IO'NA, the modern name of the most famous of the Hebrides, is believed to have originated in a mistaken reading of 11 for 9.i; the word, in the oldest manuscripts, being clearly written Jolla. From the 6th c. to the 17th c. the island was most generally called Ii, Ia, Io, Eo, IIj, IIii, Hie, Hu, /", or ri—that is, simply, "the island;" or I-Columb-Kille, or IIii-Colum-Eille—that is, "the island of Columba of the church." It is about 3 in. long, and varies in breadth from a mile to a mile and a half. In 1871 it had a pop. of 236. Its area, computed by Bede at "five families" (or "five hides of land," as the passage is rendered in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), is estimated at 2,000 imperial acres, of which rather more than a fourth part is under tillage. The soil is naturally fruitful, and yields earlier crops than most parts of Great Britain, barley sown before the middle of June being ready for the sickle in August. This remarkable fer tility was regarded as miraculous in the dark ages, and, no doubt, led to the early occu pation of Iona. Dunii, the highest point of the island, is 330 ft. above the sea-level. .
Its history begins in the year 563, when St. Columba (q.v.), leaving the shores of Ireland, landed upon Iona with twelve disciples. Having obtained a grant of the island, as well from his kinsman, Conall, the son of Comghall, king of the Scots, as from Bri - di, the son of Melchon, king of tile Picts, he built upon it a monastery, which was long regarded as the mother-church of the Picts, and was venerated not only among the Scots of Britain and Ireland, but among the Angles of the n. of England, who owed their con version to the self-denying missionaries of Iona. From the end of the 6th to the end of the 8th c. Iona was scarcely second to any Monastery in the British isles; and it was this brilliant era of its annals which rose in Johnson's mind when he described it as "that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion." But neither piety nor learning availed to save it from the ravages of the fierce and heathen Norsemen. They burned it in 795, and again in 802. Its "family" (as the monks were called) of 68 persons were martyred iu 81)6. A second martyrdom, in 825, is the subject of a contemporary Latin poem by Walafridus Strabus, abbot of the German monastery of Reichenau, in the lake of Constance. On the Christmas evening of 986 the island was again wasted by the Norsemen, who slew the abbot and 15 of his monks. Towards the end of the next century the monastery was repaired by St. :Margaret, the queen of king Malcolm Canmore. It was visited in 1097 by king Magnus the bare footed, of Norway. It was now part of that kingdom, and so fell under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the bishop of Man and the archbishop of Drontheim. In 1203 the bishops
of the n. of Ireland disputed the authority of the Manx bishop, pulled down a monastery which he had begun to build in the island, and placed the abbey under the rule of an Irish abbot of Deny. The Scottish church had long claimed jurisdiction in Iona, and before the end of the 13th c. the island fell under the rule of the Scottish king. Its abbey was now peopled by Clugniac monks; and a nunnery of Austin canonesses was planttd on its shores. Towards the end of the 15th c. it became the seat of the Scottish bishop of the isles, the abbey church being his cathedral and the monks his chapter.
No now remains on the island which can claim to have sheltered St. Columba or his disciples. The most ancient ruins are the Laithrichean, or Foundations, in a little bay to the w. of Port-a-Churraich; the Cobhan Cuildich, or Cudecs's Cell, iu a hollow between Dunii and Duabhuirg; the mth or hill-fort of Dunbhuirg; and the Gleann-an-Teampull,,or Glen of the Church, in the middle of the island, believed to be the site of the monastery which the Irish bishops destroyed in 1203. St. Oran's chapel, now the oldest church in the island, may probably be of the latter part of the 11th cen tury. St. Mary's nunnery is perhaps a century litter. The cathedral, or St. Mary's church, seems to have been built chiefly in the early part of the 13th century. It has a choir, with a sacristy on the n. side, and chapels on the s. side; u. and s. transepts; a central tower, about 75 ft. high; and a nave. An inscription on one of the columns of the choir appears to denote that it was the work of an Irish ecclesiastic who died in 1202. On the a. of the cathedral are the chapter-house and other remains of the conventual or monastic buildings. In the " Reilig Oran"—so called, it is supposed, from St. Oran, a kinsman of St. Columba, the first who found a grave in it—were buried Ecgfrid, king of Northumbria., in 684; Godred, king of the Isles, in 1188; and Haco Ospac, king of the Isles, in 1228. No monuments of these princes now remain. The oluest of the many tombstones on the island are two with Irish inscriptions, one of theta, it is believed, being the monument of a bishop of Connor who died at Iona in 1174.
After centuries of neglect this interesting island seems now to be in the way of improvement.' It possesses a church connected with the establishment, also a free church, and a school. A small and commodious inn—the St. Columba—was erected in 1863 by the duke of Argyll, the proprietor of Iona; by which means tourists and anti quarian explorers are enabled- to make visits of satisfactory duration. During summer steamers front Obau (see IlEmunxs) call at Iona twice a week; they land passengers by boats at Bade Mor, the only village on the island, and usually allow time for visiting the ruins. See the duke of Argyll's ion& (1871).