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Aidan MacDonald (1941-2013) was a graduate of the Universities of Cambridge (MA) and Oxford (MLitt) and lectured in the Department of Archaeology, University College Cork, from 1978 until his retirement in 2000. Over the course of his career, he made important contributions to early medieval Scottish and Irish ecclesiastical archaeology, toponymy, and history.
This collection brings together his publications which include surveys and excavations, studies of place-name elements, and studies demonstrating the importance of textual sources, such as annals and hagiography, to an understanding of the material environment of Insular monasticism. There are several papers about Iona, Argyll, as represented in the late seventh century Vita Columbae by Adomnán, including an influential study, published in 2001, about the layout of the site. In addition, the collection includes a substantial monograph, completed in 2013, on the later history of the monastery, entitled Iona and the Shrine of Columba, c. 800-1200.
In the words of the distinguished early medievalist and place-names expert, Simon Taylor, ‘Aidan MacDonald is the kind of scholar whose work will increase, rather than decrease in relevance and value’ (Scottish Place-Name News 35, 11). This collection will make it easier for researchers to benefit from this rich scholarly legacy.