Iona: In the Footsteps of Columba

The Barony Hall, Glasgow, 31/01/2025

‘Iona: In the Footsteps of Columba’ - A celebration in music, storytelling and imagery

John Bett, director, author and actor, Paul Anderson, composer and fiddle, and friends

On a predictably chilly Friday evening in January, St Margaret’s - the performance, arts, and heritage venue in Braemar, Scotland - came down south to Glasgow’s Barony Hall for Celtic Connections’ 2025 performance of Iona: In the Footsteps of Columba - A celebration in music, storytelling and imagery.

The stone-built church, with its clean lines, columns and arches, packed in a cosy audience on the church pews and traditional hard chairs. Fair Isle jumpers, padded jackets, waterproofs, boots - these were people who knew how to stay warm in their country and were there to hear a multi-media performance with images, histories, and music as responsive to the land and identity as they.

The first half hour was filled with an unexpected surprise as Ellie Beaton, from Rothienorman in the North East of Scotland, on vocals, and Luc MacNally, from County Durham in the North East of England (and Young Traditional Musician Finalist 2019), alternating acoustic and electric guitar, took the stage in a youthful duet of folk songs from their respective “north easts”. That night Ellie was waiting to take part in the Sunday finals of Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2025 competition - which she then won.

After being given a warm, familiar welcome, Ellie launched into her repertoire of Scots songs in her warm, clear voice and punctuated the set with her own elegant brand of humour and explanation of the music. Luc, in duet with Ellie, played for the audience “The only lullaby meant to wake people up.” It was one of a few of their songs in which the audience were encouraged to join in. A long 20 minute intermission followed their set after which ‘Iona: In the Footsteps of Columba’ began in earnest.

Returning from the intermission, six musicians bedecked the stage, tucked into the chancel, above which were projected the artwork of John Lowrie Morrison OBE, and to the audience’s right were a duo of award winning actors, John Bett and Annie Grace. The music of the programme was composed by Paul Anderson (on fiddle) who was joined on stage by Steve Byrne (bouzouki), Shona Donaldson (fiddle), Ali Napier (guitar), and Martin O’Neill (bodhran). The ambiance settled into one January hibernation - as if one was gathered in for a quiet evening in a dark winter living room with a drink, to be carried away by the bright lights, sounds, and plot of a film. A film that wasn’t a film, but live performing artists. And it was the kind of story telling that you might hear on a Radio 4 programme: it drew not only on Francis Devine’s poignant Irish-Scottish poetry, but was also full of banter, jokes, and quirky tales of history and our shared humanity wound around the nexus of the island of Iona. 

The explicit message the audience was left with is of Iona long enduring as a hub in a network that both reaches out to, and draws in, people from all over. A place of stories that are claimed not just by Scotland, but by an entire region of the world - these islands, large and small, at the North West edge of Europe.

The immersive, multimedia performance that is Iona: In the Footsteps of Columba - A celebration in music, storytelling and imagery excellently conveys that it is multi layered island where the living and the dead, history and contemporary creativity, lay upon one another. A place that has been and will continue to be central to the indigenous cultures of these islands. And so it was that a night of indigenous music for indigenous people came to a satisfying conclusion.

Art credit: John Lowrie Morrison