It is now generally admitted that there were many Christians in Ireland

when St. Patrick first landed on our shores. He was neither the first nor

the only Christian captive carried to Erin; and as we have already seen,

frequent intercourse, whether friendly or hostile, did exist before St.

Patrick's time between the Britons and the Celts of Ireland. The existence

of Christians in Erin is in any case conclusively proved from the

statement in St. Prosper's Chronicle, that Palladius was sent by Pope

Celestine to preach to the Scots, who believed in Christ.[143] To explain

this definite statement as if it merely meant that he was sent to convert

them to Christ, is to do violence to the language. The words clearly imply

that the primary object of this mission was to gather into regular

Christian communities the believers scattered throughout the island, to

organize the Irish Church, and of course to labour also for the conversion

of unbelievers. His mission was only very partially successful. He met

with so much opposition in Leinster, that although he founded a few

churches, his labours did not extend beyond that province, and after a

short time he abandoned his Irish mission in despair.

We are told, too, in the ancient _Tripartite Life_ of St. Patrick, that

after crossing the Shannon near Battle Bridge, at a place then called

Dumha Graidh--now Doogary--Patrick ordained his disciple St. Ailbe, to

minister for the sons of Ailioll in that district, since called Shancoe,

in the Barony of Tirerrill; and he showed him "a cave in the mountain and

within it a wonderful stone altar, and on it were four chalices of glass."

Such chalices were undoubtedly sometimes used in the early Church. Mention

is also made of this wonderful stone altar in the _Book of Armagh_, so

that the story is beyond doubt authentic, and shows that before St.

Patrick's advent into Connaught there were Christians already there, and

in a remote district, too, who had worshipped God in secret, like the

early Christians of the Catacombs. Indeed, it would be a very

extraordinary thing if there were no Christians to be found in Ireland

before St. Patrick, seeing the frequent intercourse, sometimes friendly

and sometimes hostile, that existed between the eastern coasts of Ireland

and the western coasts of England.

But the question then arises, were there any prelates in Ireland

exercising jurisdiction before the arrival of St. Patrick, who were not

his disciples in the ordinary sense, and did not receive episcopal

consecration at his hands? Such eminent authorities as Usher and Colgan,

relying on the statements made in several ancient Lives of Saints, incline

to the opinion that there were at least four bishops in Ireland before

Patrick or Palladius, namely, Ailbe of Emly, Ciaran of Saigher, Declan of

Ardmore, and Ibar of Beg-Eri. On the other hand, many recent authorities,

led by Dr. Lanigan and Dr. Todd, hold that there is no foundation in our

earliest documents for these pre-Patrician bishops; that the Lives

containing an account of these prelates are forgeries of the eleventh or

twelfth century, invented in the south of Ireland for the purpose of

contesting the claim of Armagh to the primacy of all Ireland, and of

establishing the new-fangled claims of the Bishop of Cashel to a primacy

over the Southern Province. It is quite impossible with the evidence

attainable at present to settle this question; so we shall only refer to

it briefly.

There is a Life of St. Ailbe of Emly in the Salamanca MS. recently

published. It certainly abounds in marvellous anachronisms as well as in

marvellous miracles; and by itself cannot be deemed worthy of credit. From

this Life we learn that Ailbe was a native of eastern Ara Cliach (not

Eliach as Dr. Todd has it); that he was the son of Olcu (in the MS.

Olcnais) by a female slave named Sant, and that King Cronan in whose

household he was born, ordered him to be exposed under a steep cliff,

where he was afterwards found alive[144] by a man named Lochan, who gave

him to a family of the Britons to be nurtured. It is a striking fact that

we find Britons in eastern Ara Cliach at this period, and it is

conjectured that from them the Barony of Ballybrit takes its name. This

fact would also go to explain how the child was reared a Christian at this

early period by those Christian Britons. There Palladius, when he came to

Munster, found the boy and baptized him. But when it is said by this

writer not only that Palladius came to Ireland many years before St.

Patrick, but conversed with King Conor Mac Nessa, who flourished in the

first century of the Christian era, we see how little credence can be

given to his statements.

Afterwards Ailbe went to Rome, and studied sacred Scripture there under

the Bishop Hilary, who sent him to Pope Clement, in whose presence he was

consecrated bishop by the 'ministry of angels.' There was a Pope Hilary

who flourished from A.D. 461-467, but there is no record of any Pope

Clement during the fourth or fifth century in Rome.

We are told that many of his countrymen followed Ailbe to Rome--twelve

Colmans, twelve Kevins, and twelve Fintans--and lived with him in

community in the holy city. Then Ailbe went to preach the Gospel in the

cities of the Gentiles, where he wrought many miracles, and finally

returned to his native country, landing first in the north of Ireland, in

which he founded the Church of Cell Roid in Dalaradia. Then we find him in

Magh Liffe with St. Brigid, and afterwards, according to the narrative, he

met St. Patrick at the court of Ængus Mac Nadfraich at Cashel. We find him

in the plain of Magh Femhin going to salute St. Patrick in company with

Ibar; and an angel declared, when Ailbe was giving precedence to Ibar as

the elder, that Ailbe, and not Ibar, should go first. This certainly looks

like a suspicious attempt to procure a recognition of the primacy for

Ailbe's See, which during the twelfth century was united to that of

Cashel.

Ailbe also preached the Gospel in Connaught, and wrought numerous miracles

there; but he must be distinguished from another Ailbe, the disciple of

St. Patrick, who was ordained by that saint in Tirerrill, and "who is in

Shancoe," as the _Tripartite_ informs us. Afterwards an angel brought

Ailbe to the place of his resurrection in Imleach Jubhair, or Emly of the

Yew Tree. So this Life of Ailbe represents that saint as consecrated at

Rome, getting an independent mission from the Pope to preach to the

Gentiles, and while deferring to St. Patrick's higher authority, still

duly constituted with the sanction of that saint as Metropolitan of

Munster.

The Life of St. Declan contains some further particulars to the same

effect not explicitly stated in the Life of Ailbe.

Declan was of the Nandesi race, who then dwelt in the Barony of Decies in

Waterford--his father Erc being a chieftain of that tribe. The boy was

baptized by a certain Colman and educated by Dimma, who was a learned and

holy man that came to Waterford from foreign parts. By his advice it seems

Declan also went to Rome, where he met St. Ailbe and became a member of

his community. In Italy he also met St. Patrick, and Usher says this

meeting took place so early as A.D. 402--thirty years before St. Patrick

came to Ireland. Having been consecrated bishop in Rome, Declan returned

to his native country to preach the Gospel amongst his own kindred, and

there founded the see of Ardmore on an eminence overlooking the sea. He

also tried to convert Ængus of Cashel, but failing in this attempt, he

paid a visit to St. David in Wales. Here is a singular statement, which

makes David Bishop of Menevia before Ængus was converted by St.

Patrick--an event which took place nearly a hundred years before St.

David's episcopacy. This Life of Declan then describes how the four

prelates ordained abroad met St. Patrick, and how they entered into a

friendly arrangement with him, not however without some difficulty. First

of all Ciaran, the first-born of the saints of Erin, "yielded all

subjection, and concord, and supremacy to Patrick both when present and

absent." Ailbe also came to Cashel and accepted Patrick as his master and

superior, in presence of Ængus the king. And this was all the more

admirable, because the three Bishops, Declan, Ciaran and Ibar, had

previously constituted Ailbe as their master and metropolitan; and hence

he came to make his own submission to Patrick lest any of them might

resist him. Ibar was the most reluctant to accept this arrangement, for

being a decided home ruler "he was unwilling to receive a patron of

Ireland from any foreign nation," and Patrick, though nurtured in Ireland,

was by birth a Briton. At first, says the Life, there were conflicts

between them--that is Patrick and Ibar--but afterwards at the persuasion

of an angel, they made peace, and concord, and fraternity together.

If St. Peter and St. Paul had their own little disputes, it is not to be

wondered that Celtic saints should sometimes differ amongst themselves. In

the same spirit Declan, who at first was unwilling to submit to Patrick,

as he himself also had the apostolic dignity, yet when admonished by an

angel, crossed Slieve Gua, and came to Patrick to profess his obedience

and submission.

"Thereupon Patrick and King Ængus, with all the people, ordained that the

Archbishopric of Munster should be in the city and see of Saint Ailbe, who

was then by them ordained archbishop for ever;" and Declan was formally

authorized to take spiritual charge of the Desii, and became also their

patron for ever. It is singular that no mention is made of Ciaran and Ibar

as assenting to this arrangement, although it was previously stated that

they also "came to an arrangement with Patrick."

It cannot be denied that this entire narrative, which is mainly taken from

the _Life of St. Declan_, is exceedingly suspicious, and hence it is

worthwhile to point out the arguments in favour of the possibility of its

truth, and also the great difficulties against it.

There is one very significant reference to Ibar and Ailbe in the

_Tripartite Life of St. Patrick_, which, notwithstanding the arguments of

Dr. W. Stokes, we believe to have been written originally by St. Evin in

the seventh century. It is this: when Patrick came to Cullen in the

present barony of Coonagh, Co. Limerick, the _Tripartite_ tells us that he

ordered a Culdee of his household to resuscitate a child that had been

half-devoured by a pig. "His faith failed him, however, and he said he

would not tempt the Lord. Then Patrick ordered Bishops Ibar and Ailbe to

bring the boy to life, and he besought the Lord along with them, and the

boy was brought to life through Patrick's prayer."

"The Apostle turned

To Ibar, and to Ailbe, bishops twain,

And bade them raise the child. They heard and knelt;

And Patrick knelt between them: and these three

Upheaved a mighty strength of prayer; and lo!

