Biography
Columba, called Colum Cille in Irish, was born around the year 521 in Gartan, in County Donegal, in the northwest of Ireland. He was of noble birth, a descendant of a line of kings, and could have been a ruler himself. Instead, he gave himself to the church. He was educated in monasteries, including those at Moville and Clonard, which were then the great centers of learning and holiness in Ireland. He was ordained a priest and began to found monasteries of his own. By the time he was in his early forties, he had established several of them, including at Derry and Durrow.
A story, handed down in the tradition, tells of a quarrel that led to his leaving Ireland. It is said that Columba copied a psalter belonging to another monk, Finnian, without his permission, and that Finnian demanded the copy as his own. The dispute was brought before the king, who ruled that to every cow belongs her calf, and so to every book belongs its copy. Columba refused to give it up, and a battle followed in which many men died. In sorrow and penitence, he is said to have gone into exile to win as many souls for Christ as had been lost in the battle. The details cannot be proved, and they may have grown with the telling, but they have been repeated for centuries.
In 563 he sailed with twelve companions in a small boat of hide, called a currach, and landed on the small island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland. They built a monastery of wood and thatch. It became a center of prayer, study and copying of manuscripts. The community lived simply, kept strict rules and prayed at set hours of the day and night. Columba himself spent much time in prayer and fasting and also in copying the Scriptures by hand.
From Iona, he and his monks carried the gospel to the Picts, who lived in the north and east of Scotland. He traveled to the court of King Bridei and, according to later accounts, won the king's respect. He founded more monasteries across the region and sent monks to preach. He also traveled in Ireland and kept up ties with the church there. The monastery at Iona became a missionary center that sent workers to Scotland, northern England and the Continent. It was a model for the Celtic church, which valued holiness, learning and mission.
The main source of his life is the book of Adomnán, who was abbot of Iona about a century later. It includes many stories of his miracles and of his foresight. One famous account tells of his meeting with a water beast in the river Ness, which he commanded to leave a swimmer alone. Such stories came to be told about many of the saints, and they should be read with care. What is clear is that he was held to be a man of great holiness and of warmth, who had a gift for friendship and for leadership.
He was not free from fault. He is described as a man of strong temper, and the tradition remembers his early role in conflict. He also was fond of his Irish homeland and longed to return, though he never did. He spent the last years of his life in prayer and in copying the Psalms.
He died on June 9, 597, at Iona, in the church before the altar, at the age of seventy-five. The community he founded remained a light for centuries. His life shows what a single faithful community can do when it sets itself to prayer and to mission, and how a man who left his home in sorrow can become a blessing to a whole people.