‘It appears to have been a wonderful dispensation of the Divine goodness, that the same nation which had wittingly and without envy communicated to the people of the Angles the knowledge of the true Deity, should afterwards, by means of the nation of the Angles, be brought, in those points on which they were defective, to the rule of life;’ such is the reflection of the Venerable Bede when contemplating the change which had taken place in the Columban Church in the beginning of the eighth century, which he thus expresses: ‘The monks of Hii, or Iona, by the instruction of Ecgberct, adopted the Catholic rites under Abbot Dunchad, about eighty years after they had sent Bishop Aidan to preach to the nation of the Angles.’^[505] He had previously stated that, not long after the year 710, ‘those monks also of the Scottish nation who lived in the island of Hii, with the other monasteries that were subject to them, were, by the procurement of our Lord, brought to the canonical observance of Easter and the right mode of tonsure;^[506] and this had been effected by the most reverend and holy father and priest Ecgberct, of the nation of the Angles, who had long lived in banishment in Ireland for the sake of Christ, and was most learned in the Scriptures and distinguished for the perfection of a long life, and who came among them, corrected their error, and changed them to the true and canonical day of Easter.’^[507] Bede implies that this took place in the year 716; but the change was not so general or so instantaneous as might be inferred from this statement. The monks of Iona, or a part of them at least, had certainly in that year adopted the Catholic Easter;^[508] but it is not till two years after that date, and a year after the death of Abbot Dunchad, that they adopted the coronal tonsure. The expression of the Irish annalist who records the event rather implies that it had been forced upon an unwilling community;^[509] and, so far from the other monasteries that were subject to them having generally submitted to the change in 716, the resistance of those within the territories of the Pictish king to the royal edict commanding the adoption of the Catholic Easter and the coronal tonsure throughout all the provinces of the Picts led to the expulsion of ‘the family of Iona’—by which expression the Columban monks are meant—from the Pictish kingdom in 717. This conflict then appears to have led to two results. In the first place, it separated the churches of the eastern districts from Iona, broke up the unity of the Columban Church, and terminated the supremacy of the parent monastery of Iona over the churches in the Pictish kingdom, which had been subject to them; and, in the second place, it seems undoubtedly to have caused a schism in the community on the island, as such innovations usually do when the attempt to force upon an entire body the views of a majority is sure to be met by a resisting minority.

There were thus at this time two parties among the brethren in Iona. One party, who had reluctantly given way on some points, but in the main adhered to the customs of their fathers, and clung with tenacity to the monastic system hallowed by their veneration for the founder Columba; the other, and probably the larger and more influential, conforming in everything to the Roman party, and leaning towards a modification of their monastic institution by the introduction of a secular clergy—each party putting up a rival abbot as soon as they found themselves sufficiently powerful to do so. By the death of Dunchad, in 717, Faelchu was left for the time sole abbot of Iona. He was of the race of Conall Gulban, and the legitimate successor of the old abbots according to the law which regulated the succession to the abbacy in the Monastic Church; and his party would be strengthened by those of the refugee monks from the monasteries in King Nectan’s dominions who took shelter in Iona. Of the monks who had been driven out of the Pictish kingdom, some would merely pass over the Drumalban range into the territory of the Scottish kings of Dalriada, or seek a farther home among the Columban monasteries in Ireland; but many would no doubt be drawn to the parent monastery in Iona, which was beyond King Nectan’s power, and add numbers and force to what might be termed the Conservative party in the island. On the other hand, Ecgberct was still alive and resident in Iona, and would naturally be at the head of what may be called the Reforming party, and use all his influence in promoting and extending their authority in the island. The account Bede gives of his life there shows that his efforts were not so immediately and entirely successful as one would infer from his other statements, and that his progress was slow. He says, ‘This man of God, Ecgberct, remained thirteen years in the aforesaid island which he had thus consecrated again to Christ, by kindling in it a new ray of divine grace, and restoring it to ecclesiastical unity and peace. In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 729, in which the Easter of our Lord was celebrated on the eighth day before the kalends of May—that is, on the 24th April—when he had performed the solemnity of the mass in memory of the same resurrection of our Lord, on that same day he departed to the Lord; and thus finished, or rather never ceases to celebrate, with our Lord, the apostles and the other citizens of heaven, the joy of that greatest festival, which he had begun with the brethren whom he had converted to the grace of unity. But it was a wonderful provision of the divine dispensation that the venerable man not only passed out of this world to the Father at Easter, but also when Easter was celebrated on that day on which it had never been wont to be kept in these parts. The brethren, therefore, rejoiced in the certain and Catholic knowledge of the time of Easter, and rejoiced in the protection of their father, departed to our Lord, by whom they had been corrected. He also rejoiced that he had been continued in the flesh till he saw his followers admit and celebrate with him as Easter that day which they had ever before avoided. Thus the most reverend father, being assured of their correction, rejoiced to see the day of our Lord; and he saw it, and was glad.’^[510] These expressions are hardly consistent with the statement that he had brought the entire community over to the adoption of the Catholic customs thirteen years before, in 716; and we find that during his life, after Faelchu had been left in sole possession of the abbacy, it was not till he had possessed it for five years that a rival abbot, Feidhlimidh, is put forward in the year 722, who is recorded as holding the abbacy in that year,^[511] though Faelchu was still in life. His pedigree is not recorded, and he could have had no claim as belonging to the tribe of the saint, to whom the succession belonged. Again, when Faelchu dies in 724, we find that a certain Cillene Fada, or the Long, succeeds Faelchu in the abbacy,^[512] and on his death, in 726, another, Cilline, surnamed Droichteach,^[513] appears as abbot, though during the whole of this time Feidhlimidh also is abbot of Iona. Ecgberct did not, therefore, see entire conformity during his life, and the schism was in full vigour up to the day of his death.

