Mid-Argyll Theme
- 9
Iona
Just as Dunadd seems to have been a royal power
centre of Dál Riata, so the island monastery
of Iona was the centre of church influence from the
middle of the first millennium.
Founded by the Irish saint, Columba, in the year
563, the monastery began as a gathering of small
wooden buildings on the east side of the island.
Archaeology has revealed the location of the
monastery, and some of its features, including a
large vallum or perimeter wall. Many
centuries later, on this site, a large stone
monastery was constructed.
The church of Iona as it
stands today, much restored in the 20th
Century.
We know more about Iona than almost any other
insular monastery of its time, not just because of
archaeological research, but because Iona monks
left a great deal of writing. By combining
archaeology with the study of Iona writings, we can
build up a detailed picture of the monastery, its
way of life, its religious, social and political
activities, and even its beliefs and ideas.
The literature from Iona includes several
poems thought to
have been written there; a chronicle kept on the
island up to about the year 740, which was later
copied into the important Annals of Ulster; and a
collection of Irish canons governing church and
society which was probably made on the island in
the early 8th century. But the most important
material of all is the writing of Adomnán
mac Rónáin, the ninth abbot of Iona,
who died in 704. He it was who wrote a book On the
Holy Places, an account of the Holy Land which is a
sophisticated work of scriptural scholarship, in
which difficulties in understanding passages in the
Bible are resolved by studying geographical
information about the area. Adomnán also
wrote and promoted a law for the protection of
women, the Cáin
Adomnáin ('Law of Adomnán'),
also known as the Lex Innocentium ('Law of the
Innocents').
But as a source of information about the early
monastery, Adomnán's Life of Columba is
without parallel. Here we see the daily life of the
monks, working in the fields, praying and singing
in the church, studying, welcoming guests,
supervising penitents, dealing with kings and
warriors, sailing to and from Ireland, and much
more.
By the time Adomnán was writing, however,
Columba was a hundred years dead. Adomnán's
work no doubt tells us something about Columba, but
it tells us a great deal more about Adomnán,
about how he saw his world and his role in it. This
is often the most useful way for a historian to
read Saints'
Lives from this period.
Most of the abbots of the monastery for the
first century or more were related by blood to the
founding saint. He was a member of the very
powerful Northern Irish clan of Cenél
Conaill, part of the Northern Uí
Néill kingdom. The abbots of Iona usually
enjoyed close relations with these powerful kinsmen
of theirs, who sometimes claimed rule over all of
Ireland. Such blood ties helped to raise Iona to be
one of the most important churches in Scotland and
Ireland, and to have huge influence.
This influence was felt in Ireland, where
Columba had also founded other monasteries. It was
felt throughout Dál Riata, where Iona had
several daughter houses, and where she claimed the
right to 'ordain' the kings of Dál Riata.
Her influence was felt in the English kingdom of
Northumbria, too, where Iona founded the monastery
of Lindisfarne. Adomnán also tells us of
many monasteries of Iona monks situated in
Pictland.
Some of the principal churches
associated with Iona family
in the early middle ages, in Scotland, Ireland and
England.
Iona, however, was not the only important
monastery even in Dál Riata. Others were
founded which had no allegiance to Columba's monks,
such as the important one on Lismore, one in
Applecross and one on Tiree, to name but three.
Gradually, however, as Iona's power grew, other
churches were rather overshadowed. By the time that
Gaelic speaking rulers had seized power in
Pictland, the cult of Saint Columba was the most
important one of all. And so in 849
AD his relics were acquired by Cinaed mac
Ailpín, to give spiritual authority to his
new dynasty, and carted off to Dunkeld in the
east.
The Vikings
devastated Iona in 795, and again in 802, 806 (when
they killed 68 of the monks) and 825. It may have
been this pressure that forced the Iona monks to
build a new monastery in Ireland, at Kells. The
building work began in 807 and was finished in 814,
when Kells became the new centre for the monks of
Columba's family. Iona remained a monastery, and an
important one, for kings continued to be buried
there, and it continued to produce fine works of
sculpture. But it was never again to have the
prestige that it had enjoyed during the abbacy of
Adomnán.
Key
References
- Broun and Clancy (1999)
- Clancy and Márkus (1995)
- Máire Herbert (1988)
- Gilbert Márkus (1997)
- Dennis Meehan (1983)
- Richard Sharpe (1995)
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This
project has been supported by the EU as part of the Culture
2000 programme.