IONA ABBEY & CLAN DONALD
IAN ROSS MACDONNELL

DID GEORGE, 8TH DUKE OF ARGYLL, HAVE A "LOVE COLUMBA, HATE POPE" RELATIONSHIP WITH IONA?

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THE EARLS/DUKES ARGYLL & IONA
  • PURPOSE OF SITE
  • 1.] ABBEY: KINGS/LORDS ENDOW-FINANCE & SUPERINTEND-BUILD.
    • 2) "THE McDONALD" ABBEY HEIRS: Feudal tenure -"Functional Reciprosity".
    • 3) ABBEY "COLLAPSED, IMPOVERISHED": Heirs enforce "Conditionality of Endowment". *MACDONALDS raise Cathedral.
  • 1.] OVERVIEW - PAMPHLET
    • (2.) Charts of Kings/Lords of Isles & Iona
    • (3.) Summary of book's findings.
  • BOOK "CLAN DONALD & IONA ABBEY" - FULL CONTENTS LISTED HERE
    • INTRODUCTION
    • 1. Somerled
    • 2. Reginald
    • 3. Rauri
    • 4. Donald - Clan Founder
    • 5. Eirinn, Birthplace of Somereld and Clan Donald.
    • 6. Most Ancient Graveyard in all Scotland
    • EPILOGUE: Purgatory->Indulgences-> Reformation
  • 1.] IONA INTERPRETATION FAULTS
    • (2.) Main issue is with 5th and 8th Earls of Argyll
  • 1.] ST ORAN'S CEMETERY
    • (2.) Teampeall Odhrain. Tumulus Regum Insularum - Tomb of the King of the Isles
    • (3) Secondary burial - "tradition of the country"
  • 1.] KINGS & LORDS OF THE ISLES - GRAVESLAB ATTRIBUTION
    • [2] BURIAL INTERPRETATION, BODY PARTS, MONUMENT LOCATIONS and ATTRIBUTIONS >
      • a. "FULL NOBLE BODY" - "Good John" eviscerated?
    • [3] Other notable Clan Donald inscibed monuments
  • ANGUS OG's GRAVESLAB No. 150 - SAVIOR OF "THE BRUCE"
  • 1.] ECCLESIASTICAL MACALLISTER NOBLEMEN
    • (2.) Their descent from Alaxandair OG (complete Attachment) >
      • Chart A. From Alaxandair OG, k.1299, Undeposed Chief
      • Chart B. Alaster MOR (is NOT their ancestor)
      • Chart C. Abbots of Iona and Saddell
  • 1.] "HAND OF ST COLUMBA" BODY PART RELIQUARY
    • (2.) Golden Chalice, Plunder of Iona - Macleans of Duart & Glengarry
  • 1.] CATHEDRAL OF THE ISLES RAISED BY LORDS OF ISLES
    • (2.) Plaque for Clan Donald's Cathedral of the Isles.
  • 1.] ARGYLL EARLS STRIP, DESTROY AND PLUNDER IONA
    • (2.) 8th Duke of Argyll "Recrudescence of Romanism" >
      • 3. 19th century looting
  • 20th CENTURY IONA ABBEY RESTORATION
  • IONA COMMUNITY
  • HISTORIC SCOTLAND IONA INTERPRETATION RESEARCH CONFERENCE
  • CLAN DONALD SERVICE, MICHAEL CHAPEL
  • 1.] THE BOOK'S DEVELOPMENT & AUTHOR
    • (2.) SUMMARY of book's findings
    • (3.) Comments about book
  • 1.] BIBLIOGRAPHY
    • [2]. FILES OF MINE - LINKS
    • RANALDUS
  • NEWSLETTERS
  • MAPS
  • WEB SITES
  • CONTACT - BUY BOOK
  • BLOG
    • FREDERICK JOHN GRICE; ANZAC-100
  • GLOSSARY
  • Clan Donald Society Genealogy
Additional context, aspects  - See "Epilogue".
Further relevant content - See "Introduction"

     WHAT OTHERS SAY ABOUT THE 8th DUKE  AND IONA   :-
  • “In 1874 the island’s owner, the Duke of Argyll, began reconstructing the abbey church, with the intention that it be used for ecumenical worship”. (Historic Scotland)

  • “Iona Abbey, as you  see it today, is largely due to the vision of the 8th Duke of Argyll.” (Undiscovered Scotland).


WHAT MOST ACCURATELY  REFLECTS GEORGE'S ATTITUDE ?    THE ABOVE, OR THE BELOW? {CLICK FOR SLIDE PRESENTATION}

[Some Context : The 3rd Duke of Argyll, 1st Earl of Islay, such was his power, was known as the "King of Scotland" for half of the 18h century {Devine, Prof. TM;  The Scottish Nation 1700-2007; p.22;  2006.]
 
not_dukes_vision_2.pdf
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       WHAT GEORGE SAYS  HIMSELF :-

       1. - ON ECUMENISM                                                2. - ON THE ABBEY

  • Duke's memoirs, pps 103,  313 :- "I have also lived to see a recrudescence of the Romanising tendency which followed the Oxford Movement (the precursor to ecumenicism); It "differed from that of Rome in nothing except in the absence of a central authority or head. .....the famous Oxford Movement was in its full swing. The air was ringing with the cry of Puseyism. Under these circumstances, I heard the service performed in a way that could not make on me any favorable impression”.