We must place probably at this time and in connection with these events two missionaries, who likewise appear to have proceeded from the south towards the western districts and the Isles. These are Modan and Ronan. Modan appears in the Scotch Calendars as an abbot on the 4th February, and as a bishop on the 14th November; but the dedications to him are so much mixed up together that it is probable that the same Modan is meant in both. Ronan appears as bishop on the 7th of February. The dedications to them are usually found so close together as to show that they both belonged to the same mission. We first find Modan at Dryburgh, on the south bank of the Tweed, and then at the church called by the Celtic people Eaglaisbreac, and by the Anglic population Fahkirk, now called Falkirk, both meaning ‘the speckled church.’ We then find him at Rosneath, in the district of Lennox, and near it is the church of Kilmaronok dedicated to St. Ronan.^[514] They appear to have proceeded to Lorn, where Balimhaodan, or ‘St. Modan’s town,’ is the old name of Ardchattan, and where on the opposite side of Loch Etive, is again Kilmaronog. Ronan appears then to have carried his mission to the Isles. He has left his trace in Iona, where one of the harbours is Port Ronan. The church, afterwards the parish church, was dedicated to him, and is called Teampull Ronaig, and its burying-ground Cladh Ronan. Then we find him at Rona, in the Sound of Skye, and another Rona off the coast of Lewis; and finally his death is recorded in 737 as Ronan, abbot of Cinngaradh, or Kingarth, in Bute.^[515] The church, too, in the island of Eigg again appears about this time, when we hear in 725 of the death of Oan, superior of Ego.^[516]

