CLOG (Univ. of Glasgow)
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Aonghas MacEanraig (1866–1937), à Àird nam Murchan: A bheatha agus a chuid sgrìobhaidhean
Full text linkGaelic and Latin in the early monastery: detecting a dialect shift?
Full text linkThis chapter discusses the mix of Latin and Gaelic in the rendering of names in Adomnán\u27s Life of Columba
Cnoc Angel: articulating a ritual landscape
Full text linkThis chapter explores further the place of Sìthean Mòr, earlier Cnoc Angel, discussing its likely place in the ritual landscape of early medieval Iona
The Virgin Mary on Iona: a Christmas essay
Full text linkThis chapter considers the cult of Virgin Mary on Iona, which is evidenced from at least the late 7th century, suggesting that this may have relevance to Iona place-names containing Mary\u27s name
Sanctus ex machina: Colum Cille in the Lives of other saints
Full text linkThe medieval and early modern memory of Colum Cille is most clearly preserved in his own hagiographical tradition between Adomnán’s Vita Columbae, his Middle Irish Life, and Maghnus Ó Domhnáill’s Betha Colaim Chille. Colum Cille appears elsewhere in medieval and early modern Irish literature, and most notably in the medieval and early modern hagiography of other Irish saints. In the later medieval and early modern Lives Betha Berach, Betha Farannáin, and Betha Náile, Colum Cille is intentionally utilised in the texts to underscore the saints’ claims to church land and to ensure the tribute and respect to be paid to their respective monasteries. In Betha Maedóc Ferna he assists in the interpretation of angelic visions, and his testimony within the lives of Baithéne, first successor of Iona, legitimises the sanctity of his close companion. This paper will therefore explore the understudied and underlying themes of Colum Cille’s appearances in the hagiography of other saints in the sense of their representations of the cultural memory of Colum Cille from the later medieval Irish perspective
‘Through all the provinces of the islands of Ocean’: Iona and coastal monasticism in early medieval Britain
Full text linkThis paper takes the maritime nature of the early medieval monastery of Iona as its point of departure, considering the way in which the sea was present physically and symbolically in the lives of the community on the island. Drawing on developments within human geography around the way in which islands and islandhood can be conceived, it takes the understanding of the oceanic nature of ecclesiastical life in Iona and considers how the sea and \u27islandness\u27 might have impacted on the cultural land- and sea-scapes of monasticism along the North Sea coast. In particular it focuses in on a small group of probable monastic sites on the coast of Norfolk situated in and around the now lost \u27Great Estuary\u27. It emphasises in particular, how changes in the topography of the East Coast, with major phases of land reclamation, has transformed the archipelagic nature of this region, and argues that in the early Middle Ages, this word was as much dominated by islands as parts of the Atlantic fringe
Eilean nam Ban and the women religious of Iona
Full text linkThis chapter will examine the women religious of Iona through the lens of place-names, with a particular focus on microtoponyms. The second part of the chapter turns to Eilean nam Ban (‘island of the women’), an island located in the Sound of Iona. One of the most enduring stories associated with it relates how Eilean nam Ban was thus named because St Columba banished all women to the island, refusing to suffer their presence on Iona. Through a study of early modern and later accounts I will consider questions relating to authority of naming: who has the authority to create and transmit narratives in an Iona context? For whom and what purpose are they created? How do authors in different time-periods provide a sense of authenticity in their accounts? Detailed analysis of these accounts is particularly valuable in demonstrating the richness of early modern sources for the place-names of Iona.
Iona and the sea
Full text linkThis paper discusses the parentage of the ascetic ideal exemplified by Adomnán’s description of Columba as ‘an island soldier’ and the power of that ideal in Britain and Ireland. It then turns to the necessity of sailing expertise and to the sailors among the community of Iona who possessed and transmitted that expertise. It then discusses Adomnán’s vocabulary for sea-going vessels and for wind directions. As a by-product it suggests a likely identification for Hinba
Under angels’ wings: St Martin’s Cross, the Book of Kells, and Iona’s viewscape
Full text linkFocusing on the image of the Virgin and Child flanked by angels, this article demonstrates how the built and natural environment that surrounds St Martin’s cross completes its iconographic programme. It takes as its departing point Thomas Clancy’s observation that the angels’ outstretched wings recall the ark of the covenant as described in Exodus, which leads to a new interpretation of the Chi-Rho page from the Book of Kells through a consideration of St Martin’s Cross, the mosaic depicting the ark of the covenant in the oratory at Germigny-des-Prés, and Bede’s commentaries. The second part of the article then turns to the image’s position on the cross and the natural and built environment, arguing that these factors along with the rest of the iconographic programme are derived from Psalm 17 and Psalm 18. These psalms played a prominent role in exegetical and liturgical celebrations of the Virgin as the bride of Christ and the tabernacle in the sun. The third part of the article considers whether the ground in which the cross stood, and the human remains and relics of Iona’s saints and monks, might also contribute to the cross’s iconographic programme
