Failbhe of Iona

Venerable Failbhe of Iona was abbot of the monastery of Iona in Scotland. The Western Orthodox calendar remembers on 22 March a Failbhe who came from Ireland and was the brother of Saint Finan of Rath, and who reposed around 680; this is Fáilbe mac Pípáin, the eighth abbot of Iona from 669 to 679, of the same kindred, the Cenél Conaill, as Saint Columba. After him Saint Adomnán was chosen abbot, in 679. Another abbot of the same name, Failbhe the Little, who ruled Iona for seven years and reposed in 754 at the age of eighty, is remembered on 10 March. The sources consulted do not settle which of them is meant in our record.