| St Columba was born in
Donegal, Ireland in 521 AD. He had a classical education
as was befitting of the son of an aristocratic family. He
was trained in the church and was an accomplished poet,
musician, writer and good all round general scholar with
an appetite for learning.
 In
his early years St. Columba built many monasteries in
Ireland but left in 561 AD allegedly because he was
accused by a local abbot of copying a monastery’s prized
copy of a gospel without permission. In the trial that
ensued, Columba was ordered to surrender the copy he had
made. He refused, inciting a battle in which many died.
Overcome by remorse, Columba sailed from Ireland with 12
monks, swearing that he would stop and build a new
monastery only when he could no longer see his homeland.
It is said that St. Columba was guilty of the first
recorded breach of copyright by copying these Vulgate
Gospels.
St. Columba arrived on
Iona in his coracle in 563AD to bring Christianity to
Britain. He founded the monastery that was to become the
heart of the Scottish Church during its early years.
This first monastery was a small monastery built from
wood, wattle and daub. In addition to founding several
churches in the Hebrides, St. Columba worked to turn his
monastery at Iona into a school for missionaries.
During this time St Columba set out to
mainland Scotland on a pilgrimage to spread Christianity
across the land. On his way to visit with the Pictish king
in Inverness, he encountered some Picts burying what
remained of one of their own people - badly savaged by a
creature in the Loch. The dead man's boat lay on the other
side of the water, so Columba ordered one of his followers
to swim over and retrieve the boat. During this the
servant was attacked by a creature that reared out of the
Loch to attack the swimmer. Columba (invoking the name of
God) commanded the beast to return to whence it came and
it vanished beneath the waters of the Loch leaving the
swimming man unharmed.
Strangest claim of all however is that
Columba was prevented from completing the building of the
original chapel until a living person had been buried in
the foundations. His friend Oran volunteered for the job
and was duly buried. It is said that Columba later
requested for the Oran's face to be uncovered so he could
bid a final farewell to his friend. Oran's face was
uncovered and he was found to be still alive but uttering
such blasphemous descriptions of Heaven and Hell that
Columbus ordered that he be covered up immediately!
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