Yet Another Bell Stolen

I recently learned some sad news. Twenty years ago I visited a unique island in Loch Shiel, a dozen miles southwest of the Glenfinnan Monument. This small island has two names: An t-Eilean Uaine (the Green Isle), and Eilean Fhianain (St Finnan's Isle). I wrote about the visit in chapter 20 of book 1, and the highlight was seeing Clag Fhianain, a bronze handbell that has rested on the altar of Isle Finnan for several centuries. 

The sad news was that the bell was stolen from Eilean Fhianain in 2019. There is a scorching place in hell waiting for the thief, and he will have a lot of bell-thieving company. The loss of Clag Fhianain is just one in the long list of Celtic handbells that have been stole over the years. There is St Kenneth's Bell, taken from Inchkenneth in the late 1700s, St Kessog's Bell, which went missing from Loch Lomond in the 1800s, and St Modan's Bell last seen at Ardchattan. Prior to the loss of Finnan's Bell, the most recent theft was when St Adamnan's Bell was stolen from Insh Church in September of 2017. I visited Insh in 1995 to see the bell, and was surprised to find it mounted on the church wall, completely unattended.

Although there are curses, and legends, that these bells always find their way home, I don't have high hopes that they will be recovered. But, just perhaps, at some point in the future these low-life thieves will die an unpleasant death, and their families will discover the bells hidden in dusty closets and return them. That's what happened to the Clanranald Stone, stolen from Howmore on North Uist in 1990. Five years later the heavy stone was found in a London closet after the thief died. It is now back in the Western Isles where it belongs. One can hope a similar fate awaits the bells, and the thieves, of Isle Finnan and Insh.