A new element seems now to have been introduced into the controversies at Iona, and probably still further complicated the state of parties there. This was the appearance, after the death of Cillene the Long, but while Feidlimidh, the rival abbot, was still alive, of an anchorite as abbot of Iona. Tighernac tells us that in 727, the year after Cillene’s death, the relics of St. Adamnan were carried to Ireland and his law renewed,^[517] that is, what was called the law of the innocents, which exempted women from the burden of hosting. An ancient document, however, in one of the Brussels MSS. explains this to mean not that the bones of Adamnan had been enshrined and carried to Ireland, but other relics which had been collected by him. The passage is this: ‘Illustrious was this Adamnan. It was by him was gathered the great collection of the relics (martra) of the saints into one shrine; and that was the shrine which Cilline Droichteach, son of Dicolla, brought to Erin, to make peace and friendship between the Cinel Conaill and the Cinel Eoghain.’^[518] Cilline Droichteach, however, appears in the Martyrology of Tallaght as ‘Abb Iae,’ or abbot of Iona; and the Martyrology of Marian expressly says, ‘Abbot of la Cholumcille was this Cilline Droichteach;’Droichteach;’^[519] while his death is recorded by Tighernac in 752 as ‘anchorite of Iona.’^[520] Here then we have an anchorite who was abbot from 727 to 752 during the tenure of the same office by Feidhlimidh. Cilline was not of the race of Conall Gulban, and therefore not of the line of legitimate successors to the abbacy, but belonged to the southern Hy Neill. The collecting of the relics of the saints by Adamnan is clearly characteristic of that period in his history when he had conformed to Rome; and Cilline’s bearing the shrine as a symbol of his authority in renewing Adamnan’s law connects him also with the same party. The results then of the controversy at Iona correspond with those which we have already found among the Picts after the expulsion of the Columban monks—that, besides the secular clergy who made their appearance in connection with the Roman party, there likewise came clergy belonging to the more ascetic order of the anchorites; and they now appear as forming one of the parties in Iona. The epithet of Droichteach means literally bridger, or bridgemaker, a name apparently little appropriate in an island where there are no streams large enough to render bridges necessary; but behind the vallum of the monastery, and extending from the mill-stream to the hill called Dunii, was a shallow lake, occupying several acres, which fed the stream, and which was probably partly natural and partly artificial. Through the centre of this lake, which is now drained, there runs a raised way pointing to the hills. It is a broad and elevated causeway constructed of earth and stones, and is now called Iomaire an tachair, or ‘the ridge of the way.’ It is 220 yards long and about 22 feet wide.^[521] In a hollow among the hillocks to which it points, and at some little distance, is the foundation of a small oval house measuring about 18 feet long by 14 broad, outside measure, now called Cabhan Cuildeach; and from the door of the house proceeds a small avenue of stones, which grows wider as it ascends to a hillock; and there are traces of walls which appear to have enclosed it. It is difficult to avoid the conjecture that it was the construction of this causeway which gave to Cillene, the anchorite abbot, his epithet of Bridgemaker, more especially as it points towards what appears to have been an anchorite’s cell, to which it was probably designed to give ready access across the lake; and, if he constructed it, we have only to look to an old anchorite establishment in Ireland to find what afforded him his pattern. In the island of Ardoilen, on the west coast of Ireland, already referred to as affording an example of an early anchorite establishment, we find that ‘on the south side of the enclosure there is a small lake, apparently artificial, from which an artificial outlet is formed, which turned a small mill; and along the west side of this lake there is an artificial stone path or causeway, 220 yards in length, which leads to another stone cell or house, of an oval form, at the south side of the valley in which the monastery is situated. This house is eighteen feet long and nine wide, and there is a small walled enclosure joined to it, which was probably a garden. There is also, adjoining to it, a stone altar surmounted by a cross, and a small lake which, like that already noticed, seems to have been formed by art.’^[522] There is no appearance of a stone altar near the cell in Iona. In other respects the resemblance seems too striking to be accidental.