  • 1885 - Disestablishment of the Church of Scotland speech by 8th Duke (Memoirs, pps 450-56):- “The establishment of Presbyterianism in Scotland has been the glory of our national history”. “Do not think that I am wishing to revive sectarian jealousies when I remind you simply of historical facts. What is the equality of the Roman Catholic Church? What has the Roman Catholic Church done for Scotland? She burned our martyrs. What did the Episcopal Church do for Scotland? She tried to suppress our liberties”.
  • The Duke described the  existing abbey structures as … “monuments, not of the fire, freshness and comparative simplicity of the old Celtic Church but of the dull and often the corrupt monotony of medieval Romanism”.


  • “After all, the real period of Iona’s glory was not a long one. It is almost confined to the life of one man (St Columba), and to the few generations which preserved the impress of his powerful character.” 




  •   1830  -  "All who venerate the impressive vestiges of former ages must regret the state in which this monument of the piety and learning of other years is now left. It is discreditable to the proprietors of such objects to allow them to remain in such a state, for Dunstaffnage and other castles are the same.  The whole is in a state of the most disgusting neglect, filth and degradation ………concealed by an accumulation of rubbish and dung from the cattle  which are penned in the chapels and aisles, etc.”   The gentleman's magazine, and historical chronicle, Volume 100, Part 2; 1830; James Logan.

  •    1839   -  “ .., there is a loud call on the noble Duke, to adopt proper measures to keep up this venerable fabric”. Lumsden & Son's Steam-boat companion, or, Stranger's guide to the Western Isles & Highlands; James Lumsden & Son; 1839; p177.

  • Under  "loud calls"  and .. “increasing pressure on the Duke(s) of Argyll” (RCAHMAS; ARGYLL VOL4; p.12) by WF Skene, the leading Scottish historian and antiquary and James Drummond, Curator of the Nation Museum of Antiquaries of Scotland, through the Society of Antiquities (SoA), parts of the Iona ruin were stabilised.


The 8th Duke was proud of ‘owning’ Iona not because of the medieval Abbey, but because of his love for the island’s nature and particularly its association with one man, St Columba. He  gives the distinct impression that he would have been quite satisfied if the medieval abbey had never existed.  NB: The established Church of Scotland (orientation Calvinist) traces its origins beyond the Reformation and sees itself in continuity with the church established by St. Ninian, St. Columba, St. Kentigern and other Celtic saints. To the 8th Duke, the Catholic-Benedictine-Clan Donald phase of 1200-1500 is just an inconvenient interlude between the Paruchia Colum Cille and the Protestant Reformation.  To him, the three century long period  inconveniently interferes with the "continuity" just mentioned and is something best denigrated and relegated to unworthiness and insignificance.

In 1899, just before his death, the Duke transferred (returned*) ‘ownership’ to the Iona Cathedral Trust (linked to the Church of Scotland).  This “was not accompanied by any endowment and funds had to be raised by the Trust.” The abbey church was substantially rebuilt and restored by the Iona Cathedral Trust (by Public Subscriptions for Abbey Church 1901) from 1902-1910. This fund raising was vigorously led by the Rev. Donald MacLeod, former minister of St Columba’s Church, London.


George had a negativity towards the existing medieval abbey and particularly what he regarded it had, and for some 400 years, still stood for – ‘the corrupt monotony of medieval Romanism’ (and of its inherent “Hebridean MacDonaldism”?) He is wholly entitled to this opinion, but equally, and as a corollary that influenced his relatively minor and repeatedly enforced action on the Abbey, he should not have plaudits heaped on him (by others) as its principal saviour, especially at the expense of the real instigators of Gregory, Skene, Drummond, Bishop Ewing, his wife Ina, then Sir David Russell, Sir James Lithgow, the Rev. Dr. Donald McLeod, the general public’s generosity and the Rev. George McLeod’s truly ecumenical Iona Community (with their pure selflessness; sheer back breaking work). This is not a criticism of the 8th Duke. Its a statement on other’s ‘hagiographic gloss’ on him; and their thinness of cause and affect.

* [Coda: Its very possible that the 9, 10, 11th Dukes of Argyll (who were not attached in any meaningful way with Iona Abbey) were somewhat uncomfortable at do-gooders trying to pin a rather inflated St John (Ambulance) Cross on them, when all that happened with the 8th Duke was that he was obligated, under pressure, to stabilise the victim, who was bashed and robbed by an extremely youthful Argyll Earl with a later accomplice (two past ancestors), and he duly had good bandages and splints applied (and allowed an any-brand minister to attend). After being harangued again, he returned the  “received goods,” still badly damaged and without due reparation from the liable dynasty’s coffers. If I am judged to be too  harsh, please read the Anglican, “middle way” History Of St Andrews, etc; VOL I ; pps 330;  331 -343.[1] ] 
 http://www.archive.org/details/historyofstandre01lyon

[1]
For example : “At St Andrews, Knox met by appointment with the Prior of the Augustinian monastery, the well known Lord James Stewart, and with Archibald the fifth Earl of Argyll. But I must pause here a moment to make a few remarks on these the two most influential of the lay Reformer's of Scotland, the first of whom was, at this time,  only twenty-six years old, and the latter no more than eighteen ; both, it must be confessed, far too young and inexperienced, and as the event proved, too greedy of "filthy  lucre," to conduct so momentous a work as the Reformation of the Christian Church”.   NOTE : this 1843 book is addressed to the Reformed Catholic Church in Scotland (ie, Anglican: ecclesia Anglicana, 1246 ; non Papal; “middle way”; "Protestant Episcopal Church") - by Rev. CJ Lyon, MA. “formerly of Trinity College, Cambridge, and now Presbyter of the Episcopal Church, St Andrews”.

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IAN  R.  MACDONNELL,   MELBOURNE,  AUSTRALIA -  DEC 2012.     ©    International rights reserved : Moral, Economic, Attribution.                                                                                                                                                          
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