Twelve years had now elapsed since Columba first set foot on the island of Iona, and he had already to a great extent accomplished the task he had set before him. He had founded his monastery in the island, as the central point of his mission; and the exhibition of the Christian life, as alone it was possible to present it in the state of society which prevailed among these pagan tribes, as a colony of tonsured monks following a monastic rule, had its usual effect in influencing the population of the adjacent districts. He had converted and baptized the most powerful monarch that ever occupied the Pictish throne, and secured his friendship and support; and this was soon followed by the whole nation ostensibly professing the Christian faith. He had succeeded in re-establishing the Irish colony of Dalriada in the full possession of its territories, and obtained from the Ardri, or supreme king of Ireland, the recognition of its independence. He now found himself occupying a position of great influence and authority both in Ireland and Scotland—as the founder of numerous monasteries in the former, and as the acknowledged head of the Christian Church in the latter. Adamnan tells us that he had founded monasteries within the territories both of the Picts and of the Scots of Britain, who are separated from each other by the great mountain range of Drumalban.^[252] These monasteries, as well as those which he had founded in Ireland, regarded the insular monastery of Iona as the mother church, and as having, as such, a claim to their obedience; and became subject to her jurisdiction, while their inmates constituted the great monastic fraternity which was termed the Muintir Iae, or family of Iona, in the extended sense of the term. Adamnan mentions only a few of these monasteries, and gives no details which might enable us to fix the exact date of their foundation; though we can gather from his narrative that some of them existed during the earlier years of his mission, and all must, of course, have been founded at some period during the thirty-four years of his life in Iona.

Among the islands in which he founded monasteries, the two most important are those termed by Adamnan ‘Ethica terra’ and ‘Insula Hinba,’ or ‘Hinbina:’ the former has been conclusively identified with the low-lying and fertile island of Tiree, the Tireth, or ‘land of corn,’ which lies about twenty miles to the north-west of Iona, and whose dim outline would be barely seen on the horizon were it not for the elevated promontory of Ceannavara at the south end of the island. The name Hinba or Hinbina seems to designate the group of islands called the Garveloch Isles, situated in the centre of the great channel which separates the island of Mull from the mainland of Lorn, and which were the Imbach, or ‘sea-surrounded.’ The most westerly of the four islands which constitute this group is termed Elachnave and Eilean na Naomh, or the Island of Saints. It is a grassy island rising to a considerable height, and has at the west side a small and sheltered bay, on the lower ground facing which are a fountain, called St. Columcille’s Well, and the foundations of what must have been a monastic establishment, near which are the remains of two beehive cells.^[253] It is probable that on these two islands were founded the two earliest monasteries by Brendan before they were lost to the Scots of Dalriada by the defeat of the year 560, by which event they were probably swept away. In the year 565 Comgall of Bangor, who had come to the assistance of Columba on his first visit to King Brude, erected a monastery at a certain village in the land of Heth, or Tiree, where he is said in his Life to have abode some time; and that too was ruined by the Picts. We are told in his Life that, ‘one day when Comgall was working in the field, he put his white hood over his garment; and about the same time a number of heathen plunderers from the Picts came to that village to carry away everything that was there, whether man or beast. Accordingly when the heathen robbers came to Comgall, who was labouring in the field, and saw his white hood over his cape, thinking that this white hood was Comgall’s Deity, they were deterred from laying hands on him, for fear of his God. However, they carried off to their ship the brethren of Comgall and all their substance.’ The pirates are of course shipwrecked through the prayers of the Saint, and gave back their plunder; but afterwards Comgall was conducted back to Ireland by a company of holy men.^[254] This took place during the interval of fourteen years between the defeat of the Dalriads in 560 and their re-establishment in 574; and during this period the islands around Iona, which had been occupied by the Scots and from which they were driven by the Picts, seem to have formed a sort of debateable ground with a mixed population of Scots and Picts, who carried on a kind of guerilla warfare with each other; and any Christian establishments which existed among them would form points of attack for the heathen Picts. Thus we have here Pictish sea-robbers attacking the monastery in Tiree; and Adamnan tells us of a noted pirate of the royal tribe of Gabhran, and therefore a Scot, called Johan, son of Conall, whose seat appears to have been the rude fort which gave the name of Dunchonell to one of the Garvelochs, and whom we find plundering in the district of Ardnamurchan.^[255] He also tells us of a robber, Erc, the Druid’s son, who resided in Colonsay, and who plunders in the island of Mull.