It is during this period, while Feidhlimidh and Cilline the anchorite appear as rival abbots, that a catastrophe is recorded by Tighernac in 737,^[523] in which Failbe, son of Guaire, the heir of Maelruba of Apuorcrosan, was drowned in the deep sea with twenty-two of his sailors. The monastery founded by Maelruba at Apuorcrosan, now Applecross, had therefore remained intact. The word ‘hæres,’ or heir, is here the equivalent of the Irish word Comharba, pronounced coärb, signifying co-heir or inheritor,^[524] which occasionally appears as applied to the heads of religious houses in Ireland during the preceding century, in connection with the name of its founder, and which now makes its first appearance in Scotland. In the Monastic Church in Ireland, when land was given by the chief or head of a family, it was held to be a personal grant to the saint or missionary himself and to his heirs, according to the ecclesiastical law of succession. Heirs of his body such a founder of a monastery, who was himself under the monastic rule, of course could not have; but, as we have seen, when the tribe of the land and the tribe of the patron saint were the same, the former supplied the abbacy with a person qualified to occupy the position; and, when they were different, the abbot was taken from the tribe to which the patron saint belonged. These were his ecclesiastical successors and co-heirs. As such they inherited the land or territory which had been granted to the original founder of the church or monastery, and as such they inherited, as coärbs, or co-heirs, his ecclesiastical as well as his temporal rights.^[525] When the integrity of the monastic institutions in Ireland began to be impaired in the seventh century under the influence of the party who had conformed to Rome, the heads of the religious houses found it necessary to fall back more upon the rights and privileges inherited from the founders; and hence in this century the term of Coärb, in connection with the name of some eminent saint, came to designate the bishops or abbots who were the successors of his spiritual and temporal privileges, and eventually the possessor of the land, bearing the name of abbot, whether he were a layman or a cleric. Thus, at A.D. 590, the annals record the appointment of Gregory the Great to be coärb of Peter the Apostle, that is, bishop of Rome. At 606 we have the death of Sillan, son of Caimin, abbot of Bangor and ‘coärb of Comgall,’ who was its founder. In 654 we find the superior of the church of Aranmore called ‘coärb of Enda’ its founder; and in 680 the superior of the monastery at Cork is termed coärb of St. Barry, who founded it.^[526] Here in 737 the abbot of the monastery at Apuorcrosan is termed the heir, that is coärb, of Maelruba, who founded it; and, as we shall see, the abbots of Iona became known under the designation of coärbs of Columcille. Twelve years afterwards a similar catastrophe befell the family of Iona, who were drowned in a great storm in the year 749,^[527] a not unnatural occurrence if they were caught in their curach between Iona and Colonsay in a southwesterly gale; but which party suffered by this loss we do not know—probably that which supported Cilline the anchorite, as, on his death in 752, we find the abbacy assumed by Slebhine, son of Congal, who was of the race of Conall Gulban, and therefore belonged to what may be termed the Columban party. In the same year Tighernac records the death of Slebhine’s brother Cilline in Iona, and of Cuimine, grandson or descendant of Becc the religious of Ego, or the island of Eigg.^[528] Slebhine, the Columban abbot, appears to have endeavoured to get his authority as the legitimate successor of Columba recognised by the Columban monasteries in Ireland; for we find him going to Ireland in 754, and enforcing the law of Columcille three years after, when he seems to have returned to Iona, but again went to Ireland in the following year.^[529] Feidhlimidh, the rival abbot, dies in the year 759, having completed the eighty-seventh year of his age.^[530] But this did not terminate the schism: for we find a Suibhne, abbot of Iona, who goes to Ireland in the year 765,^[531] apparently for the purpose of endeavouring to win the Columban monasteries there; but the death of Slebhine two years after^[532] leaves him sole abbot for five years, when, on his own death in the year 772,^[533] he is succeeded by Breasal, son of Seghine, whose pedigree is unknown; and in him the schism seems to have come to an end. Slebhine appears to have been the last of the abbots who at this time were of the race of Conall Gulban and had thus a hereditary claim to the abbacy; and more than a hundred years elapsed before another of the race obtained the abbacy. The fall of the Scottish kingdom of Dalriada about this time may have contributed to this suspension of the rights of the tribe of the patron saint. But all opposition to the entire conformity of the whole family of Iona to the Roman Church appears now to have ceased, and there is no indication of any further division among them.^[534]

Breasal appears to have held the abbacy without challenge for nearly thirty years; and, five years after his accession, he seems to have been fully recognised by the Columban monasteries in Ireland, as we find that the law of Columcille was enforced in 778 by Donnchadh, king of Ireland, and head of the Northern Hy Neill, and by him as abbot of Iona.^[535] In 782 we have the first notice of a new functionary in Iona, in the death in that year of Muredach son of Huairgaile, steward of Iona.^[536] His functions were probably connected with the law of Columcille, which involved the collection of tribute. We find, too, during this period, some incidental notices of two of the other foundations in the Isles. In 775 dies Conall of Maigh Lunge,^[537] the monastery founded by Columba in Tyree. In 776 the death of Maelemanach, abbot of Kingarth^[538] in Bute, and in 790 that of Noe, abbot of the same monastery, are recorded.^[539] We learn, too, that while Breasal was abbot two Irish monarchs retired to Iona and died there. Niall Frosach, formerly king of all Ireland, died there in 778.^[540] Airtgaile, son of Cathail, king of Connaught, assumed the pilgrim’s staff in 782, and in the following year retired to Iona, and died there after eight years spent in seclusion.^[541] The last connection of the Scots, too, with Dalriada was severed for the time by the removal of the relics of the three sons of Erc, the founders of the colony, who had been buried in Iona, to the great cemetery of Tailten in Ireland.^[542]

