Note 284 — Chapter IV · THE FAMILY OF IONA.

St. Columba’s day was the 9th of June, and the year on which he died is determined by the consideration of whether he must be held to have died on Saturday evening or on Sunday morning. If on Sunday, then the 9th of June fell on a Sunday in the year 597. If on Saturday, then the 9th of June fell on a Saturday in 596. The former is most consistent with Adamnan’s narrative, who places his death after midnight, and states the duration of his life in Iona at 34 years, which, added to 563, gives us the year 597. Bede’s statement, though made on different data, brings us to the same year. He brings him over in 565, but gives 32 years as the duration of his life after, which also brings us to 597. Tighernac seems to have adopted the other view, for he says that he died on the eve of Whitsunday, ‘in nocte Dominica Pentecosten,’ and Whitsunday fell on the 10th of June 596; but this is inconsistent with his other statement, that he came over to Britain in 563, and died in the thirty-fifth year of his pilgrimage, which brings us to 597.