After exploring Inchkenneth, we set a course to na h-Eileacha Naomha, one of the Garvellachs, also known as The Isles of the Sea. On the island are the ruins of St Brendan's Monastery, which include two of the largest beehive cells in the Hebrides. The island is unusual in that it has four names: na h-Eileacha Naomha, Eileach an Naoimh, Aileach, and, to some, Hinba.
It's a tricky approach to get near the island. A series of black reefs known as Sgeirean Dubha guard the east side, so you must carefully motor around the south tip of the reefs before heading to the anchorage off the small inlet below the monastic ruins. The tide was high enough so that Colin, skippering the RIB, could set the three of us ashore near the head of the inlet.
Once ashore, I led Sally and Debbie up past St Columba's Well, a welcome sight for sea kayakers running low on fresh water.
Just below the cells is an odd pillar about twelve feet high. Its top end overhangs to one side, creating a sheltered spot. It is a perfect preaching place that has come to be known as St Columba's Pulpit. We took turns preaching, but other than soaring seabirds, there was no one to appreciate our sermons.
From the pulpit, we climbed the ridge to the monastery. The most interesting ruin is an underground beehive cell, where we took turns sliding feet first into the small space. Patrick Gillies describes the cell in Netherlorn, Argyllshire and its Neighbourhood (1909):
Close to the chapel is an underground cell called Am Priosan, and tradition tells very circumstantially the mode of confining prisoners. There was a large stone in the bottom of the cell with a V-shaped depression; the prisoner placed his clasped hands in the hollow, and a wedge-shaped stone was securely fastened down over the palms of the hands, and so tightly that it was impossible to extricate them: the whole arrangement was called, a' ghlas laimh (the hand-lock). Probably, however, the underground cavity was a well, or maybe a cellar for storing the ‘elements.'
In The Isles and the Gospel (1907), Hugh MacMillan describes a somewhat horrific way punishment was inflicted on the guilty miscreant. The cell can fill with water when it rains, and MacMillan speculates about a ‘curious custom’ of the Columban Church, where if a monk was guilty of a ‘grave offence’ he was required to seclude himself, and that:
Another punishment often inflicted for light offences was the recitation of the whole or part of the Psalter, with the body entirely immersed in water. This penance may have been carried out in the curious underground cell near the oratory, which, as I have said, is often half-filled with water during rainy weather. I was informed by some of the old people at Easdale that thirty or forty years ago, a curious stone was found near these beehive cells with a narrow aperture in it, which was used in the administration of justice. The accused was required to put his hand through it, when if innocent, he could withdraw it easily, but if guilty, his hand became swollen to such an extent that he was held fast.
The following photo is of the altar inside the underground cell and dates my first visit to Aileach (1997). There was no sign of the stone handcuffs.
On the hillside above the monastery lay the heart of Aileach: the circular mound of Cladh Eithne, the grave of Eithne, the mother of St Columba. Ten feet in diameter, it is rimmed by stones and marked by two upright slabs, one incised with a simple cross. Hugh MacMillan (quoted earlier) gives the lineage of Eithne as ‘the daughter of Dima, son of Ner, descended from Cathaeir Mor, King of Leinster, and afterwards all of Ireland.’
Is it truly Eithne’s grave? Maybe, maybe not. Even if not, it is the burial site of someone important, someone whose tomb is marked by one of the two remaining cross-stones on the island. There were once many such stones here, but they’ve been stolen.
Sitting at Eithne's Grave, overlooking one of the oldest Christian sites in the Hebrides, I wondered if this was Columba's Hinba. Many books on the Hebrides state, some with complete certainty, that it is, but in The Celtic Placenames of Scotland (1926), William Watson makes a convincing argument it is not. Based on the few written clues about Hinba, he concludes it was likely Jura. A few of the clues are:
Clue 1: When Columba founded the monastery on Hinba, he placed his uncle Ernan in charge.
Ernan, Columba’s uncle, was one of the men who’d come with him from Ireland. On Jura, ten miles south of Columba’s Cell at Tarbert, is Cill Ernadail, the cell of St Ernan.
Clue 2: Hinba has a Muirbolc Mar, a large sea bay.
Aileach does not have a large bay. Jura’s Loch Tarbert is certainly large. It is a mile wide at its western mouth at Ruantallain, where you’ll find one of the most remote bothies in the Hebrides. From there, as you sail east, it quickly narrows to 300 feet at the raised beaches at Cumhann Mòr, the big narrows. It continues to cleave its way across Jura, at one point narrowing to 100 feet at Cumhann Beag. The loch ends a mile and a half farther west at a point a half mile from the Sound of Jura, where—and here is another clue that Jura could be Hinba—you’ll find the chapel and well of St Columba.
Clue 3: Hinba was on the sea lanes from Ireland to the monastic settlements of the Hebrides.
After crossing from Ireland to Islay, a direct route north would be to go with the strong tides up the Sound of Islay, where Loch Tarbert was just around the corner. Alternately, if it was stormy or the tides were not favourable, a route east would lead up the Sound of Jura to Tarbert Bay. Columba had a cell at Tarbert, and from there, it would be a short portage to transport currachs to Loch Tarbert.
Clue 4: ‘Hinba’ may derive from the Old Irish word inbe, an incision or a great gap.
Loch Tarbert cuts a seven-mile-long incision into the west coast of Jura. If it went another half a mile, Jura would be two islands. Rising sea levels may make that a reality, as only a fifty-foot increase will flood the ‘Tarbert.’ The following photo shows the site of Columba's Chapel at Tarbert. It is a charming spot, and in springtime, blooming daffodils tint its edges a bright yellow.
The sparse trail of clues to the location of Hinba is a fascinating one. Jura sounds most likely, but we will never know for sure. That may be a good thing. It is a mystery that has led many of those seeking Hinba to the remote shores of na h-Eileacha Naomha, Jura, Scarba, Oronsay, Canna, and several other isles of the magic west: a seeking that, in its fulfilment, is a blessing handed down the centuries from Columba and Ernan.
When the time came to leave, Sally, Debbie, and I returned to St Columba's Well. Unfortunately, the tide had dropped, and the inlet was dry. That required us to scramble across the rocks to a spot where Colin could get close with the RIB. It was not easy, but it was exhilarating to safely slide into the RIB after a day ashore on St Brendan's Aileach.
Leaving the Garvellachs in our wake, we set a course for the final island of the cruise: Easdale of the Slate Isles
