Kirjahaku

The Hebridean island of Iona has been the focus of intense outside interest for over fourteen hundred years, from the time of St Columba's monastery in the sixth century through to the transfer of its renowned monuments into the care of Historic Scotland in the year 2000. Yet the people who lived and worked alongside its sacred sites have been largely overshadowed until now. This book is the first to redress the balance, taking an in-depth look at Iona's economic and social history during the 18th and 19th centuries, a period that saw profound change across the Highlands and Islands. It charts the agricultural reorganisation that led to a crofting system, follows the islanders through the harsh decade of the potato famine and records their worship and education, their crafts and customs, and the ties of kinship that underpinned their community. A broad range of sources are woven together -- documentary, material, topographical and

For the Gaels it is I Chaluim Chille. From here, Colum Cille -- or St Columba -- and his successors spread their Christian mission throughout Scotland and beyond. An early king of Dal Riata was consecrated here, and later the mighty Lords of the Isles brought their chieftains for burial on Iona's soil. In more recent times the island was the setting for the Iona Community, a radical experiment in church witness and worship. Living alongside these events, and often in their shadow, there has also been a local community. This is the first book about Iona to span the ages, tracing the population from prehistoric times to the present era. From the inhabitants of an iron-age fort to the medieval village clustered beside the Cathedral walls, and onwards right up to the men and women who worked the land and sea through two World Wars, it takes a fresh look at Columba's Island. And it seeks to delve behind the layers of myth and mystery which have built up around this historic place and the lives of its people, great and small, throughout the centuries.