Welcome to the website for Iona’s Namescape: Place-Names and their dynamics in Iona and its environs
Name of the month: June 2025
Our final Name of the Month, as the Iona’s Namescape project comes to the end of its funded period, is, of course the name of the island itself. In Gaelic a very simple name (Ì, also Eilean Ì), it has had a long and complicated history of the name being changed, augmented and reinterpreted, across several languages. For all that, we are no nearer to knowing what its original name in Gaelic means. It is quite likely that, like a number of other Hebridean island names, it is very ancient, and perhaps survives from a language spoken in Scotland long before Gaelic or the other Celtic languages.
This is a three-year project funded by the AHRC and based in Celtic & Gaelic at the University of Glasgow. The core objective of the project is a survey of the place-names of Iona and the nearby island of Staffa. This will be presented in the form of an interactive web resource in due course on this site; and in the form of a volume in the Survey of Scottish Place-Name series.
We will also be researching the early records for the topography of Iona; the names of Iona’s monuments; and the relationship between Iona and Mull. A key part of our research involves trying to understand the dynamism of names and naming in Iona, both over the centuries, and among the different constituent communities who live on and interact with the island in the present.
We are partnered with the two heritage bodies in whose care Iona and Staffa sit: the National Trust for Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland.
More detail about the project can be found here.
We will be producing regular blogs on our research which you can consult here.
This web resource is under construction and will be constantly updating as the project progresses.