Isle of Iona

No one seems to know when the first people came to the gentle little island of iona, so different from it's neighbour Mull. Fragments from teh ages of Stone, Bronze and Iron hint at the centuries of fishing, farming and daily living in the long forgotten unrecorded times.

Iona had already been a center of pagan worship before St. Columba's abbey was established. It is said even this pious monk was touched by the island's seemingly supernatural forces.

St Columba was forty two years old when he sailed from his native Ireland in 563 AD and crossed the seas to Iona. Iona was for centuries the heart of Celtic Chrisainity. In the 19th Century MacInnes was the dominate surname of the Islanders. In 1850 about one in every four of the three hundred inhabitants bore teh name MacInnes.

Oral tradition claims that a MacInnes was a companion of Saint Columba on Iona. Angus, son of Erc, or Irish Dalriada, cofounder of the Dalriadic Kingdom in Argyll, and legendary progenitor of Clan MacInnes is buried in Rielig Odhrain, the traditional resting place of the early Scottish Kings and Clan Chiefs.

MacInneses featured large in teh island's community history. The blacksmiths of Iona had been by tradition the MacInneses and their smiddy (smithy) was teh central meering poing for the islanders - the Island Parliment. here the great issues fo the day were debated. The records cite macInneses as leaders in matters of importance between islanders and the landlord, the Duke of Argylle. Many Ionian MacInneses were sea captains.

The list of emigrants from Iona is peppered with the surname MacInnes. Destinations of these emigrants were Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

It is of interest that the local tradition in the old MacInnes heartland of Morvern asserts that Ethne, the mother of Saint Columba, rests in the sacred buriel ground at Keil (Cille Choluim chille - the church of Columba of the Church) at Kinlochanine. We are told that Columba when on a journey to Iona stopped at Kiel turned to his followers and said "On this spot I wish a church to be build" and so it was. Iona is forty miles from Kiel Church. The MacInnes Society dedicated new doors to the Church on the 14th hundred anniversary of the Saint's death