Appendix 1 - Hinba

Hinba.

For what a humble scribe's opinion is worth, the evidence about 'Hinba' is circumstantial and not conclusive either way; the other main candidates are Jura and Colonsay. The island is mentioned several times in Adamnán's 'Life of St. Columba', and in one passage it is coupled with the Isle of Eigg . Dr Campbell thought the reference showed the two islands must be close, but this cannot be inferred from the text with any confidence. Since 'Canna' is thought to be a pre-Norse name, it would be strange if it had changed from 'Hinba' in the century between Adamnán's time and the start of Norse settlement, while Eigg's stayed the same.

     Canna is well away from the heart of early Gaeldom, within the Islay - Kintyre - Iona triangle, which might count against it. Then again, the reference to Eigg does at least prove the Small Isles were within the ambit of this world. Columba was supposed to have been a voluntary exile (from Ireland), so Canna's remoteness could have been the very thing that appealed to him - especially if Hinba was his retreat from what had become the bustle of Iona.

     If the word 'Hinba' is equivalent to modern Gaelic inbhir (an incision, a Firth), it is a more obvious description of Jura than Canna - even if we assume Canna and Sanday were one island at that time. The name 'Jura' is Norse, so has obviously superseded something older...yet if the balance of evidence seems on Jura's side, against this is the fact that it is much bigger than any other island with a particular early Christian association - eg Iona, the Garvellachs, Islay's Nave island and Texa. The early Irish Saints definitely showed a preference for small, self-contained islands, whether for security or in accordance with their ideal of 'white martyrdom' (exile).

      It is unlikely these scraps of fragmentary annals, place-names and oral tradition will ever yield a definitive answer. At any rate, Canna may well have had a monastic settlement founded during the Columban period - if not by him then by one of his disciples or their successors. If so it would have been on the northern frontier of the Gaelic world at that time; the monks on Eigg were massacred - probably by the Picts - in 618.