All pale, yet shining, rose the child, and sat,

Lifting small hands, and to the people preached,

And straightway they believed, and were baptized."

This passage represents St. Patrick as meeting these two _Bishops_ in

Munster, of whom there was previously heard nothing, and so far seems to

confirm the statement in the Lives of these Saints that they were

consecrated abroad, and not by St. Patrick.

Again, why should there not be bishops in Ireland before St. Patrick as

well as priests and laymen? In his Confession, which has been always

regarded as an authentic document, St. Patrick himself says:--"For your

sake I faced many dangers, going even to the limits of the land where no

one was before me, and whither no one had yet come to baptize, or ordain

clerics, or confirm the faithful." This certainly seems to imply that in

the less remote parts of the country there may have been priests, or even

bishops, who did perform these functions before him.

The chief difficulty against the authenticity of the Lives of St. Ciaran,

St. Declan, and St. Ailbe, is a chronological one. If they were bishops

before St. Patrick, how could they have lived down to the first quarter or

even to the middle of the sixth century, as some of them are said to have

done? St. Ibar died, it seems, the earliest, about A.D. 500; but Ailbe's

death is given in the _Annals of Ulster_ under date of A.D. 526, and again

at A.D. 533 and 541, which shows that at least he must have lived through

the first quarter of the sixth century. Ciaran of Saigher was at the

School of Clonard, and is spoken of as the friend of his namesake of

Clonmacnoise, and of the two Brendans, who were students in the same great

seminary; and according to many authorities, Declan lived late into this

same century, if not into the next. The authors of the Lives were not

unconscious of this difficulty, and boldly meet it by giving to these

saints lives of extraordinary duration, extending from 200 to 300, and

even to 400 years. Statements of this kind cannot of course be accepted,

and of themselves throw suspicion on the authenticity of those Lives. As a

matter of fact, however, it is not at all necessary to assume that those

saints lived so long in order to be contemporaries of St. Patrick, and

even consecrated before him. St. Patrick, according to the common

chronology, was about sixty years of age when he came to Ireland, so that

Ibar or Ailbe might have been consecrated before him and still have

outlived him some twenty or thirty years, if we only assume that they

reached the same great age as St. Patrick himself. Our own opinion is that

Ibar and Ailbe, if not also Ciaran and Declan, were not consecrated in

Erin but abroad; that probably they had returned to their native country

before St. Patrick, and were engaged in preaching the Gospel to their

countrymen when he arrived in Ireland; but the great fame and success of

St. Patrick eclipsed their labours; and then they also consented to become

his disciples and recognise his superior authority and greater success.

IV.--ST. IBAR.

There is, however, in the Scholia on Ængus a curious story which would

seem to imply that Ibar, at least, was at first somewhat reluctant to

yield to St. Patrick's authority. It is said that he had a great conflict

with Patrick, and that "he left the roads full and the kitchens empty in

Armagh." Patrick was thereupon angry with him, and this is what he said:

"Thou shalt not be in Ireland," quoth Patrick. "Ireland (Eri) shall be the

name of the place wherein I am," quoth Bishop Ibar. Whence, Beg-Eri (or

Little Ireland) was so called, that is, the island which is in

"Ui-Cenn-selaig and out on the sea it is."[145] It is stated in the same

place that Bishop Ibar was 353 years when he died.

It seems to us highly probable that Ibar was a pre-Patrician bishop;

although he afterwards yielded to St. Patrick, and in a certain sense

became his disciple. He was of the race of the Hy-Eathach of Ulster, who

have given their name to the barony of Iveagh in the Co. Down, not in

Armagh as Todd seems to assert. Of his life only few notices are preserved

besides those already referred to. Mella, his sister, was mother of St.

Abban, and it is in the Life of this nephew of Ibar that we find the most

important notices with reference to Ibar himself. We cannot say with

certainty where Ibar received his early training; an abbot, St. Motta, is

mentioned as his first instructor in sacred learning, but, if he be not

St. Mochtae of Louth, nothing further is known concerning him. In

Tirechan's Collections in the _Book of Armagh_, an ancient and venerable

authority, we find the name of Iborus in the list of bishops consecrated

by St. Patrick, and the name seems identical with Ibar.[146] At one time

it is said the saint was placed by St. Patrick in charge of St. Brigid's

community at Kildare, in which office he was succeeded by St. Conlaeth. He

afterwards preached the Gospel in Leix and Hy-Kinselagh, converting many

to the faith. At length he came to Wexford and resolved to retire from the

active missionary life, and devote the remainder of his years to prayer

and sacred study. For this purpose he took possession of the small island

of Beg-Eri, or Begery, in the north-west of Wexford Harbour. Here he built

his oratory and cell about the year A.D. 485, some fifteen years before

his death. Like many other of our Irish Saints, he loved to rest within

the hearing of the great Sea, and we are told that he had previously spent

some time in one of the islands off the wild west coast of

Ireland--perhaps in Aran.

A man so famed for sanctity and learning could not thus escape from his

disciples. They soon discovered his retreat, and crowded round him in his

island home. It was easy enough to build their cells of stone or wattles;

fish abounded in the channels around the island, and countless flocks of

wild fowl covered the pools, so that it would not be difficult to find

food for the scholars, even in this small island of twenty-one acres.

Amongst the rest was his own nephew, St. Abban the Elder, who became one

of his most distinguished scholars, and was the spiritual father and first

teacher of the great St. Finnian of Clonard.

We are told in the _Life of St. Abban_ that "at this time innumerable holy

monks and nuns in various parts of Ireland lived under the direction of

Ibar, so that in the Litany of Ængus are invoked three thousand father

confessors, who gathered together under Bishop Ibar to consider certain

questions. He lived, however, chiefly in his celebrated monastery of

Beg-Eri, because he loved that place more than any other. It is situated

in a small island off the southern part of Hy-Kinselagh, ramparted by the

sea; and in that same island the remains of the holy prelate rest, and the

place itself is greatly honoured by all the Irish on account of their

veneration for St. Ibar, and the wondrous miracles performed there through

his intercession."

We are also told that Abban was only twelve years old when he came to the

School of Beg-Eri, and that he made great progress there under the

direction of Ibar in the study of the Sacred Scriptures and of all the

liberal arts, so that his companions wondered much at his great learning

and eloquence. Ibar wishing to go to Rome on a pilgrimage, resolved to

leave the charge of his monastic school to Abban during his absence.

Abban, however, ardently desiring to see the Holy City of the Apostles,

earnestly besought his uncle to allow him to go in the same ship; but all

in vain, until with the aid of an angel he was borne over the waves, and

thus reaching the vessel, he was allowed to come on board. Thus both the

pilgrims visited Rome, passing through Britain on their way, and after

many wonderful incidents returned in safety to Lough Garman. Then Abban

himself went through Erin preaching the Gospel, and founding monasteries

in various parts of the country. So it came to pass that the learning and

discipline of the School of Beg-Eri were carried to other parts of

Ireland, and that seed was scattered, which in the next century produced

such marvellous fruit throughout all the land. St. Ibar died on the 23rd

of April, A.D. 500, in his beloved island retreat; and there he was

buried, where the prayers of his children and the voices of the sea would

murmur round his grave for ages.

Not for ever--for Beg-Eri was one of the first of our religious schools to

feel the destroying presence of the Danes around our coasts. So early as

A.D. 819 it was plundered by the Danes. In A.D. 884 is recorded the death

of its abbot, Diarmaid, and of Cruinmeal in A.D. 964. The citizens of

Wexford kept it as a place of refuge and security for their Norman

prisoners, when the town was besieged by Strongbow in A.D. 1172. The

veracious Gerald Barry tells us that St. Ibar had expelled the rats from

his island, so that not one of them could live there, or even be born in

it afterwards.

For ages, however, it continued to be regarded as a very holy shrine, and

the men of Wexford made frequent pilgrimages to the grave of its holy

founder.

Colonel Solomon Richards, a Cromwellian adventurer, who settled in

Wexford, published, in A.D. 1682, an interesting, but bigoted account of

the Barony of Forth.[147] He tells us that in "the little chapel (of

Beg-Eri) there was a wooden image of the Saint (whom he calls Iberian),

and people go there to worship him, and settle any cases of controversy

that may arise amongst them by oath before the image of the Saint.

Moreover, if any false charge were made against a man, the parties take

boat to the island, the suspected man swears that the charge is false, and

this oath before the Saint is at once readily accepted as satisfactory

proof of innocence. Once or twice, 'idle fellows who love not wooden

gods,' stole away St. Iberian, and burned him, but the image was

miraculously restored, as the silly people believe, once more to its

place." It is well known that similar wooden images of the patron saints

have been preserved in the islands of Innismurray and Inisgloria down to

our own time.

Beg-Eri is no longer an island. The slob-lands of the harbour have been

reclaimed, and this most interesting spot has become part and parcel of

the main-land. It was discovered during the process of the reclamation

works that Beg-Eri was in ancient times connected by a causeway or

_togher_ with the adjoining 'Great Island.' The remains of the _togher_,

consisting of two rows of oak piles, were still found _in situ_; an

ancient wharf also stood at the northern extremity of the island, close to

the Bunatroe Channel, which ran between the island and the shore, but it

has now disappeared. The old church of Ard Colum and a holy well are on

the main-land due west of Beg-Eri; to the south was another old church and

well dedicated to St. Coemhan, brother of the saint of Glendalough, and

popularly called Ard-Cavan. The ancient oratory of Ibar on Beg-Eri has

entirely disappeared, but the remains of a much more modern church are

still to be seen surrounded by a grave-yard, with numerous ancient

head-stones. Two of these flags--one red and the other green--are

inscribed with ancient crosses, but no names are to be found. Taking into

account its antiquity and history, we must regard Beg-Eri as one of the

most interesting spots in Ireland, and we cannot but regret that its

insular character has been effaced by modern improvements.

