Amra Choluim Chille

Amra Choluim Chille or Amra Coluimb Chille is an Amra (Middle Irish: amrae, lit. 'wonder'; [ˈaβ̃rə]) or panegyric relating to Colmcille.

According to the traditional account the Amra Coluim Chille was composed about the year 575 by Dallán Forgaill, the Chief Ollam of Ireland of that time, in gratitude for the services of Columba in saving the bards from expulsion at the great assembly of Druim Cetta in that year.

"The Amra is not", says Whitley Stokes, "as Professor Atkinson supposed, a fragment which indicates great antiquity." John Strachan, however, on linguistic grounds, assigns it in its present form to about the year 800 (Rev. Celt., XVII, 14).

Stokes, too, seems to favour this view (ibid., XX, 16). But Strachan adds "perhaps something more may be learned from a prolonged study of this and other such as the Amra Senain and the Amra Conroi." Dallan was the author of the former, "held in great repute", says John Colgan, "on account of its gracefulness", and also of another Amra on St. Conall Cael of Inishkeel in Donegal, with whom he was buried in one grave.