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St Columcille

521–597

 

Along with ST PATRICK [1] and St Bridget, Columcille (also known as Columba of Iona) is one of the three patron saints of Ireland, whose life's work was critical in the formation of early Christian Ireland.  The year of his death coincided with the arrival of the mission of St Augustine, in Kent.

      The two aspects of Western Christianity, the Celtic and the Continental, clashed for many decades until the Synod of Whitby extinguished the Celtic customs.  But the mission of Augustine was largely a failure.  The long Christian tradition of Scotland and England owes much more to the determination and courage of Irish missionaries such as Columcille than is often realized.

      He was born at Gartan in Donegal on 7th December 521, of aristocratic stock, being one of the clan of Conall, and an O'Donnell, who were the princes of Donegal.  He was educated at the monastic centres of Moville by St Finnian; at Clonard, where he was a pupil of another and greater St Finnian; and later at Glasnevin, in Dublin.  In 544 a plague forced his return to Ulster.

      He was ordained a priest in 541, and established his own monastery at Derry in 545.  He spent some fifteen years founding monasteries throughout Ireland, at Derry (546), Swords (about 550), Durrow (about 553), and at Kells (about 554).

      He was accused of being responsible for the bloody battle of Culdrevy in 561 between his own people, the Dalriada Scots, and King Diarmid, the overlord of eastern Ireland.  Taking his doubts to his own confessor, he was given the penance of going into Scotland to spread the gospel there.

      In 563 St Columcille went into exile with twelve followers as a missionary among the pagan Picts of Scotland.  The Irish had already carved out a kingdom along the western coast of Scotland.  (At this time the Irish were called Scots.)  He established a monastery on the island of Iona in Argyll, which was presented to him by his kinsman Conall.  From there he and other missionaries set out to spread the faith among the Picts of northern Scotland.  These journeys are described by his early biographer, Adamnan.  (On one of them he is reported to have encountered the Loch Ness monster.)

      The important result of this mission was not just to convert the Picts to Christianity, but to provide the ground on which the Scots and Picts could unite, and so create the nucleus of the modern kingdom of Scotland.  He revisited Ireland itself on only two occasions, and acted as a mediator at the Assembly of Druim-Cetta in 575.  He was the supposed author of poems in Latin and in Gaelic.  The oldest surviving manuscript of the Gallican Psalter, the so-called Cathac, is said to be in his own hand.  The record of his life by Adamnan gives a good account of the rule he established, and this too was also widely influential in the church.

      His ascetic way of life often led to him withdrawing from his companions and into the woods to pray and fast.  He impressed everyone with his holiness.

      Among some Protestant writers, the independence of the Celtic church has been overemphasized, while its essential loyalty to Rome was overplayed by Catholic writers.  In many ways, the atmosphere of this church was similar to the Ethiopian church; both worked beyond the bounds of the old Roman Empire among pagan tribes and out of direct communication with the more metropolitan centres.

      Iona was also a scholarly centre.  The Celtic church, however, developed its own extraordinary culture, especially in illuminated books, many of them produced by the monasteries with which Columcille was associated.  A key figure in the development of Scotland, he was thus a seminal person in the development of Western European civilization.  As Toynbee and other historian have pointed out, these monks were an essential link in the transmission of the older classical cultures of Greece and Rome, to their revival during the Middle Ages, following the Dark Ages, which fell upon most of the continent after the barbarian invasions.

      According to an old tradition, Columcille died while kneeling before the altar of his own church on Iona in 597.  He was buried on the island, but his remains were later removed to Kells in Meath, and some to Dunkeld.  The famous Stone of Scone, on which the ancient kings of Scotland and later the kings of England were crowned, is thought by some to actually be the pillow of St Columcille.

      The anniversary of his death in 1997 was the occasion of pilgrimages from all over Britain and Ireland to Iona.  As Scotland begins a new political era under its own parliament once again, it is now appreciated that Columcille's mission marks the beginning of the history of Scotland and the Scottish people.