A sizeable group of guests disembarked early enough this morning to attend the daily ecumenical service in the restored abbey, the heart of the Iona Community that continues the vision of a remarkable Scottish pastor, George Macleod. He first brought ministers and church leaders here on retreat from Govan, a depressed area of inner city Glasgow at the height of the Great Depression. Today their influence has spread across the world but their spirit remains a tangible presence in their island home, memorably described by Macleod himself as “a thin place” where the border between the temporal and spiritual worlds was barely perceptible.
It was to Iona in 563 BC that Saint Columba first brought Christianity from Ireland to Scotland, giving Iona iconic status in the northern realms, such that the Kings of Norway were brought here for burial in addition to the Lords of the Isles and the High Kings of Scotland. In the monastery that Columba founded on Iona the Book of Kells was produced, now one the great treasures of Ireland, housed in Trinity College, Dublin. It was taken to Kells Abbey in Ireland for safe keeping when Iona began to suffer a series of Viking raids, hence the name by which it is known. We all gathered inside the abbey later in the morning for a remarkable concert by the Gaelic singer and songwriter Julie Fowlis, who sang in a tradition that reaches back to Columba’s time.
In the afternoon, the good weather continued enabling us to make a landing on Staffa, an island of columnar basalt first brought to the attention of visitors by Sir Joseph Banks in 1772. He wrote: “Compared to this what are most cathedrals and palaces built by men! Mere models or playthings, imitations as his works will always be when compared to those of nature.” Today the puffin colony, busy at the height of the breeding season, was the centre of attraction; the comical birds seemingly oblivious to us as we lay entranced beside them at their cliff-top residences. It had been a day combining natural and cultural history in the best traditions of National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions.
