Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of tables
- List of figures
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- A note on pronunciation
- A note on the Chronicle of Ireland
- Introduction
- 1 Ireland in the seventh century: a tour
- 2 Irish society c. 700: I. Communities
- 3 Irish society c. 700: II Social distinctions and moral values
- 4 Ireland and Rome
- 5 Conversion to Christianity
- 6 The organisation of the early Irish Church
- 7 Columba, Iona and Lindisfarne
- 8 Columbanus and his disciples
- 9 The Paschal controversy
- 10 The primatial claims of Armagh, Kildare and Canterbury
- 11 The origins and rise of the Uí Néill
- 12 The kingship of Tara
- 13 The powers of kings
- 14 Conclusion
- Appendix: genealogies and king-lists
- Glossary: Irish and Latin
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Columba, Iona and Lindisfarne
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of tables
- List of figures
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- A note on pronunciation
- A note on the Chronicle of Ireland
- Introduction
- 1 Ireland in the seventh century: a tour
- 2 Irish society c. 700: I. Communities
- 3 Irish society c. 700: II Social distinctions and moral values
- 4 Ireland and Rome
- 5 Conversion to Christianity
- 6 The organisation of the early Irish Church
- 7 Columba, Iona and Lindisfarne
- 8 Columbanus and his disciples
- 9 The Paschal controversy
- 10 The primatial claims of Armagh, Kildare and Canterbury
- 11 The origins and rise of the Uí Néill
- 12 The kingship of Tara
- 13 The powers of kings
- 14 Conclusion
- Appendix: genealogies and king-lists
- Glossary: Irish and Latin
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In Columba, a man of royal birth aged forty-one, left Ireland and went to found a monastery in the Hebrides. Iona is a small but comparatively fertile island off the western tip of the Ross of Mull. Iona, Mull, the nearby islands of Tiree and Coll, as well as Colonsay, Jura and Islay further south, together with the mainland of Argyll, all belonged to the Irish kingdom of Dál Ríata; and Columba is said by the annals to havereceived Iona as a grant from the king, Conall mac Comgaill. Columbaalso founded monasteries in Ireland, of which the most famous, Dur rowand Derry, were both probably established after : Durrow appears tohave been founded c. 590 while Fachrae mac Cíaráin, ‘one of the twofounders of Derry’ according to some annals, died in 620. Columba was a member of Cenl Conaill, a branch of the Uí Néill and the ruling kindred of a kingdom that included most of the modern Co. Donegal. His immediate successor and principal lieutenant, Bathne, was also of Cenél Conaill, as were most, but by no means all, the abbots up to atleast the second half of the eighth century. The link with Cenél Conaill mattered, not least because Cenél Conaill was at one of the two peaksof its power from c. 560 to 642.
The principal source for Columba is a Life written by one of his successors
as abbot, who was also a kinsman, Adomnán.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Early Christian Ireland , pp. 282 - 343Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000