V.--EARLY SCHOOLS IN THE WEST OF IRELAND.

Neither was the West of Ireland without its own schools even so early as

the latter part of the fifth century. The first school in the West seems

to have been established by St. Benignus at his own monastery of

Kilbannon, about three miles to the north of Tuam. His sister Mathona was,

as we have seen, one of the first nuns veiled in Erin, and settled down at

Tawnagh, in the county Sligo, where she founded a church and convent under

the guidance of Bishop Cairell, a disciple of St. Patrick.

Benignus belonged to the race of Cian of Cashel, son of Oilioll Olum.[148]

Two offshoots of this family established themselves, one in the barony of

Keenaght, in the County Derry, to which they gave their name, and the

other in Bregia, to which the family of St. Benignus belonged. It is

stated indeed in the _Leabhar Breac_, and in the _Book of Rights_, that he

belonged to the Cianachta of Gleann Geimhin (Glengiven), but that is

clearly a mistake, except the name be taken to include both the families

of Meath and of Derry, which is not unlikely.

A third branch of the same family had settled down in the barony of Leyney

(Luighne), county Sligo; and that Luigh, from whom they took their name,

was according to the genealogies, a first cousin of the father of

Benignus. This would, no doubt, help to explain why the virgin Mathona

founded her convent at Tawnagh, near her cousins, in the county Sligo, and

would also help to explain the special preference which Benignus himself

manifested in favour of the western province.

He had been commissioned, it is said, by St. Patrick to preach especially

in those districts, which he himself had not visited. Accordingly we are

told that Benen preached in Kerry, in Clare, and in South Connaught, the

very localities which St. Patrick did not find time to visit. He blessed

Connaught, too, with a special blessing from Bundrowes, near Bundoran, to

Limerick, and the grateful natives paid to him and his successors a yearly

tribute of milk and butter, calves and lambs, as well as first fruits of

the rest of their produce.

Now Kilbannon,[149] in South Connaught, was Benen's principal church, and

continued to be for many centuries a very important religious foundation,

as its ruined round tower still proves. But Benen was above all things a

scholar and a psalm-singer, so he founded a school for young ecclesiastics

in his monastery, of the history of which unfortunately we know little or

nothing.

He had at least one illustrious disciple, and that was St. Jarlath,

afterwards Bishop of Tuam. It has been said that Jarlath could not have

been a disciple of Benignus before A.D. 455, when the latter was

transferred to Armagh. We answer that Jarlath was an old man in A.D. 512,

when St. Brendan of Clonfert became his disciple at Cluainfois, near Tuam,

and hence there is nothing to prevent Jarlath being a disciple of

Benignus, if he were about the same age that Benignus himself was, when he

became a disciple of St. Patrick.

St. Jarlath founded his own college at Cluainfois towards the end of the

fifth century. Colgan fixes the date at A.D. 510; but there are passages

in the _Life of St. Brendan_, which go to show that it must have been

founded at an earlier date, probably about the year A.D. 500. Of this

college at Cluainfois, and of St. Jarlath's School at Tuam, we shall have

something more to say hereafter.

Lanigan, quoting the _Tripartite Life of St. Patrick_, says that there was

an episcopal seminary at Elphin, in the County Roscommon, governed by St.

Asicus, even at this early period. In truth all that we know of St. Asicus

is derived from the _Tripartite_. The beautiful site on which the

monastery was built got its name, _Ailfind_, from the white stone that was

raised out of the well, which was made by Patrick in the green, and "that

stone stands on the brink of the well," says the author of the

_Tripartite_, "and it is called from the water"--that is, Elphin means the

stone of the clear stream. That clear and bountiful spring still flows

through the street of Elphin before the site of the monastery of Asicus,

literally in the green, and it is only a short time since the stone itself

was carried off by some profane hands. It is now, we believe, somewhere at

or near the Protestant Church in the town of Elphin.

Patrick blessed Ono the converted Druid, who gave him that beautiful site

overlooking to the south, the fertile and far-reaching plain of Magh Aei,

and added, moreover:--"Thy seed shall be blessed, and there shall be

victory of laymen and clerics from thee for ever, and they shall have the

inheritance of this place."

Then Patrick placed over the infant Church of Elphin Asicus, and Bite or

Biteus, the son of Asicus, and Cipia, mother of Bite the Bishop. The

family was, doubtless, of the race of Ono the Druid, and it seems they

were held in high repute in the neighbourhood. Asicus himself must have

been advanced in years, but he was an expert artificer in metal-work; and

we are told that he made altars, patens or altar-stones (_miassa_), and

square book-covers for Patrick, and these patens were so highly prized

that one was taken to Armagh, another was kept in Elphin, and a third was

taken far westward to the Church of Domnach Mor Maige Seolai, and placed

on the altar of Bishop Felart. It is very probable that these square

_miassa_ were stone or metal altar-flags, and were used to place over the

rude altars of the churches during the celebration of the Holy Mysteries,

a practice still common in the country where duly consecrated altars are

not to be had.

No doubt St. Asicus attended to these duties, whilst his son, Bishop

Biteus, took care of his infant monastery and school. It was the very

infancy of the Church in Ireland, for Elphin was one of St. Patrick's

earliest foundations, dating from the year A.D. 434 or 435. It has always

continued to hold a distinguished position amongst the episcopal sees of

the West; and although the Bishop dwells there no longer, it still gives

title to the most ancient of the Western Sees.

Asicus himself--in shame because of a lie told either by him, or as others

say of him--fled into Donegal, and for seven years abode in the island of

Rathlin O'Birne. Then his monks sought him out, and after much labour

found him in the mountain glens, and tried to bring him home to his own

monastery at Elphin. But he fell sick by the way, and died with them in

the wilderness. So they buried the venerable old man in the churchyard of

Rath Cunga--now Racoon, in the barony of Tirhugh, County Donegal. The old

churchyard is there still, though now disused, on the summit of a round

hillock close to the left of the road from Ballyshannon to Donegal, about

a mile to the south of the village of Ballintra. We sought in vain for any

trace of an inscribed stone in the old churchyard. He fled from men during

life, and, like Moses, his grave is hidden from them in death.

The artistic spirit, however, remained in Elphin; and, as we shall see

hereafter, some of the most beautiful works of the twelfth century were

designed and executed by the spiritual sons of St. Asicus.

[Illustration: ISLANDS OF ARAN GALWAY BAY.]

CHAPTER VIII.

IRISH SCHOOLS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.

THE MONASTIC SCHOOL OF ST. ENDA OF ARAN.

"You'll see the homes of holy men

Far west upon the shoreless main--

In sheltered vale, on cloudy Ben,

Where saints still pray, and scribes still pen

The sacred page, despising gain."

--M'Gee: _Iona to Ireland_.

I.--LIFE OF ST. ENDA OF ARAN.

If we accept the authority of the Catalogue of the Three Orders of Irish

Saints, those of the fifth century were mainly missionaries; those of the

sixth century were cenobites; and the Third Order were for the most part

anchorites, or Culdees as they afterwards came to be called. To a certain

extent this is true. The Church of the sixth century partook very much of

the monastic character; as Skene says, "There was episcopacy in the

Church, but it was not diocesan episcopacy."[150] We should be inclined to

accept this statement, if the learned writer had inserted one word, and

said that it was not _always_ diocesan episcopacy. In Iona, and doubtless

in other great monasteries also, there was generally a resident prelate,

subject in jurisdiction to the presbyter-abbot; but Venerable Bede says

expressly[151] that it was an unusual arrangement--inusitato ordine--and

his authority settles the question; it was unusual even in the Celtic

Churches.

There is no doubt that monastic influence predominated in the Irish Church

of the sixth century, and that the head of the monastery was not always,

though he certainly was very frequently, a bishop. This arose partly from

the ardour of the Celtic character in its efforts to reach perfection,

partly from the unsettled state of the country, and to some extent from

the influence and example of the great Columba himself. It was by accident

he was not consecrated a bishop, and his successors would not pretend to

be greater than their holy founder. But the system at least produced one

excellent effect--it was under God the means of establishing those

wonderful monastic schools so famed in every Christian land.

It is certain, as we have seen, that there were in Ireland from the very

first conversion of the people both monks and nuns, and therefore

monasteries also. But the founders of these religious houses could give

very little time to regulate their constitution and government, much less

to undertake the management of such institutions themselves. St. Patrick

and his fellow labourers were 'the founders of churches' rather than of

monasteries--their work was to preach, to ordain, to baptize. It was the

next generation of monks that undertook to found monasteries properly so

called; men who themselves were trained in religious houses elsewhere, and

thus becoming acquainted with religious life and discipline were fitted to

found similar institutions at home. The earliest of these monasteries

properly so called date from the beginning of the sixth century; and

perhaps the two most celebrated fathers of Irish monastic life, in this

sense of the word, were St. Enda of Aran, and St. Finnian of Clonard. We

shall first speak of St. Enda.

Aran, under St. Enda, may be called the novitiate of the Irish saints of

the Second Order, as Clonard may be considered their college; and hence we

shall trace as carefully as we can the history of these two famous

foundations of sanctity and learning, to which the ancient Church of

Ireland owed so much.

