Columba

Columba (7 December 521 – 9 June 597) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in Scotland. He founded the important abbey on Iona. He was highly regarded by both the Gaels of Dál Riata and the Picts, and is remembered today as a Catholic saint and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. Around 563 he and his twelve companions crossed to Dunaverty near Southend, Argyll, in Kintyre before settling in Iona. The landscape around St Conan’s would have been familiar to Columba.