Iona with Love by Barbara Sellars sampler

Barbara sellars is a longtime visitor to the Isle of Iona and has been photographing on
the island since 2010. Born and brought up in Sheffield, she fell in love with the Scottish
landscape as a young teenager on holiday. In 1996, she made Scotland her home. A lifelong
love of the natural world is the inspiration behind much of her writing and photography.
She has had three solo photographic exhibitions and has been a regular contributor to
Scottish Islands Explorer magazine since 2014. As well as her writing and photography,
she is a teacher of 5 Rhythms® dance and has a degree and PhD in Botany. She lives in
Milngavie.

Iona With Love
Island reflections in word and image
BARBARA SELLARS

For my family
All place names in Iona with Love (except North End) are taken from Iona:
a Map, Wild Goose Publications (2017). These names can also be found in
the Iona’s Namescape project found at iona-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk
First published 2026
isbn: 978-1-80425-244-4 HBK
isbn: 978-1-80425-245-1 PBK
The author’s right to be identified as author of this book
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.
The paper used in this book is recyclable. It is made
from low-chlorine pulps produced in a low-energy,
low-emission manner from renewable forests.
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd., Croydon CR0 4YY
Typeset in Sabon by
Main Point Books, Edinburgh
Map compass credit: Canva
Text and images © Barbara Sellars 2026

Contents
Map of Iona 6
Introduction 9
Morning Light 12
Diamond Days 26
Bright Particularities 40
Storm Warning 56
Stones 70
Under Grey Skies 84
A Green Cap and a Floral Carpet 98
Day’s End 112
Homecoming 128
References 143
Acknowledgements 143
5

6

Map of Iona: Key
1 Island of Storm (Eilean Annraidh)
2 Bay at the Back of the Ocean (Camus
Cul an Taibh)
3 White Strand of the Monks (Tràigh Bàn
nam Manach)
4 Calva
5 The North End
6 Strand of the Seat (Tràigh an t-Suidhe)
7 Boundary Strand (Tràigh-na-Criche)
8 Poll Dùnain (Pool of the Small Dun)
9 Marble Quarry
10 Port Bàn (White Port)
11 Calf Island (Eilean Chalbha)
12 Port of the White Stones (Port Chlacha
Geal)
13 St Ronan’s Bay (Port Ronain)
14 Little Port of Sligineach (Port Beag na
Sligeanaich)
15 Columba’s bay
16 The Machair
17 Tràigh Mhòr (Big Strand)
18 Dùn Ì
19 Cnoc Fada (Long Hill)
20 Dùn Bhuirg (Hill of the Fort)
21 Port of the Pools (Port Pollarain)
22 Sandeels Bay (Tràigh nan Sìolan)
7

Iona North End
8

Introduction
‘It is but a small isle, fashioned of a little sand, a few
grasses salt with the spray of an ever-restless wave, a few
rocks that wade in heather and upon whose brows the
sea-wind weaves the yellow lichen.’
Fiona Macleod, Iona, 1910
Iona is a small island, approximately 5km
long by 2.5km across at its widest point.
It is one of the many islands (35 inhabited
and 44 uninhabited) that make up the Inner
Hebridean archipelago off the west coast of
mainland Scotland. To the east, a narrow
strait of water, the Sound of Iona, separates
it from the south-western tip of its much
larger neighbour, the Isle of Mull. To the
north and north-west, a scattering of other
islands sail on the horizon: the Treshnish
Isles in the near distance, the faint bumps
of Coll and Tiree beyond and the outlines
of the mountains on Rum and Skye. Further
still, on a clear day, it is possible to discern
the thin sketch line of the Outer Hebrides.
Out west it is the open Atlantic, extending
uninterrupted all the way to Canada.
Unlike its near neighbour, Mull, Iona is not
a topographically dramatic island. There are
no mountains here. The highest hill, Dùn Ì,
rises to just over 100 metres. This is a lowlying
island, a mix of sheep-cropped turf,
rocky outcrops, bog and heath, and a coastline
edged by shell-sand and pebble beaches, sea
cliffs and gullies. But what it lacks in landscape
drama is more than offset by the colours and
the changing light and atmospherics, changes
that can sometimes take place within minutes.
Ominous clouds give way to sudden sweeps
of light, to intense squalls, to rainbows, and
though it can also be grey and wet for days, in
the sun, with its stretches of white shell-sand,
edged by the clear, turquoise seas, it has an
almost Caribbean feel.
This tiny island is also historically renowned –
the place where Columba arrived from his native
Ireland in 563CE, establishing a monastery that
was to become a centre of Christian teaching
and mission. Iona has been a place of pilgrimage
for centuries, and people still come here in their
thousands every year. Most come to see the
island’s famous ecclesiastical antiquities: the
13th century Benedictine abbey, the Augustinian
nunnery, the medieval high crosses and the
Reilig Odhrain (reputed burial place of 40 or
more Scottish kings). Some come to take part
in the abbey’s weekly programmes of study
and worship run by the Iona Community, the
Christian ecumenical group founded in the
9

