We report on the Josephson plasma, resonance at 24 and 41 GHz in heavy
ion-irradiated Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+y single crystals with columnar defects
of different matching fields (B-phi = 0.5, 2.0, and 10 kG). It is foun
d that in the irradiated crystals the temperature dependence of the re
sonance field shows an anomalous step at around the matching field. Th
e effect of columnar defects on the interlayer phase coherence is disc
ussed.