excerpt
AD 793. This year came dreadful forewarnings over the land of the Northumbrians,
terrifying the people most woefully: there were immense sheets of light rushing through
the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament. These tremendous
tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day
before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made
lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter.
~ entry for the year AD 793 in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle
Saint Columba established the monastery of Derry, “Daire Kildaigh”, on the north
coast of Ireland, “Éirinn”, in the sixth century CE. The Irish saint founded many important
monasteries in Ireland and Britain, including Durrow in the Irish midlands
and Iona, a tiny island off the west of Scotland.
Iona, barely three miles long by one mile wide, lies off the west coast of the Isle
of Mull by the east Scottish coast. Saint Columba, or Colmcille, in Gaelic, arrived on
Iona in CE 563 with twelve followers, built his first Celtic church, and established a
monastic community.
Vikings raided Iona in 793 and 802. During a third raid in 806, they slaughtered
sixty-eight monks. The remaining monks fled to Kells in County Meath, Ireland, with
a gospel book, the Book of Kells. From then on, only small bands of hermits known
as anchorites dared live in Iona’s ruins and scattered caves.
Dragon Ships
By fiery dragon wings, with sword and ax,
the murderous Viking monsters pillage and burn.
Rathlin Isle, off Eirinn’s northeast shore,
lies raped, six miles from Ballycastle town.
And sixteen miles from Alba’s Mull Kintyre
the Norse snatch bairns from mothers’ bleeding breasts.
With blood-hot yells, they slaughter all they find
and drag both monks and nuns from humble cells.
Inisbofin and Inismurray are on fire.
Colum Cille’s bless’d Iona lies in ruins.
Three score and eight the monks lie, reeked in blood.
While some betake the sacred book to Kells.
Beat back the foe bold king of the Uí Néill,
most powerful ruler on the Eirinn isle,
lest Christendom be banish’d from the land
and Satan’s spoor live on to rule by sword!
Libros Libertad 