Alistair Moffat - In Search of Angels: Travels to the Edge of the World

In Search of Angels

First published in 2020 by

Birlinn Limited

West Newington House

10 Newington Road

Edinburgh

EH9 1QS

www.birlinn.co.uk

Copyright Alistair Moffat 2020

Part-title illustrations copyright Andrew Crummy 2020

ISBN 978 178027 672 4
ePUB ISBN 978 178885 304 0

The right of Alistair Moffat to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Designed and typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

Son mo charaidean Gaidhealach uile

For all my Highland friends

Part One
The Word Must Be Spread

Part Two
The Rock of the Saint Eileach an Naoimh

Part Three
The Great Garden Lismore

Part Four
The Isle of the Yew Tree Iona

Part Five
Into Eden Applecross

When Hugh Andrew approached me with the idea of this book, I was immediately attracted. There is much more to the story of the Christian conversion of the west and north of Scotland than Columba. But sources for the lives and works of the other holy men who sailed amongst the islands and sea lochs from the sixth to the eight centuries are vanishingly scant. Sometime only names and the whispers of half-forgotten stories survive. And so it seemed to me that I should do what they did, go on a journey and try to discover something of their passing, and why they founded their communities on the islands and remote places of the Atlantic shore. Blessed with sun, calm seas and enough solitude, I spent a summer in the company of the saints who came to the Hebrides all that long time ago and who did so much to shape modern Scotland.

Im grateful to Calum Macdonald for permission to reproduce the text of An Ubhal as Airde(copyright C. & R. Macdonald and published by Chrysalis/BMG). The lines from Sorley MacLeans Hallaig are copyright the estate of Sorley MacLean. The poem appears in A White Leaping Flame/Caoir Gheal Leumraich: Sorley MacLean, Collected Poems, edited by Christopher Whyte and Emma Dymock, published by Polygon in association with Carcanet Press.

Patricia Marshall is a mistress of her craft and edited this book with immense skill and sensitivity, while Andrew Simmons produced it with tact, patience and persistence. I would like to thank them both, kind and considerate professionals that they are. Jan Rutherford completes the quartet who brought this book to life. As ever, I am immensely grateful to her. My agent, David Godwin, also encouraged me greatly. And finally, for wonderful Highland hospitality, I would like to thank Mrs Flora MacRae.

Alastair Moffat

Summer 2020

Thirty years ago, in another life, I stopped for a moment to look up from the morning mist on Loch Awe and across to Ben Cruachan. Snow-crowned, majestic, its mass dominates the Pass of Brander, the dawning sun dazzling, glinting in the distance off the white summit. As the tide of yellow light slowly unfolded over the land, I put my briefcase on the back seat of my car, checked my inside pockets for wallet, passport and tickets, and drove away through the mountains to another world.

With friends from Edinburgh, we had hired the west wing of Ardbrecknish House on the eastern shore of Loch Awe.