St. Enda, or Endeus, was of royal blood--one of "the sons of the Kings of

the Scots," who embraced the monastic state even during the lifetime of

St. Patrick himself. His father, Conall Derg, was king of Oriel--a wide

territory extending from Lough Erne to the sea at Dundalk, and nearly

conterminous with the modern diocese of Clogher. His mother was Evin

(Aebhfhinn) grand-daughter of Ronan, king of the Ards of Down. He had a

sister called Fanchea, a devout maiden, who is said by some to have

received the veil from the hands of St. Patrick, and to whom her brother

owed his conversion to the religious life. The young prince succeeded his

father as chieftain of the men of Oriel, and although high-minded and

pure-hearted, he took a chieftain's share in the wild work of mutual

pillage and slaughter to which these Irish chieftains were always too much

prone. His pious sister had founded a convent of nuns at a place called

Ross Oirthir, which is in all probability identical with the old church

and cemetery of Rossory, in the parish of the same name by the shores of

the River Erne, on its left bank near Enniskillen, and not far from the

famous Franciscan Abbey of Lisgoole. The old church has disappeared with

the progress of modern 'improvements;' but the home of the dead is still

untouched. Here St. Fanchea had her oratory and nunnery, when it happened

that her brother led the clansmen past the convent to attack their

enemies. Shortly after a wild song of joy told the terrified maidens that

they were returning home triumphant, having conquered their foes and slain

the leader.

The young prince stopped to see his sister at the convent gate, but she

forbade him to approach, stained as he was, with the blood of his fellow

creatures. Enda said it was his duty to defend his people and conquer

their enemies--"I have not killed any man," he said, "nor yet have I ever

sinned with women"--and then it seems he asked his sister to allow him to

take to be his wife one of the young ladies under her care who was

remarkable for her beauty. Fanchea knew she was powerless to resist, if

her warrior brother persisted in his purpose. So she bade him stay where

he was, and going into the convent called the maiden before her, and said,

"My sister, a choice is given you to-day--wouldst thou love the Spouse

whom I love, or rather a carnal spouse?" "I will always love thy Spouse,"

said the maiden. Then Fanchea brought her to an inner chamber, and bade

her lie down on the bed. She did so, and soon after fell quietly asleep in

the Lord. Then Fanchea put a veil on the face of the dead, and bringing in

her brother, she said, taking the veil suddenly off, "Come and see her

whom thou lovest." He started at the sight, but not thinking her dead, he

only said--"She is awfully pale and ghastly." "It is the paleness of

death," said his sister; "and so shall you soon be if you repent not your

sins." The young man retired conscience-stricken, and Fanchea so used the

auspicious moment to remind him of the torments of hell and the joys of

heaven, that he at once resolved to renounce his principality and become a

monk.

Enda now gave striking proof of the sincerity of his conversion. The

convent and oratory of his sister Fanchea were still unprotected by a

rampart of any kind; and what had just taken place clearly showed the want

of some enclosure in those turbulent days. Enda resolved to accomplish the

work with his own hands, and doubtless with the aid of some of his

tribesmen. He dug a deep fosse and raised a large '_mur_' or rampart of

earth all round the sacred enclosure, so that in future one or two

faithful attendants could defend the narrow entrance of the fort against

sudden attack. It is interesting to know that a portion of this earthen

rampart raised by Enda himself is still to be seen on the western side of

the rath levelled low by time, but still some thirteen yards in thickness

and several feet in height.

From Rossory Enda went to Killany, in the co. Louth, and there within the

bounds of his own principality he set about the construction of a

monastery for himself and such religious men as might join him in the

service of God. Here also he directed the workmen in the construction of

the buildings, and it seems that his sister, too, had a second religious

house not far distant, where she appears to have spent a portion of her

time. A party of freebooters once passed by laden with booty where Enda

and his men were working. The tribesmen seized their weapons to attack the

marauders, and Enda himself caught up one of the poles sunk in the soil

for a rampart to join in the fray. Just then his sister, who happened to

be present, told him to put his hand to his head and remember whose

soldier he was. Enda did so, and feeling the tonsure that he wore, he

remembered that he was the soldier of Christ, and cast aside at once both

his weapon and the spirit of strife that was excited within him. So his

sister Fanchea was, as it were, his good angel, and he was always obedient

to her instructions.

Enda, however, was still only a novice in the religious life, and,

therefore, not well qualified to be a guide for others. So his sister said

to him, "Go thou to Britain, to the monastery of Rosnat, and there become

the humble disciple of Mancenus, the head of that monastery."[152] This

monastery of Rosnat is by some writers placed in the valley of Rosina, in

Wales, where a certain St. Manchen is said to have founded a religious

house. We are inclined to agree with Skene that it was rather the

celebrated monastery known as Candida Casa, or Whithern, founded by St.

Ninian at the extremity of the peninsula of Galloway. This religious house

was also known as the Magnum Monasterium, and sometimes as the monastery

of Rosnat. It was dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, and hence it is

sometimes called the House of Martin. We are here on firm ground, for we

have the express testimony of Bede that Ninian, or Ninias, "had been

regularly instructed in Rome in the faith and the mysteries of the truth,"

that his episcopal see was named after St. Martin, that it was in the

province of Bernicia, and that there Ninian had built a stately church,

generally called Candida Casa, or the White House, because it was built

of stone, which was not usual amongst the Britons.[153] This is a most

important statement of Bede, for, as we shall see, very many of the

founders of the earliest and the greatest of our Irish monasteries were

trained at Whithern, and the founder of Whithern himself was trained at

Rome in the faith and mysteries of religion, thus directly connecting the

fathers of Irish monasticism with the discipline and dogma of Rome.

It is said that St. Ninian, on his return from Rome, called to see the

great St. Martin, and that he received from the latter masons to build him

a church, as the Britons were not then skilled in stone-work. Ninian was

actually building Candida Casa in A.D. 397, when he heard of the death of

St. Martin; and, accordingly, when the building was finished he dedicated

it to his deceased friend and patron, the great founder of monasticism in

Gaul. This fixes the date of its foundation with sufficient accuracy.

Candida Casa became, under St. Ninian and his successors, during the fifth

century, a great seminary of sanctity and learning, and undoubtedly was

one of the chief sources from which Irish monasticism was derived.

Usher quotes an ancient Irish life of St. Ninian,[154] in which it is

stated that in his old age, Ninian, who is there said to have been an

Irishman, deserted Candida Casa at the earnest request of his mother and

of other relations also, and founded a monastery in a beautiful spot

called Cluain Conor, where he died several years afterwards. Bede,

however, distinctly says that his remains _are_ in Candida Casa. St.

Cairnech, to whom we have already referred as one of the co-operators of

St. Patrick in the reform of the Brehon Laws, appears to have been a

successor of Ninian at Candida Casa, for, in his Life, it is described as

the monastery of Cairnech. Afterwards, it is said, he came to Erin, and

singularly enough, is described as "the first Bishop of the Clan Niall,

the first martyr, and the first monk of Erin, and the first Brehon (that

is Christian Brehon), of the men of Erin also."[155] Cairnech was thus,

even during the life of St. Patrick, a connecting link between Candida

Casa and the North of Ireland; and hence we find that in subsequent years

several of our earliest saints repaired to that great seminary to be

trained in learning and the discipline of the monastic life. Amongst these

may be mentioned Tighernac of Clones and Eugenius of Ardstraw. The former

in his Life is said to have been trained in the monastery of Rosnat,

which by another name is called Alba (the White), under the guidance and

discipline of Monennius; and in the Life of the latter, the same "wise and

holy man, Nennio, who is also named Mancennus, of the Monastery of

Rosnat," is stated to have been the master both of Tighernach and

Eugenius; and it is added that with his blessing and advice, after some

years spent there, they set sail for Ireland.

Here we have the same Nennio, or Mo-nennius, called also Mancennus, to

whom Enda is directed to go by his sister, and become his humble disciple.

Rosnat was then and long after the great seminary of the early Northern

Saints, before regular monasteries were founded at home; and hence Enda, a

Northern Prince of Oriel, whose mother came from the Ards of Down, would

naturally cross the narrow sea to the same great school which his

countrymen frequented. In the _Tripartite Life of St. Patrick_, Manchan

the Master is said to have accompanied the apostle to Tyrawley, when the

chiefs and people of that district were converted about the year A.D. 449.

Colgan says,[156] "that this Manchan the Master was the same person who

elsewhere is called Mancennus of the Monastery of Rosnat, and that he

received the name of Master from his great learning, especially in

Theology and Sacred Scripture." The only point at issue seems to be

whether Rosnat, the "Great Monastery," was in Galloway or Glen Rosyn[157]

in Wales.

It is difficult to fix the period when Enda went to study under the Master

at Rosnat. It was probably about the year A.D. 475, for he was still a

young man, and as he died very old, about A.D. 540, we may assume that he

was born about A.D. 450, and would thus go to Britain between A.D. 470 and

480.

From Rosnat, Enda, like Ninian and several other saints at the time, is

said to have gone to Rome, and even to have founded somewhere in Italy a

monastery called Laetinum or Latinum. But his sister, Fanchea, who loved

him dearly, courageously followed him thither, and induced him to make her

a promise that he would return home within a year; and this promise he

fulfilled. He landed at Drogheda, which was probably at the time a portion

of his father's kingdom of Oriel, and there he founded some churches after

his return.

But Oriel was not to be the place of his resurrection. He longed for

solitude--to be away from the world, and to be alone with God--and he

found it. One of his sisters, called Darenia, was married to Ængus (son of

Nadfraich) the King of Munster, whom St. Patrick had baptized; and Enda,

hearing that certain wild and lonely islands in the western sea belonged

to the territory of the King of Munster, resolved to ask his

brother-in-law to give him a grant of these islands that he might there

establish his monastery, and live in solitude and security--for the times

were lawless, and even God's servants were not always respected. Ængus

tried to dissuade Enda from his project, telling him that the islands were

inhabited by a race of infidels from Corcomroe, who hated God and His

saints, and that his life would not be safe amongst them. Moreover, he

offered him a fertile tract in the Golden Vale in which to found a

monastery, if Enda so willed it. But he still persisted in his project,

and Ængus then made a grant of the Aran Islands to him, and to any

religious brethren who might accompany him thither. This must have taken

place before the year A.D. 484, which is the date commonly assigned for

the death of Ængus Mac Nadfraich.