1930s by the Reverend George MacLeod with
the island as its spiritual home. But many of
the visitors to Iona are here for only a couple
of hours, a location on their travel itinerary.
I first came here back in 1978, along with
my husband, John. We were on a Caledonian
MacBrayne day cruise around the Isle of Mull.
Part of the schedule was a brief stop-off at Iona.
The ferry had moored in the Sound, and we
passengers had been taken over to the island in
small boats. For me, it was seeing somewhere
that I had been anticipating for some time, for
though it was my first visit to the island, it was
not my first encounter with Iona. That had
happened a few years previously, whilst I was
still at school. In a small way Iona was already
part of my life.
It was, I think, 1969 when my family
travelled to Scotland for the first time. I have
only vague memories of that week. In part, it
was a visit to a cousin who had recently moved
to Paisley from our hometown of Sheffield.
My memory is that we spent much of that
week in the Renfrewshire countryside, but
there was certainly one day at Loch Lomond
– it was there that I, as an overly romantic
teenager, began to fall in love with a land.
Scotland became something of an obsession
that year, and later, when I had two school
projects to undertake, they both became
Scotland-focused. One of them, for the subject
of ‘English’, was titled simply ‘Scotland’– a
wide-ranging treatise that included not only
my own (very minimal) experiences, but also
a potted history of the country and its clans. It
was ambitious if nothing else. I was following
my newly found passion, and a distinct lack of
knowledge wasn’t going to get in the way. The
other project was for the subject of ‘Religious
Knowledge’. On the back of my obvious and
much announced interest in all things Scottish,
my teacher had suggested a theme to me – ‘the
Isle of Iona’. At the time, I had never heard of
it, but it was in Scotland and that was enough
to inspire me.
As part of my research, I remember writing
to the Iona Community. In return I received an
envelope stuffed with information, including
pictures. There were images of the abbey in its
pre-20th-century ruinous state, along with photographs
of George MacLeod’s 1940s rebuild
in progress and the abbey as it currently stood.
I could also see, in some of the pictures I’d been
sent, something of the island landscape – the
white shell-sand, the hint of turquoise seas. It
seemed a remote place to me, exotic even, a
distant island out on the edge of things, way
beyond the perimeters of my known world.
It was not like anywhere that I had ever been.
Naturally, it became somewhere I wanted to
see but my family had no plans for a return trip
to Scotland, and my first visit to Iona would be
the one in 1978.
Like most visitors to the island, John and
I took in the history that day, the abbey, the
nunnery. But, in our limited time window, we
did also walk briefly to the north of the island,
and I saw, for the first time, the white shellsands
and the view across to Eilean Annraidh,
the tiny Island of Storm with its white strip of
sand, and out beyond to the blue hills of Mull.
Part of me chooses to believe that this is what
drew me in from the beginning – that it was the
island’s natural beauty that cast its spell on me
10

