Fury as ‘grave robbers’ target St Columba’s Shrine

IT is visited by hundreds of pilgrims from across the world every day.

But ‘grave robbers’, believed to have landed on Iona among the faithful, could be behind an act of vandalism at the ancient site where St Columba was buried.

St Columba’s Shrine, next to the abbey he founded on the Inner Hebridean island, marks the spot where the saint’s remains were interred following his death in 597AD.

But on Monday, someone forced open and damaged a wooden floor hatch that covers the burial site. Jane Martin, Historic Scotland manager at Iona Abbey, said: ‘St Columba was buried there. Someone jemmied up one of the hatches and did some damage to it.’

The culprit, however, would not have found anything to steal. Miss Martin said: ‘Someone has been interested in what is underneath, but there are no remains there now.

‘It’s quite shocking, we don’t often get any crime here at all. You expect that people will treat the buildings with respect because they are old and because they have this religious history as well. To have a go at lunchtime, they were taking a bit of a risk of somebody seeing them.’

On Monday, there was a tour at 11.45am, when everything was intact. The damage was discovered on the next tour, at 2pm.

Appealing for anyone with information to contact the police, who are investigating, Miss Martin said: ‘We get 400-500 visitors a day, so somebody might have seen something. We are going to take steps to improve the security of the building. It is only about 26ft by 10ft but the foundation stones have been there since the eighth century.’

Oban South and the Isles councillor Alistair MacDougall said: ‘It’s disgraceful. We have to watch for people stealing birds’ eggs, but this is much worse. Iona Abbey is one of the most sacred places on Earth.’

Last night, no one was available for comment at Police Scotland.