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Iona remained an important center of Christianity despite the retreat of many of its monks to Ireland during the deprivations of the Vikings. To be buried in the ancient burial ground in Iona was a special privilege for early Christians. An ancient prophecy relates:
Seven years before the judgment, The sea shall sweep over Erin at one tide, And ever the blue-green Isla; But I of Colum of the Church shall swim. In "Macbeth", too, there is a reference to the holy isle when Macduff informs Rosse that King Duncan's body has been taken to Columskill, "the sacred storehouse of his predecessors and guardian of their bones." In addition to good King Duncan, it is said that some sixty kings of Scotland, Ireland and Norway are buried in the cemetery of Reilig Odhrain, next to St. Oran's Chapel. King Kenneth MacAlpine selected Iona as his final resting-place in 860, and for two centuries, future kings of Scotland and many Highland chieftains were buried there. Iona suffered greatly from the raids of the Vikings and Danes. Under their deprivations, the Abbey was destroyed and the rule of St. Columba and the remaining Celtic Church brought came to an end. It wasn't until 1072 that St. Margaret was able to rebuild the destroyed Abbey. By that time, of course, the Norman invasions had inaugurated centuries of armed conflict and political tension between the English and Scottish kingdoms.
The Reformation of the 16th century, with its brutal suppression of the old religion and all that was connected with it, seemed to completely transform Scotland. However, traditions die hard, and in Ireland and Scotland, many Celtic customs survived. Some of them even survived the bloody battle of Culloden in 1746 that for all intents and purposes marked the end of the Gaelic way of life in Scotland. The survival of these traditions (and the hostility caused by brutal attempts to eliminate them) underlies much of today's Celtic resurgence.
Iona's spell continues to draw visitors to the misty island. The Iona Community, founded in 1938, has restored much of the Abbey that had been rebuilt in 1506 and again in 1900. On his visit to Scotland in 1773, Dr. Samuel Johnston, very unimpressed with what he saw and experienced on his travels throughout Britain, was highly moved by his visit to Iona. Boswell records his learned friend's words thus: "We are now treading 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." We may question the learned Doctor's description of the highly cultured Celts as savages; he was unaware that their language developed from the same source as Sanskrit, the classical language of the Hindus. Their traditions and rituals were passed on through the spoken word so that their power would not be diminished by the blandness of the written word. In addition, full equality between men and women was fully accepted truth, even in battle. Even property was inherited through the female side of the family. The otherwise-learned doctor may have overlooked the fact that the Celts introduced the wheel to Europe and their skills in smelting and fashioning iron were legendary.