Taking the 'aerial' view for a moment, the historian, Thomas Cahill, speaks of various 'martyrdoms' in defining the stages of early Christianity. There was the "Red Martyrdom"; i.e. that of the earliest Church, denoting the color of blood, alluding to acts of violence, repression, and  sacrifice. Then came the "Green Martyrdom", which implied the sacrifice of conducting life far removed from towns and society; the seeking of a spiritual communion with God as an ascetic, sought in a lonely, austere and often harsh condition. Because Christianity embedded itself into Ireland without oppression or terror-very much unlike the old Roman world --the early Irish church had absolutely no martyrs to boast of, and Cahill --with, I think, tongue firmly in cheek --has written that the absence of [Red] martyrs disturbed the Irish, "to whom a glorious death by violence presented such an exciting finale." Hence the idea of Green Martyrdom to atone, though the idea was certainly not unique to Ireland, for the anchoritic movement --the desire to disassociate oneself from the corruptible mass of humanity and find peace with God --was in full swing in the Byzantine east.

But the "wild-eyed anchorites" had made some in the Church nervous; their practices were remarked upon as perhaps not wholly uniform with established dogma, nor governable in the slightest. The idea of monastic settlements, then, was a logical solution to a lack of central authority, allowing for an educated, or at least literate, Abbot to oversee those who would dedicate their lives in a holy community. Furthermore, monastic compounds could be built anywhere and organized for purposes of proselytism. Cahill designates this third and last form of martyrdom, "White Martyrdom", describing it romantically as "they who sailed into the white sky of morning, into the unknown, never to return." This stage had begun prior to Columba's birth, with Brigid and others, but was still, in 540, a young and vibrant idea. And this was the idea that set fire to Columba's sense of possibility and devotion.

Though Doire was Columba's first monastery, others followed in quick succession: Raphoe, Swords, Tory Island, Drumcliffe, Skreen-in present Co. Meath. In 560, 14 years after the founding of Doire, the important monasteries of Durrow and Kells were established. Columba's energy and sense of duty had made him prolific in turning idea into tangible fact. His monasteries were centers of not only prayer and devotion but of learning and the endless copying of manuscripts, codices, and commentary. He was now a respected figure in Ireland. But then he blundered. 

Around the time of the founding of Durrow and Kells, Columba surreptitiously copied St. Finnian's Psalter, back at Moville. One legend has it that his left hand shone with the  incandescence of many candles, enabling him to copy the text in the dark with his right. Tradition says that he had longed for it ever since his younger days at the monastery; remember, Columba was ordained a deacon by Finnian at Moville. At any rate, the fact was discovered and Finnian lodged a complaint with King Diarmait (Dermott). Diarmait responded by deciding for Finnian with this famous and unequivocal judgement: "To every cow its calf; to every book its copy." 

There is some dispute whether Columba ever returned the troublesome Psalter to St. Finnian. What is not in dispute is that Columba was a man of his age --and from a prestigious royal family to boot. There was the question of pride, ego and injustice, and damage to the family's honor.

Either Columba kept the copy and Diarmait decided to settle the problem forcefully, or Diarmait became implicated in the death of one of Columba's relatives after the book was returned, prompting Columba to call in his clan and family. Cahill puts it thus: "[Columba] was too much the aristocratic pagan to forget his humiliation." Recall that Christianity was young and the old pagan ways were ancient and deeply imprinted in the Irish/clannish psyche. 

Either way, the incident had escalated to the point where matters would be resolved on the field. In 561, on the battlefield of Cooldrevny (or Cule-Drebene, in present-day Connaught), Columba rallied his "powerful" kinsmen and they had an old-fashioned pagan battle, in which his side was victorious. King Diarmait's forces were defeated at high cost: 3000, says tradition, and only one killed on Columba's side. 

The contested Psalter reverted back to Columba as spoils of war-if, that is, he had ever returned it in the first place. The downside was that Columba was excommunicated (as was common custom for any ecclesiastic engaged in armed conflict). His penance was exile; and he was advised to save as many new souls as his covetousness had caused to be lost in the battle. In other words, his defiance and misdeeds were used by the Church as a means to perpetuate conversion through penance; a pretty efficacious way of getting great deeds done. 

In 563 Columba left Ireland with 12 companion monks --which was to become the custom of all Columban  missionaries from then on --and sailed across the waters to Iona in a reed-woven currach (Iona, a part of Scotland's Hebrides Islands, was called Hy at the time). Though he was not aware of it, he was embarking on a mission that would make all his other deeds pale by comparison. For Iona would at first rival, then surpass, St. Patrick's monastic settlement at Armagh as --to quote the Catholic Encyclopedia --"the greatest centre of Gaelic Christianity." Iona, in time, became the pre-eminent center of learning and scholarship, busy with copyists and scribes and teachers --a flickering light in the dark Irish Sea. But first it had to be built. 

Columba acquired the rights of settlement in Iona from a relative, Conall, King of Dalriada. This was a tenuous claim, as the island was a Pict possession (after the conversion of the Picts, Brude, their King, formally approved the grant). Columba's party landed in the south of the island, in the bay still named Porta Churraich, and he built his monastery and quarters out of "earth, timber, and wicker-work." The monk's cells were constructed in the beehive style with simple thatched roofing; presumably there would also have been a church, kitchen, library, harbor facilities, and Abbot's residence. On the windswept islands of the cold Irish Sea, life was difficult and the comforts few, though the use of waxen tablets, pens and styles and ink-horns, is mentioned in several texts; there would be no respite in the monk's usual avocation: copying.

Adamnan, the 9th Abbot of Iona's monastic community (and therefore Columba's distant successor) extols the venerable man in his book "Life of Saint Columba". Indeed, the introductory first paragraph wastes no time: "By virtue of his prayer, and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, he healed several persons suffering under various diseases; and he alone, by the assistance of God, expelled from this our island, which now has the primacy, innumerable hosts of malignant spirits, whom he saw with his bodily eyes assailing himself, and beginning to bring deadly distempers on his monastic brotherhood. Partly by mortification, and partly by a bold resistance, he subdued, with the help of Christ, the furious rage of wild beasts. The surging waves, also, at times rolling mountains high in a great tempest, became quickly at his prayer quiet and smooth . . . ."

In fact, Adamnan's book acclaims Columba as a remarkably prophetic man (in the spiritual domain as well as the temporal) and a miracle worker, performing feats to rival any of the Saints  --he made stones float on water; brought a recently deceased child back to life; turned water into pure wine; influenced the outcome of battles as well as the lives of numerous clans' petty kings. 

The following are two examples to make the point, the first while Columba was alive, the second showing his power posthumously, as a Saint. Both are quoted from Adamnan's "Life". 

"And while the holy man was in the Iouan island [Hy, Iona], he suddenly said to his minister, Diormit, "Ring the bell'". "The brethren, startled at the sound, proceeded quickly to the church, with the holy prelate himself at their head. There he began, on bended knees, to say to them, 'Let us pray now earnestly to the Lord for this people and King Aidan, for they are engaging in battle at this moment [at Miathi]."

"Then after a short time he went out of the oratory, and, looking up to heaven, said, 'The barbarians are fleeing now, and to Aidan is given the victory, a sad one though it be.' And the blessed man in his prophecy declared the number of the slain in Aidan's army to be three hundred and three men." And, as we are told, so it was.