Aran Mor, the largest and most westerly of the three Islands of Aran, is

called in Irish Aran-na-naomh--Aran of the Saints, for it is the holiest

spot on Irish soil. In days past it was the chosen home of the Saints of

God where they loved to live, and where they longed to die. One hundred

and twenty seven saints sleep in the little grave-yard around Killeany

Church; and we are told elsewhere that it will never be known until the

Day of Judgment, the countless host of saints, whose relics are mingled

with the sacred soil of Aran. We propose, therefore, to give a fuller

account of the Aran Islands, both in the present and the past, than might,

perhaps, be expected from the scope of this work. The islands are filled

with both Pagan and Christian antiquities; the inhabitants are a

singularly amiable and interesting people; and the physical features of

the islands are very bold and striking. We shall say something of them

all.

II.--THE ISLES OF ARAN.

These Isles of Aran, with which the name of Enda is so intimately

associated, stretch across the entrance to Galway Bay, forming a natural

breakwater against the wild Atlantic billows. They are three in

number--Aran Mor, Inismaan or Middle Island, and Inishere, or the Eastern

Island, but frequently also called the Southern Island. A glance at the

map will show that the islands trend to the north-west, opposing a

straight wall of lofty cliffs to the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

Geologically the islands are a continuation of the limestone formation of

the Burren mountains--"a gray and bluish-gray splintery limestone,"

containing in some places quarries of marble, which even in the time of

Roderick O'Flaherty, some two hundred years ago, were worked for

tomb-stones, chimney-pieces, and high crosses. The same author says the

soil was paved with stone; in some places nothing is to be seen but the

naked rock, cropping up everywhere with wide openings between the joints,

"where cattle frequently break their legs."

The surface falls to the north-east, and this lower shore line of Aran Mor

is broken into two bays, which afford shelter from the prevailing winds.

But on the south-west, or seaward line, the islands offer an almost

unbroken wall of rock to the long swell of the ocean, rising in some

places sheer from the sea to a height of nearly three hundred feet, and

hidden beneath the waters to a depth of from twenty to thirty fathoms.

Here and there the harder rock stands out in bold precipitous headlands,

or completely isolated cliffs; while at other points the sea eats its way

through caverns, where the waves roll in with hollow, thundering sound

into the bowels of the rocks; and the compressed air within forcing its

way upward forms 'puffing holes,' through which the spray is shot high in

luminous columns into the air.

Aran Mor is about nine miles long and two at its greatest breadth; it is

separated by Gregory Sound[158] from the Middle Island, which is rudely

elliptical, and about eight miles in circumference. This latter island is

separated from Inishere by a narrower passage, about one mile wide, called

the "Foul Sound,"[159] which deserves the name, for it is a rather

dangerous passage, containing a hidden shoal with only six feet of water

over it. Gregory Sound is wider and deeper, being quite navigable from

shore to shore. The tides blocked by the island barriers rush with great

force through these narrow channels, rendering the navigation very

difficult and dangerous. The passage between the north-western extremity

of Aran Mor and Golam Head in Connemara is called the North Sound--in

Irish _Bealach Locha Lurgain_. It is about eight miles across. The passage

between Inishere and the co. Clare--the more usual one for sea-going

ships--is called the South Sound, and is about five miles broad at its

narrowest point. There is a lighthouse near a place called Finnis

Rock[160] at the south-eastern extremity of Inishere, which marks the

limit of a very dangerous shoal, that stretches out from the island into

the Sound. This rock, says O'Flaherty, was remarkable for 'ship-wracks.'

Aran Mor contains 7,635 acres, with a population of nearly 2,000, the

greater part of whom, in 1901, could neither read nor write. It has three

considerable villages--Killeany on the east; Kilmurry in the middle; and

Oonagh towards the north-western extremity of the island.

On the northern slopes of the island there is a sweet, juicy herbage, on

which sheep and cattle thrive very well. The grasses are intermingled with

various medicinal herbs, such as the wild garlic, which is said to give a

delicate flavour to butter, and the _rineen_, or fairy flax, which is

believed to have wonderful curative properties. R. O'Flaherty declares

that in his own time "beef, veal, and mutton are better and earlier in

season here than anywhere else." He could hardly say so now with truth;

but there is no doubt that the veal and mutton are well flavoured. On the

shore, in his time, "were samphire in plenty, ring root, and sea-holly, or

sea cabbage." The samphire is there still--the _crithmum maritimum_, or

cranagh. It is said to have been used for preserves, and when boiled is

frequently eaten by the poorer classes.

The crops consist of patches of oats, rye, and potatoes--the latter is an

uncertain crop, whose failure causes great hardships to the islanders.

Kelp-making and fishing are the two staple industries of the place. The

kelp, or burned sea-weed, is used in the manufacture of iodine, and pays

very fairly in dry seasons.

All kinds of fish abound near the islands--cod, ling, haddock, turbot,

gurnet, mackerel, glassin, bream, and herring; besides there are lobsters,

crabs, and cockles; but the appliances for fishing are of a very primitive

description, and the boats are unable to stand severe weather. Many coarse

seals are shot on the rocks, and sun-fish used to be speared in April and

May from which a considerable quantity of oil was extracted.

All manner of sea-birds frequent the cliffs:--plovers, gannets, pigeons,

ducks, and anciently hawks in considerable numbers. Some of these birds,

says O'Flaherty, "never fly but over the sea, and are therefore used to be

eaten on fasting days, to catch which people go down with ropes tied about

them into the caves of the clifts by night, and with a candlelight kill

abundance of them." "Here, too," he adds, "are Cornish choughs with red

legs and bills."

There are several small wells, many of them holy wells, but in very dry

weather the supply of water is exhausted, and the cattle must be removed,

or water carried from the mainland. Fuel is very scarce, and now, as well

as two hundred years ago, they have to burn cow-dung dried in the sun,

when they cannot get turf from Connemara.

Inismaan contains 2,252 acres--less than one-third the area of the Great

Island--of an equally churlish soil and rugged surface, yet sustaining a

population of about 430 persons. Inis-Airther or Eastern Island, though

much the smallest in area, had, in 1901, about 490 inhabitants. The entire

population of the three islands then amounted to 3,050, of whom 56

belonged to the Protestant Church. Of the entire population 504 could read

and write, while 143 could read only. The Irish language is almost

universally spoken by the islanders, who are very conservative of their

traditions, and are especially remarkable for their attachment to their

native island--they are happy nowhere else. In person they are a tall and

handsome race, frank and courteous in their demeanour, with a free and

graceful carriage, for their limbs are very lithe and active. They wear

shoes of untanned leather, which contribute to this free and easy

movement, enabling them to spring from rock to rock with the agility of

goats. They are moreover full of faith and piety, considerate and obliging

to strangers, strictly honest, truth-telling, and certainly not greedy of

gain, as we can affirm from personal experience. They are remarkably

industrious--bold fishermen in those wild seas, and on shore are ready to

carry on their backs the soil necessary to cover the arid rock, and enable

them to cultivate their patches of potatoes. In a wet season they have an

excellent crop on these limestone platforms, so lightly covered with clay;

but in seasons of drought the parched roots can find no nourishment, and

the potato crop is a failure. The consequences are sometimes deplorable;

the poor people are half starved--sea fish, when they can catch any, and

sea-weed when they cannot, being then their principal nourishment. Such

were the islands of Aran when Enda first landed on those stormy shores,

and such they are to this day.

III.--PAGAN REMAINS IN THE ISLES OF ARAN.

These islands contain, perhaps, the earliest existing remains of pagan

architecture in Western Europe. In every part of the three islands one

meets with some monument of a great pre-historic people, whose works even

in their ruins will outlive the monuments of later and more civilized

peoples. We can only refer to them very briefly, but they are too

interesting to be passed over altogether in silence. Those who wish for

fuller information would do well to consult Lord Dunraven's admirable

_Notes on Irish Architecture_.[161]

In each of the three islands are found ancient forts or duns, which are

traditionally attributed to the Firbolg or Belgic race. After their

overthrow by the Tuatha de Danaans in the great battles of North and South

Moytury, it is said that the survivors fled for refuge to the remotest

shores and islands of the western coast, and there built on almost

inaccessible sites those wondrous forts, whose ruins are still to be seen

on the islands and sea-washed promontories from Tory Island to Valentia.

It is said that many of this subjugated and exiled race returned from

their wanderings about the first century before the Christian era; that

they were kindly received by Meave and Aillil, then rulers of the western

province; and that they received from them a grant of Connemara, the Isles

of Aran, and other uncultivated districts, in which they strongly

entrenched themselves against any possibility of future attack.

Not without cause did they take these precautionary measures, for it is

recorded that Conall Cearnach, and other heroes of Ulster, sought to

dislodge them from their desolate homes on those remotest shores. It is

highly probable that it was at this period the Firbolgic tribes sought to

protect themselves by raising those wondrous stone forts that still excite

the admiration of every traveller. Such is the Bardic narrative, and it

furnishes a more satisfactory explanation of those ancient stone

fortresses along the western coast than any other that has yet been

devised.

According to another tradition it was not the heroes of the North, but the

Dalcais of Thomond, who sought to expel the wanderers from their island

homes: and then the Clann Umoir built in self-defence those marvellous

fortresses whose remains still excite our admiration, as a further

protection against their foes.

