Happy Feast of St. Columcille, one of the patron saints of Ireland!

While gathering information on some June days to offer I learned of St. Columba or Columcille. This 6th century saint is the patron of bookbinders, poets, Ireland, and Scotland. Columcille fled Ireland after a bloody battle erupted over the rights to a rare psalter he had copied. The saint founded a monastery community on Iona which would later produce the famed Book of Kells.

There’s a wonderful picture book on his life called Across and Dark and Wild Sea by Don Brown. It seems to be out of print and, therefore, hard to come by. But our library system just happened to have a copy! We read it together during our morning time today as our little way of celebrating the saint’s day.

Sometimes a very little effort is needed to learn about and celebrate saints days!