Iona

Common Seal off Iona

Like the originally Graupian, now Grampian, Mountains, the isle of Iona owes its modern name to a transcription mistake dating from the pre-printing age when manuscripts were copied by hand. It seems the name was once Ivova, Latinised as Ioua, meaning a place where yew trees grow.

During our visit, it rained quite a lot, which probably did not create the best impression. We were not inclined to venture out into the hinterland in search of the fabled corncrake, and even though dolphins did frolic around our boat as we went ashore, I couldn’t get any decent photographs.

Iona Abbey

Iona Abbey Cloister

It was one of those days for photographing things that stand still, and better yet for photographing buildings from the inside, though the common seals abounding on offshore rocks obligingly did the former and hence feature in this log.

Iona Nunnery

The main building is, of course, the Abbey, restored in the last century from a state of ruin to become the working centre of an ecumenical community. In the cloister, I was impressed by the care and subtlety with which new stone has been integrated with surviving elements. Although Samuel Johnson found his piety grow warmer amid the ruins of his day, I personally found the restoration less evocative of the past than redolent of a present quest for a lost spirituality. A medieval abbey, for me, does not evoke the 6th century but the popularity of pilgrimages eight or nine hundred years later.

If you want to find links with the earlier period, the mound upon which Columba’s study hut once stood perhaps serves better, and the Abbey museum better still.

The ruined nunnery is also worth a visit; you can pass through its grounds on your way from the port to the Abbey.