St. Columba & the Loch Ness Monster: painting by Alistair MacPherson of Drumnadrochit Art Gallery

St. Columba & Loch Ness

The first records of Christianity in the Loch Ness area come from Adamnan’s life of St. Columba. Columba (Columcille = dove of the church) was born about 521 AD , a northern O’Neill from Donegal. He probably studied for the priesthood under St. Finnian of Moville, who had himself been educated in St. Ninian’s foundation of Candida Casa at Whithorn, Galloway. This places him in the monastic tradition of St. Martin of Tours. He also studied under the Christian bard, Gemmam in his mother’s home country of Leinster. He came to Scotland sometime after 561, possibly as a penance for his part in instigating the clan warfare at Culdrevny: such a 'white martyrdom’ of voluntary exile to a ‘desert place’ was central to Celtic monastic tradition “with it’s roots in the antecedent desert fathers of Sinai, from whom the tenets of the ancient Celtic church may well have derived” (cf. Marsden).

Iona (also called Iou, Hy, I), where Columba wished to build his monastery was in the territory of the Pictish King Brude mac-Maelchon, based at his fortress in Inverness, and probably his journey up Loch Ness was made in order to gain the Kings co-operation. It was on this journey he and his monks met up with some locals burying a man whom had been savaged by the water horse. Columba told one of his companions, Lugne mocu-min, to swim over the River Ness to bring a boat from the other side. The water horse surfaced and the saint made the sign of the cross and commanded, in the name of the Lord, “You shall not advance further, nor touch the man, go back with all speed." Since then, the water horse appears to have remained docile and shy!

Inverness, Urquhart & Pictish Remains in Strathglass

When the Irish prince of the O’Neill arrived at the gates of the Pictish fortress in Inverness Brude refused to open the gates. Columba made the sign of the cross and they opened of their own accord, at which the alarmed king went to meet him in a conciliatory mood. Also attributed to Columba in the Loch Ness area is the raising of a young man from death and the freeing of the slave of a druid, through miraculous means, involving a white stone which was blessed for healing. On another journey, when he was journeying along the shores of Loch Ness, Columba had a vision of a man dying in Airchartdan (Urqhart) and, following it up found an old man, Emchat, who was baptised with his son, Virolec and his whole household. The area has many Pictish remains. Along the road to Inverness is a a chambered cairn (Corrimony). At Guisachan, a Pictish burial ground was discovered and remains are regularly unearthed in fields, or discernible for those who know where to look.

Charles Noble (Kerrow) sitting on what he believes to be a Pictish marriage stone. In this area, now covered over, was a stone called the Devil’s footprint - from which the Devil was supposed to have leaped into Glen Cannich!

Father Paul Bonnici celebrating the annual Mass at the Clachan, within the walls of the sixteenth century church.

St. Bean & Clachan Comar

With the pre-reformation church at Clachan Comar, recorded history joins early hagiography and legends. According to a local tradition St. Bean (also spelt Beathan, Baitan), the cousin of St. Columba and second Abbot of Iona brought Christianity to Strathglass. A spring known as St. Bean’s Well, rises from the banks opposite the Clachan. Within living memory it was the drinking supply for Kerrow, but it has since been allowed to silt up. A small stream from the well fell down the side of the bank, into a wooden basin by the roadside from which water was taken to sprinkle the coffins. The bearers rested here before taking the the coffins to the family lairs in the graveyard opposite. There are still occasional burials there.

Chisholms and Jesuits

“In 1579 Thomas Chisholm, Laird of Strathglass, was summoned before the court for hisadhesion to the ancient faith” (MacKenzie) and subsequently imprisoned. A hundred years later Robert Munro ‘the Apostle of Strathglass’ struck up a friendship with Fraser of Kinerras, which led, in 1698, to the Inverness presbytery recording that “Strathglass and ye parish of Commir is so pestered with popery that a total defectione is feared.” When Alexander Chisholm XVII, the laird of Strathglass went to the continent to escape financial difficulties at home, he was so kindly received in Rome that he promised to protect Catholic missionaries. His second son, Colin of Knockfin, opened a mission station below the house in Knockfin and at Clachan Comar. A Mass centre was also opened at Tomich. By 1714 over a hundred families were Catholic and Mass was openly celebrated. In the 18th and early 19th century the Knockfin Chisholms were the leading Catholic family, providing 5 Bishops and a number of priests both in Scotland and Nova Scotia: most well known are the 'Fair brothers', who succeeded each other as parish priests at Fasnakyle, and then as Vicars Apostolic of the Highland region.

The old holy water stoup from Knockfin, in the porch at Marydale.