Later tradition states that between the years 665 and 667, Colman founded several churches in Scotland before returning to Iona.

From Iona he sailed for Ireland, settling at Inishbofin in 668 AD[5] where he founded a monastery, the School of Mayo.

[6] When Colman came to Mayo he brought with him half the relics of Lindisfarne, including the bones of St. Aidan and a part of the true cross.

He may have been reviving an earlier church on the island or one in the area in central Connacht where Maigh Eo was founded later.

Earlier commentators suspected that the two nations came from different agricultural backgrounds and that the Irish intermittently removed themselves from the island with the monastery's livestock for the purpose of ‘booleying’, a form of transhumance.