.....and Fair Iona

The restored Abbey of Iona. The original abbey was founded by St Columba in  563 AD.

The cloister and the bronze statue of The Descent of the Spirit by Jacques Lipchitz.  The statue was erected in 1959. The inscription on the statue reads ‘Jacob Lipchitz, Jew, faithful to the religion of his ancestors, has made this Virgin for the better understanding of human beings on this earth so that the Spirit may prevail.’

Inside the abbey church looking from the nave to the choir and and the Communion Table which is made of Iona marble.

This ruin lying at the north end of the abbey complex.is said to be what is left of the Bishop'sHouse. It was perhaps built for Bishop Neil Campbell in the 1630s. The ground floor had two rooms – one a large living hall ‘open to the roof’, the other a kitchen, with a bedchamber above.

Bluebells and daffodils growing on the rocky hillock in front of the abbey.

The garden created in the ruins of the nunnery cloister. The Augustinian nunnery was founded in the early 1200s, while Benedictine monks were reviving the abbey.

Ivy-leaved toadflax and maidenhair spleenwort fern growing in the ancient nunnery walls.

Rainbow over Fionnphort and the Iona Ferry.