Of Columban monasteries in Tiree, Adamnan mentions two. One he calls ‘Campus Lunge,’ or the plain of Lunge. It was situated near the shore over-against Iona, and had a portus, or harbour, which is probably the little creek or bay still known as Portnaluing; and the site of the monastery has been identified with that of Soroby on the south-east side of the island, where a large churchyard with some old tombstones and an ancient cross are the only remains of an ecclesiastical establishment. The monastery is frequently mentioned by Adamnan. It seems to have been founded at an early period, and was under the charge of Baithen, afterwards the successor of Columba in the abbacy of Iona.^[256] The second is termed by Adamnan Artchain, and said to have been founded by Findchan, one of Columba’s monks, whose name also appears in Kilfinichen in the island of Mull.^[257] The island, too, which he calls Hinba, is repeatedly mentioned by Adamnan, and seems also to have been an early foundation. He tells us that at one time Columba sent Ernan, his uncle, an aged priest, to preside over the monastery he had founded many years before in that island;^[258] and it seems to have been especially connected with the penitential discipline of the order, and a place of retirement for those who wished to lead a more solitary life. Thus, we find Columba on one occasion visiting Hinba, and ordering that the penitents should enjoy some indulgence in respect of food, which one of the penitents in that place, a certain Neman, refused to accept.^[259] Again, one of the brethren, Virgnous, after having lived for some time in the monastery of Iona, resolved to spend the rest of his life in Hinba, and led the life of an anchorite for twelve years in the hermitage of Muirbulcmar.^[260] The church and the house occupied by Columba are mentioned by Adamnan, and it is not impossible that the hermitage here referred to yet exists in one of the two beehive cells, which is still entire.^[261] Here, too, he tells us that four holy founders of monasteries came from Ireland to visit Columba, whom they found in Hinba. These were Comgall of Bangor and Cainnech of Achaboe, the two who had accompanied him in his first visit to King Brude, Brendan of Clonfert, and that Cormac for whom, when on a voyage in search of a solitary island in which to found a hermitage, he asked King Brude to secure the protection of the ruler of the Orkneys. This meeting must have taken place before the year 577, when Brendan died. They are termed by Adamnan ‘founders of monasteries,’ and he probably means here monasteries in Scotland; for Cormac is not known to have founded any monastery in Ireland, where he was superior of the monastery of Durrow, founded by Columba shortly before he began his mission in Iona; but in Galloway the church of Kirkcormac probably takes its name from him. The other three had all founded monasteries in Scotland—Brendan one in Tiree, and another probably in the island belonging to the Garveloch group, called Culbrandon; Comgall, in Tiree; while Cainnech founded several monasteries in Scotland. In his Life he is said to have lived in Heth, or Tiree, where the remains of a church called Cillchainnech still exist. He was also in Iona, where the remains of a burying-ground are still called Cillchainnech. He is also said to have dwelt at the foot of a mountain in the Drumalban range, referring, no doubt, to the church of Laggankenney, at the east end of Loch Laggan, and two islands are mentioned, Ibdone and Eninis, or the ‘island of birds,’ one or other of which was probably the island now called Inchkenneth, on the west side of Mull.^[262] Adamnan mentions one other island monastery, that of Elena, of which one of Columba’s twelve followers, Lugneus Mocumin, became superior—probably Eilean Naomh on the west coast of Isla; and two monasteries on the mainland, one called Cella Diuni, of which Cailtan was superior, on the lake of the river Aba, which is probably Lochawe; and the other called Kailleauinde, of which Finten was superior, and which may be Killundine in the old parish of Killintag in Morvern.^[263] A few of Columba’s other foundations in western districts and islands can be traced by their dedications to him. In the island of Skye, where he is mentioned by Adamnan as having been twice, in the very remarkable ruins on an island in a loch now drained, called Loch Chollumcille, in the north of Skye. Also, on an island in the river of Snizort, one which was of old called Sanct Colme’s kirk in Snizort; and one on a small island in the bay of Portree, called Eilean Columcille.^[264] The church in Canna too bore his name. In Morvern one of the two old parishes was called Cillcholumchille, and within the limits of Dalriada, on the mainland, were a few churches bearing the same name.

