Isle of Iona, Scotland : Birth of Christianity, Death of Macbeth

Ruins of the Benedictine Abbey

Saint Columba founded an early Christian settlement on this tiny isle of Iona in 563 AD. It is regarded as the ‘Sacred Isle’, the birth place of Christianity. In 600 AD a Celtic tribe, later known as the Scots, reached Scotland from Ireland. Shakespeare’s Macbeth was killed at the battle of Lumphanan in 1057 by King Malcolm III who, together with his English queen, Margaret, founded a dynasty of Scottish rulers. On the Isle of Iona are the ruins of a Benedictine Nunnery and the burial place of 48 Scottish Kings including the infamous Macbeth.