Columba
An Irish priest and abbot who left Ireland about 563 and founded the island monastery of Iona, from which he worked among the Picts and the Irish of western Britain. His Life was written a century later by Adomnán, ninth abbot of Iona.
Bede calls Columba a priest and abbot, “marked as a monk by habit and manner of life”, who had founded the monastery of Durrow in Ireland before he crossed to Britain to preach to the northern Picts (Bede, Ecclesiastical History 3.4). The Annals of Ulster enter his voyage to Iona under 563, in his forty-second year, which puts his birth about 521 (Annals of Ulster 563, 595). Adomnán says that he sailed about two years after the battle of Cúl Dreimne (Adomnán, Life of Columba 1.7).
He remained abbot of Iona until his death. Adomnán gives him thirty-four years in Britain and describes his last day in detail: he was copying a psalter, stopped at the foot of a page, and died in the church at midnight as Sunday began (Adomnán, Life of Columba 3.23–24). The annals give the day as 9 June (Annals of Ulster 563, 595); the year usually given is 597 (Columba Founds Iona). Bede adds that he was never a bishop, and that for this reason the abbots of Iona, who were priests, had authority even over bishops (Bede, Ecclesiastical History 3.4).
In the timeline
- AD 563, estimated dateColumba Founds Iona
The Irish priest and abbot Columba crosses to Britain and founds a monastery on the island of Iona. From it he preaches among the Picts, and it becomes the mother house of a family of monasteries in Ireland and Britain.
Primary sources
Life of Saint Columba
- Adomnán, Life of Columba 1.7sourcebooks.fordham.edu
- Adomnán, Life of Columba 3.23–24sourcebooks.fordham.edu