There are remains of seven forts in the three islands--the first is Dun

Ængusa, the Fort of Ængus.

This fort gets its name from Ængus, one of the sons of Hua Môr, a famous

chieftain in our pre-Christian history. It is situated at the very edge of

the highest portion of the sea-wall on the southern shore of the Great

Isle of Aran. Nothing finer can be imagined either for strength or

grandeur than the site of this fort. At this point the cliff rises from

the waves 300 feet in perpendicular height. To the north and west

stretches out the ultimate ocean; on the south the bold promontories of

Clare go out to meet the advancing waves; and further on can be discerned

in the dim distance Cuchullin's Leap (now called Loop Head), and Brandon

Mountain in Kerry, faintly traceable against the sky. All around there is

the naked limestone rock, and scarcely discernible from the rock are the

giant walls that once formed the last refuge of the ancient Belgic race in

Ireland.

The plan of Dun Ængus can be much better understood since the recent

restoration effected by the Board of Works. This wonderful fort occupies

an angle of the cliff, and in outline is semi-elliptical, with the

diameter resting on the edge of the cliff, which itself formed a natural

and impregnable wall on the sea side. The fort consists of a triple line

of defence, and thus included a triple area rudely concentric. The wall of

the inmost area is eighteen feet high, and about eight feet thick. It was

built without cement of any kind; but really consists of two separate

walls built close together of stones moderate in size, but carefully laid

in horizontal positions. This inner wall surrounds a bare rocky floor, now

covered with green turf, 142 feet along the cliff's edge, and about 150

feet in depth from the cliff to the furthest extremity.

This inner wall had an entrance some 3 feet 4 ins. wide, and quite perfect

when visited by John O'Donovan in 1839; but its lintel has since been

thrown down, and the margins broken. It has, however, been lately restored

by the Board of Works. The middle wall is at a considerable distance from

the inner enclosure, in some places more than 200 feet, but on the

north-western corner, where it approaches close to the cliff, it is not

more than 22 feet from the inner wall. Outside of this second wall there

is a very extraordinary _cheveaux de-frize_, consisting of large sharp

stones set upright, so sharp and so closely set that even to this day it

is impossible for man or beast to make their way through them, even with

the greatest caution, without cut shins, if nothing worse should happen.

We have ourselves tried the experiment, and we did not escape scathless.

Nothing more efficacious to break the ranks of an advancing foe, whether

horse or foot, could possibly have been devised.

Beyond this _cheveaux-de-frize_ there are the remains of a third wall,

which enclosed a very considerable space, and terminates, like the other

two, on the very edge of the stupendous cliffs.

This fort of Dun Ængus, with its triple walls, and its _chevaux-de-frize_,

defending it all round to the edge of the cliff, was a fortress so

formidable that even still a hundred resolute men could hold it against an

army, at least so long as artillery was not employed to dislodge them.

Dun Conchobhair, or Conor's Fort, on the Middle Island is a still more

astonishing structure, if we have regard to the time when it was built.

Tradition ascribes the building of this noble fort to Conor, another son

of Hua Môr, and brother of Ængus. It is larger, and better built than the

Fort of Ængus, and is finely situated in the centre of the island at its

highest point about 250 feet above the sea. The innermost enclosure

measures 227 feet in length by 115 feet in breadth, and is oval in form.

The wall had two faces and a central core; it has besides a considerable

batter, and varies in different parts to from five to eight feet in width.

On the east side there was a triple wall nearly eighteen feet in breadth,

and twenty feet high. Its summit seems to have been approached by a flight

of lateral steps in the wall, of which the traces still remain.

In this, as well as in some of the other forts, are the remains of

_cloghauns_, or small cells, of beehive shape, built of stone, which were

evidently the habitations of the defenders of the fortress. This fact is

highly important, because it goes to show, that the beehive cell of the

early saints within the _caiseal_ or sacred enclosure was not a new idea,

but simply the practice, which the saints had themselves seen in those

pagan forts, where stone abounded.

There is another fort called Mothar Dun, on the Middle Island, which is

both in size and outline merely a reproduction of Dun Oonacht, to which we

shall presently refer. Its largest diameter is 103 feet, and its smallest

93 feet. It was so situated on the slope of the hill, that the summit of

the rocky cliff overlooks the area of the fort.

Dubh Cathair, the Black Fort, is in the townland of Killeany, on Aran Mor.

It was situated on an isolated promontory rising high above the sea, and

separated from the mainland by a wall and fosse about 220 feet in length.

The fort takes its name from the black colour of the stones with which it

was built.

Dun Oonacht is also on Aran Mor, at its northern extremity, and commands

a magnificent view of the coast line and mountains of Connemara. In shape

it is nearly circular, with a diameter of 94 feet, and is built of large

stones, laid horizontally, but not in courses. The fort wall was very much

broken; it has, we believe, been repaired since our visit, but it is still

quite 15 feet high on the southern side. There are no traces of a

_chevaux-de-frize_, as at Dun Ængus, and at the Black Fort. Dun Oghil is

also in Aran Mor, and crowns the summit of the highest hill on the island.

It has two concentric enclosures, the inner of which is an oval 75 by 91

feet. The name meant the Fort of the Yew Wood.

There was another large fort on the Southern Island, but even tradition

has forgotten its name. There are also other remains of a similar

character in these islands, especially on Aran Mor, but even their names

have vanished from the tenacious memory of the islanders. At least one of

these ancient forts, the Dun of Muirbheach Mil, was utilized in Christian

times as a monastic enclosure, within which the oratory and the cells of

the monks were constructed. It is not unlikely that all the stone caiseals

on the shores and islands of the West, were similarly of pagan origin, but

were utilized by the monks to protect their own religious buildings.

It is quite evident to any one, who surveys these ruins on Aran Mor, that

the islands were in ancient times the stronghold of a warrior race, who

preferred the freedom of these barren crags to serfdom in the more fertile

lands of the interior. They were men of might, who loved their freedom

dearly and resolved to defend it to the last extremity. They could not

have subsisted on the naked rocks around them, and were most likely

toilers on the sea, if not freebooters as well, who seized with strong

hand whatever they could grasp by land or water; and then fled for shelter

to their insular fortresses, where they might laugh to scorn any force

sent to punish them. Yet they must have been men of bold hearts, burning

with an unconquerable love of liberty, to build their eyries on the

topmost cliffs of those storm swept islands. So we thought, as we sat, on

the lofty cliff of Dun Ængus, three hundred feet above the boiling sea,

surrounded by the grand old walls, which their hands had reared at least

2,000 years ago. And if the spirits of the dead can ever revisit the

haunts they loved during life, we can well fancy how the ghosts of the

vanished sea-kings would still revel on those lone heights, when the storm

swept in from the west, and the scream of the sea birds was mingled on

some wild night with the roar of the white-breasted billows.

It is strange that history furnishes us with no account of the final

extinction of these bold warriors. Were they swept into the sea by the

advancing hosts of the Milesian tribes? or were they the "infidels from

Corcomroe," who dwelt in the islands when Enda first dared to set his foot

on their godless shores? We cannot tell; we only know that Enda changed

these pagan isles into islands of the blest, that side by side with the

pagan ruins of sea-kings are the churches and cells of himself and his

followers, which taken together, make the Isles of Aran the most holy and

most interesting spot within the wide bounds of Britain's insular empire.

IV.--CHRISTIAN ARAN OF ST. ENDA.

Tradition tells us that Enda came first across the North Sound from

Garomna Island on the coast of Connemara, and landed in the little bay

under the village of Killeany, to which he has given his name. He came

over too in a stone boat, which floated lightly on the tide. It is there

still; we saw it ourselves on the sea shore. "Where is it," I said to my

guide. "Yonder on the shore near the boat," he replied, and keeping my

eyes fixed on the boat, which was before us, and towards which we directed

our steps in the gloom as to a land-mark, I did not perceive until quite

close that the 'boat' was in reality a large rock, so like a boat in shape

that a stranger could not tell the difference at any distance in the

fading light! This spot, in Enda's Life, is called Leamhchoill, but

according to O'Flaherty it is more properly called Ocuill, and it is nigh,

he says, to the great _Curragh Stone_, in which Enda sailed over the sea

to the island.

Corban, the chief of the 'Gentiles,' who dwelt on the islands, was at

first hostile to Enda, and plotted against his life. But frightened by the

prodigies which he witnessed, and convinced that Enda was indeed a man of

God, he appears to have quietly given up the Great Island to the saint and

withdrawn with his people, who consented to become Christians, either to

the neighbouring islands or to the mainland.

Enda founded his first monastery at Killeany, close to the present village

of the same name, and the fame of his austere sanctity soon spread

throughout all Erin, and attracted religious men from all parts of the

country. Amongst the first who came to visit Enda's island sanctuary was

the celebrated St. Brendan, the Navigator as he is called, who was then

revolving in his mind his great projects of discovering the Promised Land

beyond the western main. He came to consult Enda and seek his blessing for

the prosperous execution of his daring purpose.

"Hearing how blessed Enda lived apart,

Amid the sacred caves of Aran-Mor,

And how beneath his eye spread like a chart,

Lay all the isles of that remotest shore;

And how he had collected in his mind

All that was known to man of the Old Sea,

I left the Hill of Miracles behind,

And sailed from out the shallow sandy Lea.

"When I proclaimed the project that I nursed,

How 'twas for this that I his blessing sought,

An irrepressible cry of joy outburst

From his pure lips, that blessed me for the thought.

He said that he too had in visions strayed

Over the untracked ocean's billowy foam;

Bid me have hope, that God would give me aid,

And bring me safe back to my native home."