Breasal’s tenure of the abbacy, however, was to be characterised by a greater event, which was to exercise a fatal influence on the fortunes of the Scottish monasteries for many a long and dreary year. This was the appearance in the Isles, in 794, of a host of sea pirates from the northern kingdom of Denmark, who were to render the name of Dane equivalent in the ears of the Columban monks to the spoliation of their monasteries and the slaughter of their inmates. In 794 there appears in the Irish Annals the ominous entry of the devastation of all the islands of Britain by the Gentiles, as they were at first called, followed, in 795, by the spoliation of Iae Columcille, or Iona, by them. Again, three years after, the spoliation of the islands of the sea between Erin and Alban by the Gentiles.^[543] The Danes soon discovered that the richest spoil was to be found in the monasteries, and directed their destructive attacks against them. Breasal, however, though doomed to witness these acts of spoliation, was spared the sight of the total destruction of his monastery; for in 801 he died, in the thirty-first year of his tenure of the abbacy.^[544]

In the following year the monastery of Iona was burnt down by the Danes, and the Annals of the Four Masters place in the same year the death of Connachtach, a select scribe and abbot of Iona; and four years afterwards the community of Iona, then consisting of only sixty-eight members, were slain by the Danes,^[545] |A.D. 802-814.
Cellach, son of Congal, abbot of Iona.| Cellach, son of Conghaile, the abbot who succeeded Connachtach, having apparently taken refuge in Ireland. The monastic buildings thus destroyed belonged, no doubt, to the original monastery, which, as we have seen, had been originally constructed of wood, and repaired by Adamnan. Hitherto there had been no feeling of insecurity in connection with such wooden buildings, but since the ravages of the Danes began there is abundant evidence of the frequent destruction of such buildings by fire; and in the present instance there seems to have been not only the entire destruction of the monastery, but also the slaughter of those of the community who remained behind. So complete was the ruin, and so exposed had the island become to the ravages of the Danes, that the abbot Cellach appears to have resolved to remove the chief seat of the Columban order from Iona to Kells in Meath, of which he had obtained a grant two years previously. The Irish Annals record, in the year following the slaughter of the community, the building of a new Columban house at Kells; and we are told that in 814 Cellach, abbot of Iona, having finished the building of the church at Kells, resigns the abbacy, and Diarmicius, disciple of Daigri, is ordained in his place.^[546] This monastery at Kells, which thus took seven years to build, was constructed of stone,^[547] which now began universally to supersede wood in the construction of ecclesiastical buildings, as less likely to suffer total destruction from the firebrand of the Danes.

At this time, too, the remains of St. Columba seem to have been raised from the stone coffin which enclosed them, and carried to Ireland, where they were enshrined. We know from Adamnan that the body of the saint had been placed in a grave prepared for it, and apparently enclosed in a stone coffin, and that the place in which it lay was perfectly well known in his day. We also know that, at the time Bede wrote his History in 735, his remains were still undisturbed; but, at the time the Book of Armagh was compiled, that is, in 807, they were enshrined and preserved at the church of Saul Patrick on the shore of Strangford Lough in the county of Down in Ireland.^[548] It is therefore between these dates, 735 and 807, that they must have been removed.

Among the customs which sprang up in the Irish Church after she had been brought into contact and more frequent correspondence with the Roman Church, and had, to some extent, adopted her customs, was that of disinterring the remains of their saints and enclosing them in shrines which could be moved from place to place, and which were frequently used as a warrant for enforcing the privileges of the monasteries of which the saint was the founder. Notices of such enshrining of their relics first appear in the Irish Annals towards the middle of the eighth century. Thus we read, in 733, of the enshrining of the relics of St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Patrick for enforcing his law;^[549] in 743, of the enshrining of the relics of St. Treno of Celle Delgon, and in 776, of those of St. Erc of Slane and St. Finnian of Clonard;^[550] in 784, of the relics of St. Ultan; in 789, of those of St. Coemgin and St. Mochua.^[551] Then, in 799, we have the placing of the relics of Conlaid, who was the first bishop of Kildare, and, in 800, of those of Ronan, son of Berich, in shrines of gold and silver.^[552]

