One saint or two?

By B.C.

OVER the last several years, the Scots have been paying more and more attention to the Christian apostle who is generally regarded as the patron of their land, Saint Andrew (pictured). As a tortuous official handout explains, the Scottish government has decided to give its own staff a holiday on Saint Andrew's Day, which falls on November 30th, and it hopes that other employers will do likewise. The flag of Saint Andrew, a diagonal white "X" on a blue background, is the banner of Scotland—cherished in equal measure by those who favour a "Yes" in the forthcoming independence ballot, and those who hope the Union between England and Scotland (proclaimed by the superimposed crosses on the Union Flag) will remain intact.

As I have mentioned in a previous posting, the Scots are far from alone in claiming a particular bond with Saint Andrew, a fisherman who was said to be the "first-called" among the followers of Jesus. He is also regarded as a patron by the Russian navy, by the Greek port of Patras, by many people in Poland, Cyprus and Romania, and along the banks of the Dniepr river where the apostle is said to have made a missionary voyage. Given that all these institutions and places are relatively far from Scotland, the saint's memory can perhaps be shared amicably enough.

But more delicate local issues arise with the other saint who is associated with Scotland, known either as Columba or Columcille; his feast day (at least in the modern Christian calendar) falls today. As Ian Bradley, a professor of history, has argued in The Times, Columba actually spent half his life in Scotland, after leaving his native Ireland around 563 to found a monastery on the Scottish island, where he mostly stayed till he died in 597. Andrew, by contrast, is associated with Scotland only by shadowy traditions, such as the story that in 832, Scotland's King Angus saw a vision of the diagonal cross before winning a battle against the Angles and Saxons. In some ways Columba should take pride of place over Andrew.

But the Scots can't have Columba entirely to themselves. His memory is held dear among ordinary folk in the northwestern extreme of Ireland where he was born. On this day last year, as the high point of a year-long cultural festival, the authorities in his home town of Derry organised a glittering river-borne pageant entitled "The Return of Columcille"—to imply that the saint, like many a homesick Irish emigrant, had given up his wanderings and was finally sailing home. So an independent Scotland which celebrated the memory of Columba/Columcille would also have to acknowledge a close connection with Ireland...or there could be trouble.

Behind all this religious and historical exotica lies a serious point. Whatever set of relationships finally prevails in the British Isles after the Scots independence referendum which takes place in 100 days' time, it must surely take into account the fact that the west coast of Scotland and the north of Ireland have been intimately connected for at least the last 2,000 years or so—in ways that long predate the 17th century Plantation of Ulster by mainly Scots Presbyterian settlers which led to the sectarian conflicts of today. The cult of Columba is only one way in which that Scots-Irish commonality has been expressed.

In times when sea travel, for all its hazards, was easier than moving overland, remote Scottish islands like Barra and Tiree were intimately connected with remote Irish ones. Whether you call it Irish or Scots Gaelic, the people in all those places had a common language, and they revered a common patron.

It now looks possible that the vote in September will create an independent Scotland while leaving the north of Ireland yoked in an unstable bond with England and Wales. Whatever you think about the future of the various islands, big and small, on Europe's northwest, that situation would be a historical nonsense. And Saint Columba would not be pleased.