Four blessings and a funeral: Adomnán's theological map of Iona

Abstract

Adomnán of Iona wrote a Life of Saint Columba, the founder of that monastery, but did not tell the story of Iona's foundation. Instead, the holiness of the monastery and its surrounding landscape, and their connection to the founder, were established by a narrative in the final chapter of Adomnán's work. In it we watch the final days of Columba's life and his movement across the island, blessing it and its inhabitants. The description is simple, but it is rich in references to scriptural, liturgical and sacramental themes, and it structures those themes spatially, revealing Adomnán's mental map of the island. Iona's various spaces and boundaries shape and express the lives of Columba's (and Adomnán's) monks, and so invite the reader to see how salvation is revealed in time and space, in movement, and in dwelling within the spatial order established by Columba's blessings.