Fragments of a wooden hut found on the Scottish island of Iona have been confirmed as the 1,400-year-old remnants of the cell of St Columba.
The Irish saint founded a monastery at Iona that became one of Europe’s leading centres of learning and served as the springboard for the evangelisation of Scotland.
St Columba was renowned for his sanctity and his life was associated with many miracles. His guidance for monastic life was followed in Scotland, Ireland and Northumbria until it was superseded by the milder Rule of St Benedict.
St Columba’s biographer Adomnán wrote that in his old age Columba slept on a bare slab of rock, ate barley and oat cakes, and drank only water.
A team of archaeologists from the University of Glasgow tested a sample of hazel charcoal taken from the presumed site of St Columba’s cell.
The charcoal had been kept in a matchbox in a garage in Cornwall for several decades. It had been found at Tòrr an Aba, the “mound of the abbot”, a rocky hillock traditionally thought to be the site of St Columba’s cell.
The sample has now been carbon-dated as between AD 540 and AD 650.
The hut appears to have burned down. It lay underneath beach pebbles and had been marked with a stone cross.
The existing abbey on the island dates to the 12th century. It ceased functioning as a monastery after the Reformation but was revived by the ecumenical Iona Community in 1938.
Professor Thomas Clancy, Celtic and Gaelic historian at the University of Glasgow, said: “The results of the radiocarbon dating are nothing short of exhilarating. The remains on top of Tòrr an Aba had been dismissed as from a much later date. Now we know they belonged to a structure which stood there in Columba’s lifetime.”
Also exciting, he said, was that they possessed a manuscript of psalms called the Cathach that had probably been written by St Columba in the cell.
Order’s lieutenant welcomed
Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool has celebrated a Mass of welcome for a new lieutenant of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, the order founded in the 12th century.
Michael Byrne is the new lieutenant for England and Wales. The Mass took place at his home parish of St Bartholomew, Rainhill. The order has 30,000 members and lieutenancies in 60 countries.
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