Scotland's History Early Scotland Columba founds a monastery on Iona The Adobe Flash player and Javascript are required in order to view a video which appears on this page. You may wish to ...

In 563 AD Columba left Ireland ... the seventh century. Iona faced competition from other Irish monastic missions, however, and their religious power was not absolute. St Mael Rhuba at Applecross ...

Poet Kenneth Steven has a special relationship with the small Hebridean island of Iona, set in the Atlantic ... and worship in the 6th century, when St Columba brought Christianity from Ireland ...

The Gaelic kings of Dál Riata gave Columba land to found a monastery. For the next two centuries Iona was to be one of the most famous centres of Christian learning in the Celtic world.