University of Aberdeen, said the site now looks like a center of worship, craft, and learning. Bob Hay, who organized funding and volunteers, said local people were central to the work. The paper describes a monastery that made things. It does not claim every object was finished on the island.