The Chronicles of Iona:
Island-Pilgrim
Preface
… More Read the Preface to “Island-Pilgrim”, Book 3 in the award-winning historical-fiction series “The Chronicles of Iona”
The second book in my historical-fiction series The Chronicles of Iona, called Prophet, is now out! The story picks up where the first book, Exile, left off, beginning in the year 567 A.D. Four years after journeying with Scottish warrior Aedan mac Gabran into the land of the wild Picts, Irish abbot-prince Columba is forced back there … More Book 2, The Chronicles of Iona: Prophet, is here!
Here’s the cover of Book 2 in the series “The Chronicles of Iona”, called “Prophet”. Yes: there’s been a name change. Book 2 was originally entitled “Peregrinatio” which in Latin means a pilgrimage, a spiritual wandering, in this case to refer both to Columba in his exile on the island of Iona, and to Aedan, stuck in … More Here’s the cover for Book 2 in “The Chronicles of Iona”, “Prophet”
It’s been a long hiatus, but a productive one, and I’m back with the news that Book II in my series is done too. It’s called The Chronicles of Iona: Peregrinatio. (That’s Latin for a “peregrination”, literally a wandering, but in this case, that is the early monastic case, a pilgrimage. In Irish Latin usage, … More Book II is done too …
(Looking out from Craig Phadrig towards Portmahomack) Finally, what may be proof that St Columba did indeed convert the Northern Picts to Christianity! His Vita, the “biography” of Columba written a century after his death, suggests that he did, but that is hardly a surprising claim for such a work to make. But the Venerable … More The Pictish monastery of Portmahomack–a Columban foundation
Loch Crinan, gateway to Dunadd, the caput regionis of the Scots of Dál Riata There were four different peoples in Scotland in the early Middle Ages, speaking their own languages, with their distinctive material cultures, myths of origins, religions and ideologies. All have left significant legacies in the history and landscape of Scotland. The … More “In course of time Britain received a third race …” or The Peoples of the North
Paula de Fougerolles 2009 The island of Iona with the modern Abbey left foreground, Dun I center Iona, a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland, was a center of Christianity in Europe for much of the Middle Ages. Columba, or Colum Cille as he was known, exiled from … More Iona
Paula de Fougerolles 2009 Looking across Loch Crinan at Duntrune Castle from the Loch Crinan Hotel The early medieval kingdom of Dál Riata (or Dalriada, as it is now commonly known) comprises much of the modern Scottish region of Argyll and Bute. The original heartland of the kingdom of Scotland, this is the part … More Where in the world is Dál Riata?
What’s a girl to do when she discovers that her heart lies in the Dark Ages? She hunts it down in whatever form it persists. Or, she re-creates her own version of it. Fact. And Fiction. Together. That’s what I’ve done in my forthcoming series of fictionalized history, set in sixth-century Scotland, called “The Chronicles … More Why this blog?