that day. But, in truth, I cannot remember what
I thought and felt. Certainly, the photographs
from that day show an unremittingly grey sky,
so we didn’t see the island in the best of light.
But I had arrived with existing expectations
and, no doubt, a romance was already in
place. What I do know, is that whatever the
magic was, it was enough to bring me back. I
have been returning to this island almost every
year since then, a mix of family holidays, solo
excursions and, for a period of 20 years, sharing
a week on the island every September with a
long-time friend. My eventual move to live
in Scotland permanently, 30 years ago, has
made the island much more accessible to me.
My relationship with Iona was not initially
a photographic one (apart from holiday
snapshots), but it was inevitable that when
photography came into my life, the island
would feature as a subject. I had a brief affair
with the camera back in my 20s, but I was
50 before it became a more serious pursuit,
and in 2011, I decided to begin a project of
photographing Iona every single month for an
entire year. I did not plan those visits around
weather or ‘good light’, but simply arrived
as and when I could, compiling a collection
that was not intended to portray Iona as a
picture postcard, but as I found the island in
each month, whether bathed in sunlight or
under a bank of grey cloud. I wanted to reflect
something of Iona’s different moods and the
features of the landscape that caught my eye.
Ultimately that project became a process of
deepening two relationships, the one with
photography and the one with the island itself.
I wandered the coastline, walked the interior,
as I always had, but I went out earlier and
stayed out later. And I looked more closely. The
pebbles, the rocks, the shells and the patterns
in the sand became more visible than they
had before. The end of my planned timescale
proved to be only a point in a continuum. I
have continued to return to the island, along
with my camera, every year since then.
In my desire to return to this place over and
over, I am not alone. Many artists have felt the
same magnetic draw. Iona has been portrayed
in paintings, photographs and writings over a
long period of time. I am one amongst many
lovers of this island. The images in this book
reflect the Iona that I have come to know,
the moods and particularities of a place as
seen through my eyes. It is not intended as
an overview of the island – those who know
the place well will recognise there are many
locations that do not appear at all, and some
that feature repeatedly. Together, the pictures
and the short essays that accompany them
reflect some of the moments and memories of
my times on this island, both as a photographer
and as a visitor over these many years.
11

12 Dawn, North End

Morning Light
13

The first pale streaks of morning stretch out
in thin, broken ellipses across the eastern sky,
narrow slits of light in a blue-blackness. Out
west, a thick bank of cloud hides a waning,
gibbous moon, revealed briefly through a ragged
gap that soon closes, leaving only a hint
of moonlight, a pale sheen behind a dark veil.
Across the Sound of Iona, the inlets and skerries
of Mull are edged with a silvery shimmer,
where sea meets silhouetted land. The road is
empty, the scattered houses still in darkness.
I am on my way to the north end, a favourite
spot for my morning photography. It is largely
the pursuit of photography that has gifted me
the pleasures of these early mornings on the
island. Before its presence in my life, I had,
on occasion, climbed to the top of Dùn Ì to
watch the sun rise over the hills of Mull, but
my climbs were never in this pre-dawn light,
these deep midnight-blues before other tones
begin to paint the day.
A sudden flurry of wings catches me unawares,
and I’m shocked into a racing heartbeat by the
raucous honking of a flock of greylag geese as
they take flight from the fields that run down to
the eastern shoreline. The shock is as potent as
ever. No matter how many times I walk along
this road in the early autumn and surprise the
geese, they still surprise me. I stop and watch as
they wheel out over the Sound, then turn, en
masse, and fly into the west.
Beyond the tarmac road, I cross the turf,
heading north-east towards the beach, the scent
of damp grass and salt air in my nostrils, a
mild south-westerly buffeting me gently over
the land. Sound and scent are so much more
present at this time of day. Gulls, beginning
to greet the new morning, echo out across the
open land, and I can hear the rhythmic rush of
waves on the shore below.
Dropping down through the narrow, sandy
channel between the marram grasses, I step
out onto the beach. There’s no-one here. There
never seems to be. I could count on one hand
the number of times I’ve met another person
on this beach on these pre-sunrise jaunts.
Out to sea, a familiar solitary fishing boat
that sails up the Sound is just coming into view,
its engine phut-phutting in the quiet air as it
continues, veering north-west and across the
back of the Island of Storm, just offshore. I’ve
come to see its passing appearance as a comfort,
a note of companionship to balance the slight
frisson of fear that I sometimes experience at
this time of day, alone, in the landscape. Once,
on another morning and on a different beach,
I encountered something I have yet to identify
with any certainty. Well before the light of a
new day was evident, I’d set out west to the
Bay at the Back of the Ocean (heading west
is always a darker experience in those early
hours), crossing the machair to arrive on the
pebbled upper shore. Almost at once, a green
light had appeared before me, like an exquisite
emerald jewel, a strangely beautiful, coloured
candle flame that hung suspended for a second
or two, before being extinguished, as if some
invisible presence had gently blown it out. I
remember backing off the shore to the edge of
the turf a few metres away (as if that would
somehow offer me some protection from the
unknown) with the hair standing up on the
back of my neck, and at a loss as to what to
do next.
14

