…In Columba,s absence had become national nuisances. Brimming over with pride of office , they had begun to drive hard bargins for their services. They meddled with politics, asked enormous prizes for presiding over a victory or a marriage and in general paraded their power lke officials until the always prickly natives rose against them, eventually forcing the King to put an end to bardic misconduct, who in turn decided to exile them. Terrified by the sentence, the bards could think of nothing to do except enlist Columba on their side.
—A monastery’s most important work was in the production of copies of the gospels. The “Cathach” or “Battle Book” of St Columba was very probably written by St. Columba himself. It consists of a psalter in small parchment leaves, and was enclosed in a reliquary as a sacred object. Only in 1813 was the reliquary opened, and the Cathach rediscovered. As Ireland’s oldest illuminated surviving manuscript, it is presently in the care of Dublin’s Royal Irish Academy.
A “Life of Saint Columba” exists. It was written by Adomnan (born c 628 CE), the ninth Abbot of Iona. A translation by Richard Sharpe, with extensive notes and commentary, is available from Penguin Books.—Read More:http://www.knapdalepeople.com/kilcelcolumba.html
“You are one of us,” they told him by messenger. “Without you we perish.”
Then came the problem. The saint in his tolerant solitude could realize better than his exploited countrymen how Ireland would miss its praisers. Besides, he loved a well-turned verse. But how could he “look again on Ireland’s shores” when he had made the solemn pledge?
Well, he could go without looking, could travel blindfolded to court. And that, of course, is what he did.
Once at tara he spoke with such eloquence to the gathering that they changed their stubborn minds.
“Meddlers and muddlers these bards might be,” he reminded them. “But without their songs, who will remember your glories? Who will harp the tales of your wars, the beauty of your women? You will lose your history.”
So the poets were allowed to stay, and Columba went back to Iona, blindfolded as he had left it, to live out his days in peaceful, God-fearing austerity. …
—Columba was a poet, who had learned Irish history and poetry from a bard named Gemman. He is believed to have penned the Latin poem Altus Prosator and two other extant poems. He also loved fine books and manuscripts. One of the famous books associated with Columbia is the Psaltair, which was traditionally the Battle Book of the O’Donnells, his kinsmen, who carried it into battle. The Psaltair is the basis for one of the most famous legends of Saint Columba.
It is said that on one occasion, so anxious was Columba to have a copy of the Psalter that he shut himself up for a whole night in the church that contained it, transcribing it laboriously by hand. He was discovered by a monk who watched him through the keyhole and reported it to his superior, Finnian of Moville. The Scriptures were so scarce in those days that the abbot claimed the copy, refusing to allow it to leave the monastery. Columba refused to surrender it, until he was obliged to do so, under protest, on the abbot’s appeal to the High King Diarmaid, who said: “Le gach buin a laogh” or “To every cow her own calf,” meaning to every book its copy.—Read More:http://www.allmercifulsavior.com/icons/Icons-Columba.htm
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