--_D. F. McCarthy._

Thither too came Finnian of Clonard, himself the "Tutor of the Saints of

Erin," to drink in heavenly wisdom from the lips of the blessed Enda; for

Enda seems to have been the senior of all these saints of the Second

Order, and he was loved and reverenced by them all as a father. Clonard

was a great College; but Aran of St. Enda was the greatest sanctuary and

nursery of holiness throughout all the land of Erin. Thither came, even

from the farthest North, another venerable sage, Finnian of Moville, one

of the teachers of the great Columcille. And thither too came Columcille

himself, a scion of the royal race of Niall the Great, the ardent

high-souled prince of Tirconnell, who had not yet quite schooled his fiery

spirit to the patient endurance of injustice or insult. And therefore he

came in his currach with the scholar's belt and book-satchel to learn

divine wisdom in this remote school of the sea. Here he took his turn at

grinding the corn, and herding the sheep; he studied the Scriptures and

learned from Enda's lips the virtues of a true monk, as practised by the

saints and fathers of the desert, and as daily exhibited in the godly life

and conversation of the blessed Enda himself, and of the holy companions

who shared his studies and his labours.

Most reluctantly he left the sacred isle, and we know from a poem which he

has left how dearly he loved Aran, and how bitterly he sorrowed in his

soul when "the Son of God" called him away from that beloved island to

other scenes and other labours.

"Farewell to Aran Isle; farewell!

I steer for Hy--my heart is sore;

The breakers burst, the billows swell,

Twixt Aran Isle and Alba's shore."[162]

He calls it Aran, "Sun of all the West," another Pilgrims' Rome, under

whose pure earth he would as soon be buried, as nigh to the graves of St.

Peter and St. Paul.

With Columcille at Aran was also the mild-eyed Ciaran, 'the Carpenter's

son,' and the best beloved of all the disciples of Enda. And when Ciaran,

too, was called away by God to found his own great monastery in the green

meadows by the Shannon's side, we are told that Enda and his monks came

with him down to the sea shore, whilst their eyes were moist and their

hearts were sorrow-laden. Then the young and gentle Ciaran, whose own

career was destined to be so bright and so brief, knelt down on the white

sand and begged his holy father's blessing, while the tears streamed down

his cheeks. It was too much for the holy old man to bear; in the pathetic

language of the Scripture he lifted up his voice and wept aloud--"Oh! my

brethren," he said, "why should I not weep? this day our island has lost

its choicest flower and the strength of religious observance." So Ciaran

got his Abbot's blessing, and entering his currach, sailed away for the

mainland; but he often turned his streaming eyes to look back on Aran, the

home of his heart, and on the little cells where his brethren dwelt, and

the oratory of his beloved father, Enda, and the billowy cliffs of the

holy island now fast fading from his view.

There is hardly a single one of the great saints of the Second Order who

did not spend some time in Aran. It was, as we have said, the novitiate of

their religious life. St. Jarlath of Tuam, nearly as old as Enda himself,

St. Carthach the Elder of Lismore, the two St. Kevins of Glendalough--two

brothers, St. Mac Creiche of Corcomroe, St. Lonan Kerr, St. Nechan, St.

Guigneus, St. Papeus, St. Libeus, brother of St. Enda himself, all were

there.

There is no other part of Ireland so interesting as these Aran Islands,

not only from their past history, but from the great number of Christian

remains that are still to be found on their shores. No where else do we

find so many and so various specimens of early Christian

architecture--churches, cloghauns, duirteachs, crosses, and cashels. To

these monuments, however interesting in themselves, we can make but very

brief reference.

Enda divided Aran Mor into two parts; one-half he assigned to his own

monastery of Killeany; the other or western half he assigned to such of

his disciples as chose to erect permanent religious houses in the island.

This, however, seems to have been a later arrangement, for at first it is

said that he had 150 disciples under his own care; but when the

establishment grew to be thus large in numbers, he divided the whole

island into ten parts--each having its own religious house, and its own

superior, while he himself retained a general superintendence over them

all. The existing remains prove conclusively that there must have been

several distinct establishments on the island, for we find separate groups

of ruins at Killeany, at Killronan, at Kilmurvey, and further west at "The

Seven Churches." The islanders still retain many vivid and interesting

traditions of the saints and their churches. Fortunately, too, we have

other aids also to confirm these traditions, and identify the founders or

patrons of the existing ruins.

The life of Enda and his monks was simple and austere. The day was divided

into periods for prayer, labour, and sacred study. Each community had its

own church and its village of stone cells in which they slept either on

the bare ground or on a bundle of straw covered with a rug, but always in

the clothes worn by day. They assembled for their devotions in the church

or oratory of the saint, under whose immediate care they were placed; they

took their frugal meals in a common refectory, and cooked their food in a

common kitchen--for they had no fires in the stone cells however cold--if

cold could be felt by these hearts so glowing with the love of God. They

invariably carried out the monastic rule of procuring their own food by

labour. Some fished around the islands; others cultivated patches of oats

or barley in sheltered spots between the rocks. Others ground it with the

quern, like Ciaran, or kneaded the meal into bread, and baked it for the

use of the brethren. They could have no fruit on these islands, nor wine

or mead, nor flesh meat, except perhaps a little for the sick. Sometimes

on the great festivals, or when guests of distinction came to the island,

one of their tiny sheep was killed, and then the brethren were allowed to

share, if they chose, in the good cheer provided for the visitors. Enda

himself never tasted flesh meat, and we have reason to believe that many

of his monks followed the saint's example. Yet their lives were full of

sunny hope and true happiness. That desert island was a paradise for those

children of God; its arid rocks were to them as a garden of delights; the

sunlight on its summer seas was a bright picture of heavenly joys; and the

roar of its wintry billows reminded them of the power and of the wrath of

God. So they passed their blameless lives living only for God, and waiting

not in fear, but in hope, for the happy hour when their Heavenly Father

would call them home. Their bodies were laid to rest beside the walls of

the little churches--their graves may still be seen stretched side by

side, and who can doubt that their sinless souls went up to God in heaven?

V.--ANCIENT CHURCHES IN ARAN.

Colgan has fortunately preserved for us a description of the old churches

of Aran, written about the year A.D. 1645, by the learned and accomplished

Malachy O'Queely, Archbishop of Tuam. It is very doubtful if O'Queely's

list, even in his own time, was quite accurate; with its help, however,

and such information as we were able to collect from the traditions of the

people, as well as from other sources, we shall give as full a list of the

existing remains as we can at present obtain.

In the townland of Killeany, O'Queely enumerates the following

churches:--(1) Killeany itself, that is, Kill-Enda, pronounced

Killeany--for Enda is pronounced Enna by the islanders. It was the parish

church, he tells us, and gave its name to the village, which is close at

hand. (2) There is the oratory of St. Enda, a much smaller building, close

to the sea shore, in which the saint himself was buried. It is called

Teglach-Enda, which probably means the tumulus, or grave-mound of Enda.

(3) There was another church called Tempull Mic Longa, doubtless founded

by the saint, whose name it bears, but of whom nothing further is known.

O'Queely says it was near the parish church, but the place cannot at

present be identified with certainty. (4) Tempull Mic Canonn, of which,

says O'Queely, nothing more is known. (5) Another church called Tempull

Benain, which gives rise to a very interesting question as to whether it

was dedicated to St. Benignus or founded by that saint. St. Benignus, the

elder, was dead before St. Enda first arrived in Aran; so it is more

likely this church was founded by 'Benen, brother of Cethech,' who was

also a disciple of St. Patrick. This Tempull Benain is one of the most

interesting ruins in the island, and is a very beautiful example of our

primitive stone oratories. (6) Another church was dedicated to the

Blessed Virgin, as was indeed usually the case in our great monastic

enclosures. (7) Then there was another church called Mainister

Connachtach--the Connaughtman's monastery--which O'Queely holds to have

been distinct from (8) Kill-na-manach, the latter being founded by, or

dedicated to, St. Caradoc--a British 'monk,' who is probably the same as

the celebrated St. Cadoc, the founder of Llancarvan in Wales.

Thus we have in the single townland of Killeany no less than seven or

eight churches and oratories, grouped together around the oratories of St.

Enda and of St. Benignus. It is remarkable that these two alone now

survive--perhaps because the islanders would not allow the vandals, who

carried off the stones of the other churches, and of the round tower, to

build 'Cromwell's Fort,' to touch these two more ancient and more holy

oratories. There was also a Franciscan monastery on the sea shore, and it

may be some of the stones were carried off for its construction also.

The oratory of St. Enda, called Telagh-Enda, is of course the most

interesting of all these ruins. It is still wonderfully well preserved,

and, although some repairs took place at different times, there is no

doubt that the greater part of the original building still remains. The

grave-yard in which 127 saints are buried surrounds the church. The grave

of the founder himself, according to O'Flaherty, was a few paces to the

north-west from the door of the church. The holy spot is sometimes quite

covered with the drifting sand; at other times Enda's grave, and the

_leac_ or flag covering it, can be pointed out by any of the islanders.

There were other primitive churches founded by Enda which still bear his

name both in Clare and Galway; and we find that even in Meath, Limerick,

and Queen's County, there are parishes, as there were once, no doubt, old

churches, dedicated to his name. Killeany of Arran, however, was the most

celebrated of them all--there he lived for more than sixty years, 'in his

prison of hard narrow stone,' and there he sleeps beside the sea,

surrounded by the loved ones whom he taught and sanctified.

