In Search of Angels: Travels to the Edge of the World

Fourteen centuries ago, Irish saints brought the Word of God tothe Hebrides and Scotland’s Atlantic shore. These ‘white martyrs’sought solitude, remoteness, even harshness, in places apart fromthe world where they could fast, pray and move closer to anunderstanding of God: places where they could see angels. Columba,who founded the famous monastery at Iona, was the most well-knownof these courageous men who rowed their curraghs towards danger anduncertainty in a pagan land, but the many others are now largelyforgotten by history. In this book, Alistair Moffat journeys from the island of Eileachan Naoimh at the mouth of the Firth of Lorne to Lismore, Iona andthen north to Applecross, searching for traces of theseextraordinary men. He finds them not often in any tangible remains,but in the spirit of the islands and remote places where theypassed their exemplary lives. Brendan, Moluag, Columba, Maelrubhaand others brought the Gaelic language and echoes of how the saintssaw their world can still be heard in its cadences. And thetradition of great piety endures.