We have already seen that the remains of St. Cuthbert were enshrined eleven years after his death; and the circumstances are given in so much detail by Bede, who is a contemporary authority, that the proceedings of the Lindisfarne monks will throw light upon those of the monks of Iona. St. Cuthbert had wished to be buried in a stone coffin which had been given him by the abbot Cudda, and was placed under ground on the north side of his oratory in the island of Farne, but which he wished to be placed in his cell on the south side of his oratory opposite the east side of the holy cross which he had erected there.^[553] However, he accedes to the request of the Lindisfarne monks that they should bury him in their church at Lindisfarne. Accordingly, after his death his body was taken to Lindisfarne and deposited in a stone coffin in the church on the right side, that is, the south side, of the altar.^[554] Eleven years later the Lindisfarne monks resolved to enclose his remains in a light shrine, and, for the sake of decent veneration, to deposit them in the same place, but above, instead of below, the pavement.^[555] On opening his sepulchre they find the body entire, and they laid it in a light chest and deposited it upon the pavement of the sanctuary.^[556] Bishop Eadberct, St. Cuthbert’s successor, then died, and they deposited his body in the tomb of St. Cuthbert, and placed above it the shrine which contained the relics of the latter saint.^[557]

We see then that at this time, and in a church which derived its origin from Iona and preserved many of its Scottish customs, the place where the patron saint was buried was on the right, or south, side of the altar, and that when his remains were enshrined the shrine was placed in the same situation, but above the pavement of the church, instead of being sunk beneath it, that they might more readily be made the object of veneration. As the saint’s body was said to have been found entire, the light chest or shrine must have been large enough to contain it. We know from Simeon of Durham’s History of the Church of Durham that, when, owing to the cruel ravagings of the Danes, the monks resolved to abandon Lindisfarne, they took this shrine with them, and that it was finally deposited at Durham. He then tells us that in the year 1104 ‘the body of St. Cuthbert was disinterred, on account of the incredulity of certain persons, and was exhibited, in the episcopate of Bishop Ralph, in the presence of Earl Alexander, who afterwards became King of Scots, and many others. Ralph, abbot of Seez, afterwards bishop of Rochester, and ultimately archbishop of Canterbury, and the brethren of the church of Durham, having examined it closely, discovered that it was uncorrupted, and so flexible in its joints that it seemed more like a man asleep than one dead; and this occurred four hundred and eighteen years, five months and twelve days after his burial.’^[558] The description here given of the state of the body of St. Cuthbert is a verbatim repetition of that given by Bede when his tomb was opened eleven years after his death, and must be taken as having no other foundation; but we have from Reginald of Durham what is more material, an exact description of the shrine which enclosed it. He says—‘We have hitherto treated of the manner in which St. Cuthberct, the glorious bishop of Christ, was placed in his sepulchre; we will now give a description of the inner shrine (theca) itself. In this inner shrine he was first placed in the island of Lindisfarne, when he was raised from his grave; and in this his incorruptible body has been hitherto always preserved. It is quadrangular, like a chest (archa), and its lid is not elevated in the middle, but flat, so that its summit, whether of lid or sides, is all along level and even. The lid is like the lid of a box, broad and flat. The lid itself is a tablet of wood, serving for an opening, and the whole of it is made to be lifted up by means of two circles, or rings, which are fixed mid-way in its breadth, the one towards his feet and the other towards his head. By these rings the lid is elevated and let down, and there is no lock or fastening whatever to attach it to the shrine. The shrine is made entirely of black oak, and it may be doubted whether it has contracted that colour of blackness from old age, from some device, or from nature. The whole of it is externally carved with very admirable engraving, of such minute and most delicate work that the beholder, instead of admiring the skill or prowess of the carver, is lost in amazement. The compartments are very circumscribed and small, and they are occupied by divers beasts, flowers, and images, which seem to be inserted, engraved, or furrowed out in the wood. This shrine is enclosed in another outer one, which is entirely covered by hides, and is surrounded and firmly bound by iron rails and bandages. The third, however, which is decorated with gold and precious stones, is placed above these, and, by means of indented flutings projecting from the second, for which, in due order, similar projections are fabricated in this, is closely attached and fastened to it by long iron nails. This cannot possibly be separated from the rest, because these nails can by no device be drawn out without fracture.’^[559]

