befell the family of Iona, who were drowned in a great storm in the year 749,[527] a not unnatural occurrence if they were caught in their curach between Iona and Colonsay in a southwesterly gale; but which party suffered by this loss we do not know—probably that which supported Cilline the anchorite, as, on his death in 752, we find the abbacy assumed by Slebhine, son of Congal, who was of the race of Conall Gulban, and therefore belonged to what may be termed the Columban party. In the same year Tighernac records the death of Slebhine’s brother Cilline in Iona, and of Cuimine, grandson or descendant of Becc the religious of Ego, or the island of Eigg.[528] Slebhine, the Columban abbot, appears to have endeavoured to get his authority as the legitimate successor of Columba recognised by the Columban monasteries in Ireland; for we find him going to Ireland in 754, and enforcing the law of Columcille three years after, when he seems to have returned to Iona, but again went to Ireland in the following year.[529] Feidhlimidh, the rival abbot, dies in the year 759, having completed the eighty-seventh year of his age.[530] But this did not terminate the schism: for we find a Suibhne, abbot of Iona, who goes to Ireland in the year 765,[531] apparently for the purpose of endeavouring to win the Columban monasteries there; but the death of Slebhine two years after[532] leaves him sole abbot for five years, when, on his own death in the year 772,[533] he is succeeded by Breasal, son of Seghine, whose pedigree is unknown; and in him the schism seems to have come to an end. Slebhine appears to have been the last of the abbots who at this time were of the race of Conall Gulban and had thus a hereditary claim to the abbacy; and more than a hundred years elapsed before another of the race obtained the abbacy. The fall of the Scottish kingdom of Dalriada about this time may have contributed to this suspension of the rights of the tribe of the patron saint. But all opposition to the entire conformity of the whole family of Iona to the Roman Church appears now to have ceased, and there is no indication of any further division among them.[534] [Sidenote: A.D. 772-801. Breasal, son of Seghine, sole abbot of Iona.]