A community and Gaelic-language hub on the island of Islay in Argyll & Bute, the Columba Centre (Gael: Ionad Chaluim Chille Ìle) overlooks Loch Indaal ¾ mile (1.2 km) east northeast of Bowmore. The centre offers a range of classes, courses and activities, as well as providing a community venue with meeting and broadcasting facilities, a Gaelic library, video-conferencing suite, computer suite and an exhibition space. It is affiliated with Sabhal Mor Ostaig on Skye and forms part of the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI). The Columba Centre opened in 2002 occupying the former Gartnatra Infectious Diseases Hospital, a small isolation hospital which was constructed in 1904. This had two wards and just fourteen beds. At one stage it was intended to extend this building to form a general hospital for the island, but this new hospital was eventually built at Gortanvogie, to the southeast of Bowmore, and Gartnatra closed in the late 1950s.
The Columba Centre holds genealogical records collected by the former Islay Family History Society.
