HIEROMARTYRS OF IONA

Celebrated May 8

In 854, Indrecht, grandson of Finechta and Abbot of Iona, was martyred at Glastonbury on his journey to Rome. One Diarmaid was killed with him.

"Some years later," writes William of Malmesbury, "the bodies of the martyr Indract and his comrades were translated from their place of martyrdom and buried in that church by Ine, King of the West Saxons, who had received a divine vision. Indract's body was put in a stone pyramid to the left of the altar, the others were put under the floor in places either carefully chosen or dictated by chance." However, William must have made a mistake here, for King Ine lived over a hundred years before St. Indract.

The saint is commemorated on May 8.

(Sources: Annals of Ulster for 854; Annals of Innisfarne for 854; Martyrology of Tallaght; A.W. Haddan & W. Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Oxford: Clarendon Press, volume II, part 1, 1873, pp. 142-143; William of Malmesbury, The Early History of Glastonbury, edited by John Scott, The Bodyell Press, Woodbridge, 1981, pp. 61, 69; Gesta Regum Anglorum, 35)

On Christmas Eve, 986 the Danes descended upon the monastery of Iona in Scotland, and killed the abbot and fifteen of his monks at the place called "the White Strand of the Monks".

Holy Hieromartyrs Of Iona, Pray To God For Us!

By Vladimir Moss. Posted with permission.

(Sources: Annals of Ulster, 986; Alphons Bellesheim, History of the Catholic Church of Scotland, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, volume I, 1887, p. 227)