A Place of Connections
You are escaping away from the pressures of the modern world to the remoteness of a Hebridean island; to a place of dramatic history, outstanding scenery and abundant nature. Despite this remoteness, you are following well worn footsteps to perhaps the oldest tourist destination in Scotland; a site of pilgrimage, discovery and enjoyment for almost 1,500 years.
Fundamentally Iona is a beautiful place in an area of Outstanding Scenic Heritage that because of its remoteness has been cushioned from the more destructive environmental and social impacts that have tainted much of the British mainland. It is surrounded by a healthy marine ecosystem that laps on to stunning white sand beaches, which themselves hold with a tranquillity that is nowadays hard to find.
As you can tell from the pictures, it is also a remarkably sunny and temperate place – if only ! Iona is very much on the storm shelf of Europe and we have dramatically fast changing weather patterns. But it does also mean we get amazing qualities of light and contrasts; not to mention night skies that are unpolluted by light and can provide the most amazing of stellar displays.
For many the island’s allure is in its history – and it is great romantic history full of all the colourful characters of Scottish folklore: from the Druids and Pictish Queens of early history through to St Columba and the Celtic Renaissance, to the rampaging Vikings, the warring Clans, and the mysteries of the Knight’s Templar. They’ve all been here, and all walked the same hills, tracks and beaches around the island.
Culturally Iona’s attraction is obviously part and parcel of all this scenery and history, but it is also to do with the resident community and a way of life that has all but disappeared for most. In many ways it is the nature of islands, half hidden from the real world and almost frozen in time. You are visiting a place where a small rural community is highly interdependent and very much connected to its natural environment; where there is no crime and where 5 year olds still run the short distance to school on their own; and where for the most part we look after our own elderly and young within the house.
Having said that, we are not all living in black houses sitting with our livestock around a smoking peat fire and wondering when Queen Victoria is next going to visit. The veritable ring of the mobile phone reached our shores some ten years ago, and we have been enjoying the benefits of broadband internet for a few years as well. Cars although still restricted in access, have also increased in number on the island, and some of the planning decisions over the years cannot be resolutely decried as sympathetic to the landscape and surroundings. But nevertheless, all this history, nature and social interaction that has been swamped elsewhere by modernity, has on Iona been very much preserved in a living island landscape. It is almost literally there to the touch in the buildings and gravestones; in the lazy bed patterns on the Macair; in the storms and seabirds on the sea; the fishermen on the pier and the children playing on the beach. Above all it is in the atmosphere and the combination of place, history, culture and people coming together in a place of beauty, a place of connections, and a place of escape.
