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You may find this information helpful when researching the area prior to your visit

From Scotia - the north eastern part of Hibernia (or Ireland) - came the Scots, a Celtic people like the Britons, but of a different branch of the family. They were Gaelic, not Brythonic, their speech categorised as 'Q' Celt rather than 'P' Celt, as they used guttural consonants 'c' and 'g' rather than the 'p' and 'b' of the earlier arrivals. Thus the Brythonic 'pen' is, in Gaelic, 'ceann', and 'ap' becomes 'mac'.

From Ireland access to the western coasts and islands of northern Britain was easy, and the journey no problem whatever to galley-borne fighting men. Scots over a period of time established settlements at various points throughout the inner Hebrides and around the sea lochs and firths; and by 500 they had arrived and concentrated in sufficient strength, to have created for themselves the Kingdom of Dalriada. This land had been until its seizure, the home of British/Pictish tribes, and was no doubt looked upon as national territory by the Pictish Kings. So, there would be anger and battles as the Scots sought to penetrate further inland, and the resentful Picts sought to keep them out. On the evidence of surviving place-names we can see a pattern to the eventual extent of the Scottish conquest. Obviously there was no clearly defined boundary, such as modern states would establish, but the Scottish advance can be seen to have halted along the high ground known anciently as 'Drumalban' where modern Argyle meets the shires of Inverness and Perth.

In the generations which followed, Scottish power and influence moved gradually east and north-east, carried forward often no doubt, by war, but owing much to the work and influence of the first truly historical Scot, St Columba.

Columba - Columcille in his own language - was a prince of the royal house in Irish Dalriada, who had to leave his home after a dispute over, so tradition tells us, the copying of a Christian psalter. The dispute had caused bloodshed, and blame seems to have been laid upon Columba who left Ireland for exile in Scottish Dalriada in 563. There, on the island of Iona, already a traditional place of Christian worship, he and his group of followers made their home and began the mission work which made the little island one of the most influential and loved centres of Christendom.

As well as being a Christian evangelist Columba was also a Scot, and, we may guess, a patriotic one. His fellow-Scots had only recently suffered a defeat in the long-running war with the Picts. Perhaps if the Pictish king could be won over to Christianity like the Scots, enmity between the two would diminish and harmony prevail. Possibly with this part-religious part-diplomatic purpose, Columba and a few colleagues set off along the Great Glen to meet and negotiate with the Pictish King Brude at Inverness.

This mission was successful, and a shared Christian affiliation now promised better relations between Picts and Scots. For the rest of his life Columba, and the followers whom he taught and inspired, carried their mission and this Scottish influence into much of Pictland, including Orkney and the Western Isles. He also established friendly contacts with fellow-Christians in British territory south of the Clyde, inheritors of the tradition begun by St Ninian, especially St. Mungo (or Kentigern) who, we are told, received Columba as a visitor in Glasgow in 584.