 Columba studied under some of Ireland's most prominent church figures and founded several monasteries in the country.Around 563 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 northern Pictish kingdoms who were pagan.He remained active in Irish politics, though he spent most of the remainder of his life in Scotland.