Page:The ancient Irish church.djvu/139

 All this was reversed by the time that the eighth century had drawn to a close. The Four Masters refer to Armagh only six times in their annals of the seventh century. In the eighth century they have twenty-three references, and in the ninth fifty-one. On the other hand, Iona, which is referred to twenty times in the eighth century, is only mentioned seven times in the ninth. Let us inquire how these changes were brought about.

When Iona was first established, the south-west portion of Scotland was under the same government and bore the same name as the north-east of Ireland. Under the influence of Columba the Scotch portion became an independent kingdom. The immediate results of this change were small. The Scotch residents did not give up their nationality, but continued to interest themselves in the affairs of Ireland, and to take part in the tribal quarrels as before. Nevertheless, the ultimate result was inevitable. They were drawn towards the Picts, who were their near neighbours, and who, by the efforts of Columba and his followers, were gathered into the Christian Church, while they were separated by the sea from their own fellow tribes in Ireland. The Irish never regarded them as other than an outlying and uninfluential kingdom. In Scotland they soon became the most powerful of all the clans.

Iona and its daughter monasteries in Ireland, though thus disunited politically, were kept in close union by the power of missionary zeal. Men from different parts of the country—from Durrow and Swords and Derry and elsewhere—were coming and going to Iona, and passed through on their way to their work amongst the heathen—first the Picts and then the Saxons. Iona thus formed an outlet