St Columba's 60th Anniversary Reel
Scottish Country Dance Instruction
ST COLUMBA'S 60TH ANNIVERSARY REEL (R4x32) Sq.Set Lizzie Conder, 2016 The Reel (298)1- 8 1s take prom hold, dance down between 3s, cast to left, dance in between 2s and curve back into 1st place
9-16 All circle 8H round and back
17-24 Ladies join RH in centre, retain LH with partner and all dance RH across, turn Men into centre and dance LH across
25-32 All promenade round anticlockwise 3 places; all turn partner RH (or birl). 4123
(MINICRIB. Dance crib compiled by Charles Upton, Deeside Caledonian Society, and his successors)
Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams
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St Columba's 60th Anniversary Reel - Scottish Country Dancing Instruction VideoDance Information
This dance, St Columba's 60th Anniversary Reel, was chosen as the winner in a competition to devise a dance to celebrate 60 years of St Columba's Church and Church Hall, Pont St. London.Columba or Colmcille (7 December 521 - 9 June 597 AD) (not to be confused with Columbanus, the Irish missionary monk who founded monasteries in France and Italy) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission.
He founded the important abbey on Iona, which became a dominant religious and political institution in the region for centuries. He is the patron saint of Derry. He was highly regarded by both the Gaels of Dál Riata and the Picts, and is remembered today as a Catholic saint and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland.
Columba studied under some of Ireland's most prominent church figures and founded several monasteries in the country. Around 563 AD he and his twelve companions crossed to Dunaverty near Southend, Argyll, in Kintyre before settling in Iona in Scotland, then part of the Ulster kingdom of Dál Riata, where they founded a new abbey as a base for spreading Celtic Christianity among the pagan Northern Pictish kingdoms. He remained active in Irish politics, though he spent most of the remainder of his life in Scotland. Three surviving early medieval Latin hymns may be attributed to him.
In 563, he travelled to Scotland with twelve companions (said to include Odran of Iona) in a wicker currach covered with leather. According to legend he first landed on the Kintyre Peninsula, near Southend. However, being still in sight of his native land, he moved farther north up the west coast of Scotland. The island of Iona was made over to him by his kinsman Conall mac Comgaill King of Dál Riata, who perhaps had invited him to come to Scotland in the first place. However, there is a sense in which he was not leaving his native people, as the Ulster Gaels had been colonising the west coast of Scotland for the previous couple of centuries. Aside from the services he provided guiding the only centre of literacy in the region, his reputation as a holy man led to his role as a diplomat among the tribes.
There are also many stories of miracles which he performed during his work to convert the Picts, the most famous being his encounter with an unidentified animal that some have equated with the Loch Ness Monster in 565. It is said that he banished a ferocious "water beast" to the depths of the River Ness after it had killed a Pict and then tried to attack Columba's disciple, Lugne (see Vita Columbae Book 2 below). He visited the pagan King Bridei, King of Fortriu, at his base in Inverness, winning Bridei's respect, although not his conversion. He subsequently played a major role in the politics of the country.
Saint Columba, Apostle To The Picts
Dance information licensed under this Creative Commons Licence 3.0.
Text from this original Columba article on Wikipedia.
Image copyright John R Skelton 1906.