The principal agent in effecting this was Maelrubha, who was of the race of the northern Hy Neill, but belonged to a different sept from that which had the right of furnishing abbots to the monastery of Iona. He was connected through his mother with Comgall of Bangor, and became a member of that monastery which, as situated among the Picts of Ireland, well fitted him to be a missionary to those of the same race in Scotland. He came over to Britain in the year 671, and two years afterwards he founded the church of Aporcrosan, now Applecross,[334] from which as a centre he evangelised the whole of the western districts lying between Loch Carron and Loch Broom, as well as the south and west parts of the island of Skye, and planted churches in Easter Ross and elsewhere. The dedications to him show that his missionary work was very extensive. In the same year Failbhe went to Ireland, where he appears to have remained three years,[335] and was probably engaged in arrangements for extending the missionary work; for it is probably at this period that we must place the arrival of Comgan with his sister Kentigerna and her son Fillan in the district of Lochalsh, where they planted churches, as well as in the districts south of it as far as Loch Sunart.[336] At this time too the church in Egg appears to have been restored.[337] In the year 678 Wilfrid was ejected from his extensive bishopric, but Failbhe only survived this event one year, when his death is recorded; and at the same time we have a trace of the church in the eastern territories of the northern Picts, in the death of Neachtan Neir, who can be identified with the great saint of Deeside in Aberdeenshire, called by the people there, Nathalan, or Nachlan.[338] [Sidenote: A.D. 679-704. Adamnan, son of Ronan.] We are now brought in our narrative to the very important period when Adamnan, the biographer of Columba, ruled over his monastery as ninth abbot. He was also a descendant of Conall Gulban, and belonged to the tribe of the patron saint. He was born in 624, just twenty-seven years after the death of Saint Columba. During the first six years of his abbacy, the rule of the Angles, under King Ecgfrid, still extended as far as it did during the reign of his father Osuiu. After the ejection of Wilfrid from the diocese in this its fullest extent, it was divided between Bosa and Eata, the latter being appointed bishop of the northern part; and three years afterwards it was still further divided, Trumuin being appointed bishop over the province of the Picts which was subject to the Angles. The defeat and death of King Ecgfrid, however, at the battle of Dunnichen in the year 685 terminated this rule of the Angles, and with it the interference of the Anglic bishops with the Columban Church. The Scots of Dalriada recovered their independence. The southern Picts were relieved from the more direct yoke of the Angles, and Trumuin fled from his diocese.