The Irish shrine was probably not so elaborate, but it too, as we have seen, was decorated with silver and gold; and in the Life of St. Bridget, written probably in the first half of the ninth century, and attributed to Cogitosus, an account is given us of the shrines in the church of Kildare. We have seen that the remains of Conlaid, the first bishop of Kildare, were disinterred and enshrined in the year 799; and Cogitosus, in his description of the church of St. Bridget, says, ‘in which the glorious bodies both of Bishop Conleath and of this virgin St. Bridget repose on the right and left sides of the altar, placed in ornamented shrines decorated with various devices of gold and silver and gems and precious stones, with crowns of gold and silver hanging above them.’^[560] If we are to look, then, to the period between the years 735 and 807 for the circumstances which led to the remains of St. Columba being disinterred, taken over to Ireland, and enshrined at the church of Saul Patrick, one of the nearest churches to Iona on the Irish coast, the most natural inference certainly is that they were connected with the piratical incursions of the Danes and the destruction of the original monastery by fire in 802.

In the year 818, Diarmaid, abbot of Iona, returned to the island, bringing with him the shrine of St. Columba.^[561] This implies that there had been by this time a reconstruction of the monastery at Iona. The same causes which led to the new foundation at Kells being constructed of stone applied with equal force at Iona; and, looking to the time which was spent in erecting the buildings at Kells, which required seven years to complete them, and that four years had elapsed before Diarmaid could bring the shrine to Iona, there can be little doubt that the new monastery there was now likewise constructed of stone. The site, however, was changed. The position of the original wooden monastery was, we have seen, in the centre of the open level ground which extends between the mill-stream on the south and the rocky hillocks which project from the east side of Dunii on the north, and about a quarter of a mile to the north of the present ruins; but of this no vestiges now remain, save the western vallum, or embankment, which can still be traced, and the burying-ground near the shore, marked by two pillar-stones about five feet high and three feet apart, across the top of which a third stone lay, forming a rude entrance or gateway.^[562] This monastery had never before been exposed to any hostile attack; but, now that it had become the object of the plundering and ravaging incursions of the Danes, it was discovered to be in a very exposed situation. In front was the sea, and behind it, on the west, from which it was separated by the vallum, was the lake extending from the mill-stream to the base of Dunii. The ground south of the mill-burn presented a much more secure site, for here it was bounded on the west by a series of rocky heights which could be fortified; and here, where the present ruins of a late Benedictine monastery are situated, can be discovered the traces of older stone buildings, which must have belonged to an earlier monastery.^[563] These no doubt may not be part of a stone monastery erected so long ago as the beginning of the ninth century, but the monastery then erected would merely be repaired, and such parts as entirely gave way rebuilt from time to time; and it may be assumed that, when the monastic buildings were once constructed of stone, the monastery would always be preserved in the same place. Here, then, the new stone monastery was probably constructed, consisting of an oratory or church, a refectory, the cells of the brethren and an abbot’s house. Behind the latter is a small rocky hillock called Torrabb, or the abbot’s mount, in which is still to be found the pedestal of a stone cross; and on a higher rocky eminence on the west, which overhangs the monastery, are still to be seen the remains of entrenchments and outworks by which it appears to have been strongly fortified.^[564]

Here the brethren were reassembled, and hither was brought the shrine containing the relics of St. Columba, which, according to what we have seen was the usage of the time, would be placed on the right, or south, side of the altar in the church, so as to be exposed for the veneration of the inmates of the monastery. It might be supposed that the monks of Iona would have felt a reluctance to leave a site hallowed by the memories of their venerated patron saint, even though the new site may have promised greater security; but it must be recollected that it is the presence of the saint’s body that hallows the site of the monastery he has founded, and confers upon it the privileges of an Annoid, or mother church. Any spot to which his relics might be taken would be equally sacred in the eyes of the community, and the new monastery equally endowed with the privileges connected with them. It was so with the monks of Lindisfarne, whose veneration accompanied the body of St. Cuthbert when forced to retreat from their monastery under very similar circumstances; and it hallowed every spot in which it was deposited, till it finally invested the church at Durham, which held his shrine, with the same feeling of devotion and reverence which had attached to their first seat in the island of Lindisfarne.