"As an observation: I can see that the Scots in these times of getting closer to independence may well wish to disprove the Irish connection and create a bit of indiginous history. I would view any conclusions reached at the present time very carefully."

It was an English archaeologist (can't mind his name offhand) who made the deductions from the last set of digs there, wrote a book about it as I recall - think there may be a link on the Dunadd pages that I placed a while ago. I don't think anyone's trying to 'disprove' anything, 4W - just trying to find out. I'm working in Ireland at present (though a few miles offshore - Cork) and almost everyone I know in the 'stones' field recognises the links between our two countries - far stronger than with any other countries, in fact. We don't need to create any indigenous history - it's all around us!

"The Columba links would need to be re-evaluated too and they're pretty well recorded."

Don't think there's much re-evaluation to be done with these, I think they are well enough established and 'proven' as much as you're going to be able to prove things at such a remote distance in time. Have you ever visited Iona? I was there at Easter for the first time, and it's no wonder he chose it as a base.