Inishmurray may be named after the early saint, Muiredach mac Echdach (fl. early 6th century) of Killala. There are remains of an early Irish monastic settlement. Laisrén (Saint Molaise) Mac Decláin reputedly founded a monastery here in the 6th century. He was confessor of Saint Columba (Colmcille) after the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne on the mainland nearby.
The island's ecclesiastical settlement was attacked in 795 and again in 807 by the Vikings, and eventually the monks abandoned the island and it remained uninhabited until the first secular settlement, probably in the 12th century.
The enclosure wall is impressive - reaching 4.5 metres in height at its highest point and up to 3 metres thick. The site contains various ecclesiastical buildings including enclosures, a stone-roofed oratory, two churches, a clochán, a large beehive-shaped cell, a holy well and other remains including cross slabs suggesting foreign influences. The whole complex is composed of what is probably local sandstone rubble.
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Doune Castle was originally built in the thirteenth century, then probably damaged in the Scottish Wars of Independence, before being rebuilt in its present form in the late 14th century by Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany (c. 1340–1420), the son of King Robert II of Scots, and Regent of Scotland from 1388 until his death. Duke Robert"s stronghold has survived relatively unchanged and complete, and the whole castle was traditionally thought of as the result of a single period of construction at this time. The castle passed to the crown in 1425, when Albany"s son was executed, and was used as a royal hunting lodge and dower house.
In the later 16th century, Doune became the property of the Earls of Moray. The castle saw military action during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and Glencairn"s rising in the mid-17th century, and during the Jacobite risings of the late 17th century and 18th century.