Columba was Irish royalty, the grandson of King Niall. He was educated in a school attached to one of the monasteries founded by St Patrick, his schooling ended when the plague struck. He toured the northern regions of Ireland for 15 years, preaching the gospel and establishing Christian communities, including the monasteries of Derry, Durrow, and possibly Kells.

He left Ireland in 563 for Scotland, as an act of self-imposed penance. He had upset the king of Ireland, refusing to hand over a copy of the Gospels he had illegally copied. This led to a pitched battle in which Columba’s warrior family prevailed. Full of remorse for the deaths he had caused, he fled, taking 12 companions with him, they settled in Iona Island, where he could see his native home in the distance.

St. Columba set about building Iona’s first abbey. Life was simple and austere; tilling the difficult soil. fishing the cold seas, with rigorous rounds of prayer and copying of Christian manuscripts. St. Columba was an excellent scribe and created many manuscripts. He compiled a Hymnal for the Week, and according to his biographers, he was the author of commentaries on the Bible, prayers, hymns, and poems. His most outstanding work is the “Cathach of Columba”—a splendid copy of the Gospel on vellum, made before 561. This great relic, the earliest Irish manuscript of this kind, still exists and is kept at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.

Hot-tempered in his youth, Columba softened with age, becoming gentle and merciful. Iona became the base for evangelistic missions to the Picts in Caledonia, fighting the power and influence of the Druids. He succeeded in converting Brude, the king of the Picts. Iona became the most important centre for evangelisation of the northern regions of Britain and in 574 Aidan of Dalriada, the Irish king, came to Columba for consecration.

Columba and his successors established monasteries in Scotland where the Church grew as strong as that of Ireland. By tradition bishops obeyed Abbot Columba, and after his death Scottish hierarchs continued to obey abbots of Iona. His influence in Ireland included some continuing control over the monasteries he had established there. St Columba left a strong legacy.

Over the centuries the monks of Iona produced countless elaborate carvings, manuscripts and Celtic crosses. Perhaps their greatest work was the exquisite. 'Book of Kells', which dates from 800 AD, currently on display in Trinity College, Dublin. When in 806 AD the Viking raids began, St Colombra’s bones were moved to Dunkeld to protect them. No part of St. Columba’s original buildings remain, but on the left hand side of the Abbey entrance is a small roofed chamber claimed to mark the site of the saint’s tomb.

BORN: 7 December 521 AD, Gartan, Scotia (Ireland)

DIED: 9 June 597 AD, Iona, United Kingdom