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Santa Maria della Catena church was built in 1490-1520 and designed by Matteo Carnilivari. The name derives from the presence, on one of the walls, of a chain (catena) which closed the Cala port.
The work mixes late Renaissance style and Gothic-Catalan style, the latter especially visible in the three-part arcaded loggia located at the top of a staircase (added in 1845). The interior is also late Gothic, and includes a canvas of Nativity with Adoration of the Shepherds (17th century) by an unknown master, and 16th-century bas-reliefs attributed to Vincenzo and Antonello Gagini, who also sculpted the capitals of the columns and the entrance portals.
Annexed to the church is a 1602 convent house, which, starting from 1844, has been the seat of the State Archive.
References:Dating from the 15th century, Kisimul is the only significant surviving medieval castle in the Outer Hebrides. It was the residence of the chief of the Macneils of Barra, who claimed descent from the legendary Niall of the Nine Hostages. Tradition tells of the Macneils settling in Barra in the 11th century, but it was only in 1427 that Gilleonan Macneil comes on record as the first lord. He probably built the castle that dominates the rocky islet, and in its shadow a crew house for his personal galley and crew. The sea coursed through Macneil veins, and a descendant, Ruari ‘the Turbulent’, was arrested for piracy of an English ship during King James VI’s reign in the later 16th century.
Heavy debts eventually forced the Macneil chiefs to sell Barra in 1838. However, a descendant, Robert Lister Macneil, the 45th Chief, repurchased the estate in 1937, and set about restoring his ancestral seat. It passed into Historic Scotland’s care in 2000.
The castle dates essentially from the 15th century. It takes the form of a three-storey tower house. This formed the residence of the clan chief. An associated curtain wall fringed the small rock on which the castle stood, and enclosed a small courtyard in which there are ancillary buildings. These comprised a feasting hall, a chapel, a tanist’s house and a watchman’s house. Most were restored in the 20th century, the tanist’s house serving as the family home of the Macneils. A well near the postern gate is fed with fresh water from an underground seam. Outside the curtain wall, beside the original landing-place, are the foundations of the crew house, where the sailors manning their chief’s galley had their quarters.