Of course, I’ve attempted to find explanations
since then – a shooting star, perhaps
– though I can’t explain how it appeared as
if out of the space directly in front of me, nor
how it hung for a length of time. On hearing
my story, an island resident told me that folk
have strange experiences here. It unnerved me
for a while, and a fear of odd lights still haunts
my morning expeditions.
The boat in the distance has moved on and
I’ve set up my camera. On the eastern face
of the long finger of rock that juts out from
the beach, there is already a silvery hint of the
coming day. The rock’s wet surface shines
translucent, trails of surf draining from it with
each roll of the wave. The tide is on its way out.
My first images are filled with the blue cast
of morning and the sea’s constant movement.
Slowed down by the length of the exposure,
it is an ethereal wash in the frame that looks
as it sounds this morning – a whispered rush
along the shoreline, before the sand takes on a
pale-pink tone, reflecting the emerging colour
in the clouds.
It is never the same twice. The colours and
dynamics of sea and sky are always unique,
a fact that I occasionally have the presence of
mind to note, that I am here bearing witness
to a moment never to be repeated. Sometimes
there is drama; sometimes it is subtle; and
on some mornings the colour, if it arrives
at all, peters out before it has barely begun,
the day’s beginnings sitting under a blanket
of grey. And then there are the days when
the rising sun breaks through and floods this
entire strand and the marram grasses with
gold. Such beginnings are a thing of joy, and
no matter how cold the day is, it makes me
want to throw my hat in the air and dance
across the sand!
This morning, the colour is brief, and not
extensive, as the dark clouds spread in from
the west across my horizon. A break in the
eastern sky gives way to the first rays, painting
the rocks with the gold of morning. It is a
passing brush, and then the moment is gone.
15

Early morning on the road north
16

committed to publishing well written books worth reading
luath press takes its name from Robert Burns, whose little collie Luath
(Gael., swift or nimble) tripped up Jean Armour at a wedding and gave
him the chance to speak to the woman who was to be his wife and the
abiding love of his life. Burns called one of the ‘Twa Dogs’
Luath after Cuchullin’s hunting dog in Ossian’s Fingal.
Luath Press was established in 1981 in the heart of
Burns country, and is now based a few steps up
the road from Burns’ first lodgings on
Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. Luath offers you
distinctive writing with a hint of
unexpected pleasures.
Most bookshops in the uk, the us, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe,
either carry our books in stock or can order them
for you. To order direct from us, please send a £sterling
cheque, postal order, international money order or your
credit card details (number, address of cardholder and
expiry date) to us at the address below. Please add post
and packing as follows: uk – £1.00 per delivery address;
overseas surface mail – £2.50 per delivery address; overseas airmail – £3.50
for the first book to each delivery address, plus £1.00 for each additional
book by airmail to the same address. If your order is a gift, we will happily
enclose your card or message at no extra charge.
543/2 Castlehill
The Royal Mile
Edinburgh EH1 2ND
Scotland
Telephone: 0131 225 4326 (24 hours)
Email: sales@luath.co.uk
Website: www.luath.co.uk