Special Days

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Pilgrims set out on their voyage to the Garvellach Islands on 9th June 2005.

Revv Roy Flatt (Episcopalian Church in Lochgilphead), Perry (from Ireland), Michael Hutson, Michael Driscoll (University of Notre Dame, USA), Gerry Fitzpatrick (Archdiocese of Glasgow).

Pilgrims gather for Evening Prayer at the site of St Columba's mother's grave.

Parish Pilgrimage to The Garvellachs on 9th June……
Mystical celtic mist, glorious sunshine, the Gulf of Corryvreckan, the wildlife and beauty of Scarba and Jura, good boats and helpful boatmen, excellent BBQ and picnic food, plenty drink, Evening Prayer at St Eithne’s grave, singing Happy Birthday to Fr Michael’s mum on the mobile, Monsignor Ciarella forgetting to take-up the collection, beautiful Mass in the medieval chapel with 5 priests, visions of a celtic hooded monk wandering around the ruins with his staff, instructive reading during lunch, beautiful singing, ecumenical prayers, stones, ravens, a wee American, seals, message in a bottle, dingies, rock-climbing for beginners, the music of the pipes, wild flowers everywhere, safe home. Thanks to everyone who took part in this most memorable day.

Marion Pallister writes....
The mist was soft and grey. The two craft slipped away from Crinan Harbour towards the Corrievreckan in muffled silence. It was June 9, St Columba's day, and from throughout the diocese of Argyll and the Isles, pilgrims had come to share a celebration of the life of this saint so dear to Argyll.

The presence of five priests - one of them an eminent professor from the Catholic University of Notre Dame in Indiana - and the Very Rev. Roy Flatt, rector of the Scottish Episcopal Church in Lochgilphead, could have been daunting, but this pilgrimage was led by Fr Michael Hutson, parish priest at St Margaret's, so a day of reverence and fun rather than reverence and fear was on the cards.

With Dunoon, Morar, Mid Argyll, Glasgow, Ireland and the US represented, this wasn't only ecumenical but international. Some had visited Eileach an Naoimh before, some were first time visitors to the 'rock of the holy place'. All were looking forward to communing with the Celtic past.

Eileach an Naoimh has been a holy place since the sixth century, when St Brendan founded a monastic establishment there. Columba, exiled from Ireland and in search of a place to set up his own community, visited the island during his issionary work throughout Argyll. His mother, Eithne, lived there and is buried there.

There are the remains of several beehive cells on the island which were used by the earliest monks, a medieval chapel, and some domestic buildings. The monks and their successors on the island raised cattle here.

Columba would have reached the island by coracle. As the mist which had descended on our pilgrimage blotted out Jura and Scarba, we could experience a little of the anticipation Columba must have felt sailing towards the unknown.

When the Gemini and Sea Lion disembarked us all by means of tiny dinghies lowered from their sterns, we were nearer still to Columba's mode of travel - and nearer still to the water. We clambered over sharp rocks and up to the deserted settlement, now in the care of Historic Scotland. We found a roofless chapel, and as the priests set up an altar on a white plastic picnic table, the ghostly figure of a hooded monk was seen walking beneath the skyline where young ravens were lifting their beaks to the sky to be fed.

Was this the shade of Columba? Of Brendan? Of somemonk slaughtered by Vikings in the 9th century? Remarkably like the shape and form of Fr Michael, it passed from view as we gathered for Mass in the confines of the tiny ancient chapel.

Our singing was joyful, but couldn't raise the roof -that happened several centuries ago.

Carol Lamond from Skipness, who sang the psalm, had brought stones from Skipness as part of a Celtic tradition. Receiving a stone as we shared the Peace was yet another special moment in a day filled with special moments.

The Ranger family had brought a barbecue and did everyone proud, and there was a shared picnic during which - in monastical fashion - Marian Pallister read a short extract from her forthcoming book, Lost Argyll, which told a little of the history of the eccelesiastical buildings on Eileach an Naoimh and its neighbouring islands. The beehive cells are said to be the oldest ecclesiastical buildings in the British Isles.

After lunch, the cells were visited before we all gathered around the circular grave said to be that of St Eithne, Columba's mother.

Very Rev Roy Flatt led us in a meditation there which had more than a hint of Celtic tradition in it - we were urged to hold all the good things in our lives in one hand and keep them close to us, while in the other we were to imagine those things which troubled us and fling them into the water far below us.

By then, that water was sparkling in the intense June sunshine. The sky was cloudlessly blue. We had many good things to hold close to us. But we had to make our way back to the boats over the rocks for the journey home. The Corrievreckan put on a magnificent show for us, the seals on the Jura shore showed off for the cameras and we arrived safely back at Crinan Harbour at the end of a perfect pilgrimage.

Fr Michael is already planning next year's pilgrimage in Columba's footsteps. There are plenty of islands where visited by our special saint. Book now to avoid disappointment.
Marian Pallister, June, 2005

For previous photographs, please click here.