Iona is a lovely name. However, it’s an error. A medieval scribe misread the Latin name given to the island in the 7th century AD – Ioua Insula. What ioua meant is not known – perhaps ‘yew tree’ from the Old Irish word eo; hence ‘island of the yew tree’. For centuries, though, the locals knew it as I Chaluim Cille, ‘Island of Columba’.

An illustration of the abbey from the air.

Iona was inhabited in prehistory. But it was the coming of St Columba in 563 that put this tiny speck of land in Scotland’s Inner Hebrides on the map. It became a beacon of Christianity, renowned across Christendom for its spiritual, intellectual and artistic creativity. The magnificent Book of Kells was created here. And from Columba’s monastery spread the word of God – to the Picts, the Angles and the Scots of Dál Riata, the ancient kingdom in which Iona sat.

A representation of St Columba in stained glass.

St Columba’s shrine		Despite waves of Viking raids, Columba’s monastery survived into the 1100s. Pilgrims came from far and wide to seek succour at Columba’s shrine. The graveyard Reilig Òdhrain became the burial place of the kings of Dál Riata (a realm encompassing Argyll and some of the west coast islands). Following the formation of Alba, the forerunner of modern Scotland, royal burials continued here up to King Lulach’s in 1058. Other kings buried here included Kenneth mac Alpin (858), Donald II (900), Malcolm II (1034) and Macbeth (1057). The great Somerled, ‘King of the Isles’, built St Oran’s Chapel around 1150. Somerled’s son, Reginald, reinvigorated the island’s fading glory. He invited Benedictine monks to found a new abbey and Augustinian nuns to establish a nunnery. Thereafter, under the patronage of his successors, the MacDonald Lords of the Isles, Iona re-emerged as a symbol of Christian sanctity.

Even after the Protestant Reformation in 1560, Iona continued to draw visitors and pilgrims. In 1874 the island’s owner, the Duke of Argyll, began reconstructing the abbey church, with the intention that it be used for ecumenical worship. In 1938, the Iona Community set about restoring the abbey’s religious community by rebuilding the cloister. Today, Iona is once more a vibrant place of Christian communion, open to all faiths.

There is an old Gaelic saying: ‘Ireland and grey-green Islay may sink below the great tide before the Day of Judgement. But the island of Columba the churchman will swim above the waves.’