Of churches founded during his life, and no doubt in connection with him by others, three were sufficiently prominent to be occasionally mentioned in the Irish Annals. The first was that of Lismore, founded on the long grassy island of Lismore, lying between the coast of Lorn and that of Morvern, by Lugadius, or Moluoc, a bishop. He is termed by Angus the Culdee, under June 25th, ‘Lamluoc the pure, the bright, the pleasant, the sun of Lismore;’ and the gloss adds, ‘that is, Moluoc of Lismore in Alban.’ His death is recorded by Tighernac in 592.^[265] He is said by the Breviary of Aberdeen to have been a disciple of Brendan; but it is more probable that he was attached to Columba, as his pedigree takes him up to Conall Gulban, the ancestor of Columba and the founder of the tribe to which he belonged.^[266] The name of Kilmaluog in Lismore still commemorates his church there. The second of these monasteries is that of Cinngaradh, or Kingarth, a church in the south end of the island of Bute, which was founded by Cathan, who also was a bishop. He was of the race of the Irish Picts, and the contemporary and friend of Comgall and Cainnech;^[267] and from him were named the churches termed Cillchattan. The third was founded in the island of Egea, or Egg, which, with its strangely-shaped hill called the Scuir of Egg, can be seen from the north end of Iona. The founder was Donnan. He is commemorated by Angus the Culdee in his Felire, on the 17th of April, as ‘Donnan of cold Eig,’ to which the gloss adds, ‘Eig is the name of an island which is in Alban, and in it is Donnan. This Donnan went to Columcille to make him his Anmchara, or soul-friend; upon which Columcille said to him, I shall not be soul-friend to a company of red martyrdom, for thou shalt come to red martyrdom and thy people with thee; and it was so fulfilled;’^[268] and in his Litany he invokes the ‘fifty-four who suffered martyrdom with Donnan of Ega.’^[269] This would place the settlement in the island of Egg in the lifetime of Columba, and probably during the interval between the defeat and death of Gabran in 560 and the succession of Aidan in 574, when it required no great gift of prophecy to anticipate such a fate for a Christian establishment in one of the group of islands which were at the time the scene of warfare between the two nations, though this fate did not in fact overtake them till some time after. The churches termed Cill Donnan were either founded by him or dedicated to him. The numerous churches in the west Highlands bearing the names of Cillmaluag, Cillchattan, and Cilldonnan show that these were centres of missionary work.

Of the monasteries which must have been founded by Columba in the Pictish territories east of the Drumalban range Adamnan gives us no account, nor does he even mention any by name; but of the foundation of one we have an instructive account in the Book of Deer, which shows that they extended as far as the Eastern Sea. The tradition of the foundation of the churches of Aberdour in Banffshire and of Deer in the district of Buchan are thus given. ‘Columcille and Drostan, son of Cosgrach, his pupil, came from Hi, or Iona, as God had shown to them, unto Abbordoboir, or Aberdour, and Bede the Cruithnech, or Pict, was Mormaer of Buchan before them; and it was he that gave them that cathair, or town, in freedom for ever from Mormaer and Toisech. They came after that to the other town; and it was pleasing to Columcille, because it was full of God’s grace, and he asked of the Mormaer—viz., Bede—that he should give it him, and he did not give it; and a son of his took an illness after refusing the clerics, and he was nearly dead. Then the Mormaer went to entreat the clerics that they should make prayer for the son, that health should come to him, and he gave in offering to them from Cloch in tiprat to Cloch pette mic Garnait. They made the prayer, and health came to him. Then Columcille gave to Drostan that cathair, and blessed it, and left as his word “Whosoever should come against it, let him not be many-yeared victorious.” Drostan’s tears came on parting with Columcille. Said Columcille, “Let Dear be its name henceforward.”’^[270] In this traditional account preserved by the monks of Deer, we have a type of the mode in which these monasteries, or Christian colonies, were settled among the heathen tribes—the grant of a cathair, or fort, by the head of the tribe, and its occupation by a colony of clerics,—which is quite in accordance with what we learn as to the settlements of this monastic church in Ireland. The church of Rosmarkyn, now Rosemarky, on the northern shore of the Moray Firth, and that of Muirthillauch, or Mortlach, in the vale of the Fiddich, were dedicated to Moluog of Lismore, and were probably founded by him, as was that of Kildonan in Sutherland, by Donnan.