THE obituary of the late Peter Macdonald (The Herald, March 4) persists with the age-old myth that when St Columba arrived in Scotland, it was to what we know today as the island of Iona. This is wrong on two counts, both arising from a centuries-old translation error.

The Latin word “Insula,” where it appears in Adomnan’s book as “Insula Iona” has always been translated as “island”. The trouble is, that this only works if the narrator was a native Latin speaker. Adomnan was not such a person; he was an Irish Gael and the word he translated into Latin as “insula” was “innis”, which can also mean a water meadow or inch. On top of that, in his second book, De Lociis Sanctis, the first thing he does is to point out that in Vita Columbae the term “Insula Iona” was one used by “the brethren” to mean “the mother house”.

When Columba came in 563 AD, it was to what we now call Fort Augustus, the place every military commander after him also chose as their Highland HQ and located on an inch between two rivers. He was one of five Irish abbots who settled across the Highlands, Columba in Fort Augustus, Comgall in Kilmorack, by Beauly, Cainnech at Corrimony, by Cannich, Brendan at Pluscarden and Cormac at Portmahomack. Look at these places on the map and you will see they form a gigantic cross emblazoned across the country. We know it was Fort Augustus, because its name in those days was Achinbady, which Adomnan Latinised to Hinba by removing the non-Latin sounds, just as he had also done with the Gaelic word “dionachd,” (meaning haven or sheltered) which thus became Iona.

After five years, the abbots celebrated together, before going their separate ways, which is when Columba moved his HQ to the present-day Iona.

The TV presenter, Neil Oliver once labelled Adomnan’s stories as fairy tales, but, when one understands that some of the stories are from when the mother house was in Fort Augustus and some from when it was in Iona, the stories are not so fanciful after all. Further evidence is supplied by the fact that all the so-called “lost place-names of Iona” can be found to this day around Fort Augustus.

George F Campbell,

Glasgow G41.

Keep votes at 16

IF we are to accept John Birkett’s logic (Letters, March 6) in proposing 21 as the voting age because of maturity then perhaps it should be 19 for women and 21 for men? I suspect that could be slightly controversial, so we may be safer in giving the vote solely to male landowners – unless that’s been tried before.

What nonsense: 16 for me for everything. The notion of “no taxation without representation” has been around for some time.

John C Hutchinson,

Fort William.

Desist and be artful

WHEN will our politicians learn that man can never beat nature ("Another sticking plaster: fury at £100m ‘wasted’ at Rest And Be Thankful site", The Herald, March 6)? Things like earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, torrential rain will always win. It's like confronting a young child – too young to understand reasoning and you have to learn to divert the force instead.

The Swiss learned many decades ago not to try to stop landslides and they built shelters over their alpine railways to divert the force of nature. Now everyone is happy and they no longer waste money on the problem. If we copy them now in the troublesome stretches it will save even more of our money being wasted.

The landslides will go over the top and traffic will not be stopped – just like the Swiss trains.

Peter L Harrington, Kinross.

The joy of reading

RESEARCH by the National Literacy Trust showing that the number of children reading in their spare time has reached a record low (“Just a quarter of children read in their spare time every day”, The Herald, March 5), takes me back to being read “stories” by my Wee Granny (I also had a Big Granny who read), almost 80 years ago, the excitement of new books at Christmas, growing up with the free run of the books of an older boy and girl next door, boys’ comics of the 1940s with

the wonderful world of Alf Tupper, William Wilson, HK Rodd et al, and Arthur Ransome books.

The pleasure of a new book at bedside, or poolside on holiday, continues, sometimes chosen from the weekend Herald book review.

A minor downside is the occasional admonition from “she who must be obeyed” that my affair with books has contributed to my DIY shortcomings, which I counter by promising to turn over a new leaf.

R Russell Smith,

Kilbirnie.