Columba

Columba, St. (521-597), is thought to have been born in Donegal of a family of Irish royal blood. He was ordained and took monastic vows, and founded two monasteries in Ireland, one on Lough Foyle, the other in Leinster, known later as Deny and Durrow respectively. Somewhere about 560 he went on a mission to Scotland, and King Conal, his kinsman, gave him the island of Iona, where he built a church and monastery, and made preparations for the conversion of the Picts. Beginning with Ness, the King of the Picts, he soon succeeded in converting all north Scotland, and founded many monasteries, the whole of the northern Picts paying ecclesiastical obedience to the Abbey of Iona. The Scots of Britain and Ireland honoured St. Columba as much as did the Picts, and it was he that crowned Conal's successor Aidan as king. He also accompanied the king to Ireland in 590 when a council was held in Ulster to settle a dispute between the King of Ireland and the King of the Scots. When he felt death approaching he went to a hill above the monastery to give it his farewell blessing, and then returned to his cell to go on with the transcription of the Psalter, the last words he wrote being, "They that seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good." At the midnight service of the next day - Sunday - he sank down before the altar and quietly died.