Of the group now called by the natives the 'Seven Churches,' O'Queely

mentions only two--the parish church known as Tempull Brecain, and another

church close at hand which, he says, is commonly called _Tempull a

Phuill_. It is highly probable that there were other churches also around

Tempull Brecain, although it is now quite impossible to ascertain either

the patrons or founders. Dr. Petrie, however, whose opinion is entitled to

the greatest weight, thinks that the other buildings, whose remains are

still to be seen at the "Seven Churches" in Aran Mor, were monastic

buildings annexed to the churches. Tempull Brecain was certainly the

central building of this group, and was of considerable size, the nave

measuring 32 feet by 18, and the chancel 20 feet by 18-1/2 in breadth. The

latter in its present state seems to be the work of a later period,

although portions of the original wall still remain. The masonry in the

earlier parts is more coarse and irregular, and is apparently coeval with

that of Kill-Enda. There is in the north wall a very peculiar

angular-headed window, which seems to have belonged to the primitive

structure, and is characteristic of our most ancient churches. The western

door has disappeared; but a chancel-arch of exquisite workmanship has been

inserted in the eastern gable. It is so beautifully built, and so Roman in

its style, that Dr. Petrie came to the conclusion that it must have been

executed by foreign workmen. In the interior of the west wall of the nave

is an inscribed stone having in uncial letters the words OR AR II

CANOIN--"A prayer for the two canons"--but who they were is quite unknown.

It will be recollected that there was at Killeany, according to O'Queely's

list, a church called "Tempull Mic Canonn," perhaps the son of one of

those here commemorated.

The tomb of the founder, St. Brecan, was discovered about forty years ago,

says Petrie, when a grave was being opened to receive the remains of a

priest who, at his death, expressed a wish to be buried in that grave. On

the flagstone was a cross within a circle with the words (S)CI BRECANI,

which Petrie translates "for the Head (Capiti) of Brecan." It is obvious,

however, that the first word is an abbreviation for 'Sancti,' and that the

meaning is--"(the stone) of holy Brecan," which was doubtless placed over

the saint by his beloved disciples. On the same occasion another stone was

discovered within the grave with the simple legend in the rudest Irish

characters ✢ OR AR BRAN N'ALITHER--a prayer for Bran the pilgrim. This

seems an abbreviation of Brecan, and points to the identity of the pilgrim

of Aran with the founder of Ardbraccan in Meath. He was of the Dalcassian

race in Munster, and is said to have been great-grand-son of Eochaidh

Balldearg, Prince of Thomond, who was baptized by St. Patrick. He came to

Aran, which had belonged to his relatives, during the lifetime of Enda,

who divided the island, as it seems, between their respective followers.

An amusing story is told by the islanders of this division. It was agreed

that the two saints should commence Mass at the same hour, and then, after

Mass, set out with their followers to meet each other. The point of

meeting was to be the boundary. Now Brecan took advantage of Enda, and

began Mass before him, so that he was able to gain the start first. When

Enda reached the high ground he saw that the other saint had not dealt

fairly with him; and, praying to God, "he fastened him and his monks, your

reverence, near the sea at Kilmurvey, so that he could not stir an inch

until the blessed Enda came leisurely up to him, and fixed the line of

division at that spot."

In the church-yard of St. Brecan's Church are five graves covered with

flags lying side by side, but only recently exposed to view. On one of the

headstones is the following curious inscription engraved by Petrie (who

did not see the graves), and still distinctly visible and legible,

VII||RO

=======

MA ||NI

around the arms of the cross. The Septem Romani, or Seven Romans, here

commemorated, doubtless, sleep together in these five graves, for two of

the graves are much larger than the others, and are supposed to contain

two bodies each.

At first sight it might appear strange to have 'seven Romans' buried

together in this far off island; but it must be borne in mind that Gauls,

or Britons, who enjoyed the Imperial citizenship in the fifth century

would be called 'Romans,' and we know from the Lives of our early Saints,

and from the Calendar of Ængus, that many Britons, Franks and 'Romans' of

the provinces came to Ireland in the time of St. Patrick, as well as in

the following century, when the Anglo-Saxons drove them out of England, as

the Franks had driven these 'Romans' out of Gaul. It is a touching sight

to see their graves side by side in this remote Isle of the West--those

citizens of Imperial Rome forced to seek an asylum in this quiet home of

sanctity and learning, which was beyond the limits even of their

world-wide empire. Their simple headstone has outlived the Forum and the

Colosseum; it is still standing on the spot where it was placed by pious

hands thirteen hundred years ago. Even now the islanders point to it with

veneration as the resting-place of pilgrim saints, but who they were, or

whence they came, they have no notion whatsoever.

There are many other interesting monuments at the "Seven Churches," which

we cannot now describe in detail, such as sculptured stones and crosses

with the characteristic Celtic ornamentation of the most elaborate style,

including on one stone a rude figure of the Crucifixion. There are also

the ruins of a curious building called the "Church of the Hollow," of

mediæval date, which was probably the oratory and cell of one of the

enclosed saints, who flourished in Ireland during the ninth and tenth

centuries. There was also an ancient baptistry supplied by a perennial

fountain from the living rock--one of the few in Aran--which points to the

early custom of baptism by immersion, as then practised in Ireland.

The group of ruins at Kilmurvey was situated within one of those ancient

_caiseals_ probably of pagan origin, but utilized by the monks for the

protection of their own ecclesiastical buildings. The ancient dun of

Muirbheach Mil--a stout Firbolgic warrior of Aran--was thus utilized by

Colman Mac Duagh, and then the place changed its name, and came to be

called Kilmurvey, as if the savage old pagan had changed his nature, and

having become a monk had founded the church within his stronghold. It was,

however, founded, not by him, but by St. Colman Mac Duagh, from whom the

Diocese of Kilmacduagh takes its name. There is another church close at

hand known as Tempull Bog-na-Naomh--the Little Church of the Saints. It

was a small oratory without nave or chancel, 15-1/2 feet long by 9-1/2

feet in breadth.

The Great Church, however, founded by St. Colman, was a very beautiful

building, and was regarded by Lord Dunraven as the most interesting in

Aran Mor. The nave was 18 feet 8 inches long, by 14-1/2 feet broad; the

chancel was 15 feet 4 inches in length by 11 feet 2 inches in breadth. The

lintel of the western door is a single granite block, borne by a glacier

from the mountains of Connemara, 5 feet in length by 2-1/2 feet in depth.

Around the churches were discovered the remains of several cloghauns, or

beehive cells, and a great number of ornamental brass pins, used to fasten

the mantles of the ancient warriors. As these were found within the cells

it would go to prove that they were originally built and tenanted by the

warriors of Muirbheach Mil, that the monks of St. Colman simply took

possession of the deserted stronghold with its cells, and then built their

churches within its walls. The pins were of various forms and sizes, and

of tasteful workmanship. No coins were discovered, which would go to show

that these pins did not belong to Danish warriors, and the monks certainly

never used such articles. Inscribed stones were also found in the

neighbourhood of these churches, but they have all unfortunately

disappeared. This ancient church is near the residence of Mr. Johnstone,

and some of the stones were probably used in building the house or garden

walls. As St. Colman flourished about the year A.D. 620, this group of

buildings must be regarded as of nearly 100 years later date than the

oratories of St. Benen and St. Enda.

One of the most beautiful and interesting of the old churches in Aran Mor

is that which is called in Irish, Tempull-na-Cheathair-Aluinn, the Church

of the Four Beauties; that is, according to O'Queely, of St. Fursey, St.

Brendan of Birr, St. Conall, and St. Berchan. It is, says Petrie, a small

but beautiful edifice of cut stone, and was lighted by three small

round-headed windows, so placed as to illuminate the altar, two being in

the side wall, and one in the east gable over the altar. In Petrie's time

this broken window was over-arched with ivy, woodbine, and thorny

brambles. The late restorations by the Board of Works have removed these

tangled growths, and revealed the little church in something of its

primitive beauty. The simple stone altar is still standing at which the

four beautiful saints officiated, and a small chamber, 6 feet long by 3

feet 10 inches in breadth, can still be seen within the wall on the west

side. It may have been used as a sacristy, or, perhaps, as the

dwelling-place of a recluse. There are cloghauns close at hand, which

were, doubtless, the cells of the four saints. Most interesting of all are

the four graves lately revealed, stretched side by side, within a small

enclosure under the wall of the church. It is truly a touching sight,

which few can see unmoved, when they think of the simple and holy lives of

these four beautiful saints; how they lived and loved together; how calmly

and how sweetly they rest under the shadow of those holy walls, where they

worshipped God; and how tenderly their memory is still cherished by

islanders after a lapse of more than twelve hundred years. Close at hand

is the holy well, whose crystal waters were their only drink; and near it

a large cloghaun about 20 feet in length, which seems to have been the

refectory, where they took their frugal meals together.

O'Queely's conjecture as to their identity is highly improbable, for the

four saints whom he names could not have lived together, and certainly

were not buried together in Aran Mor; whereas everything connected with

the Four Beauties would seem to show that they lived together around this

little church, and are buried without doubt in the four graves, that are

still to be seen side by side within their own enclosure. Such, too, is

the continuous living tradition of the islanders. There was, doubtless,

another group of churches at Kilronan, but all traces of them have

disappeared. About a mile north-west of Kilronan are the ruins of

Monasterkieran; close at hand is St. Kieran's Well, and the little harbour

itself is still known as St. Kieran's Bay; which show that the gentle

saint of Clonmacnoise founded a monastery in the holy island before he

finally left its rugged shores.

It will be seen that Aran Mor is pre-eminently a holy island, and well

deserves its name, Aran of the Saints. It had four distinct groups of

churches, the ruins of most of which are still visible, and from every

point of view it is well worthy of a visit. In ancient times the holy

island was a favourite place of pilgrimage, where the saints loved to live

and die, for its soil was deemed to be holy ground. And it should still be

a place of pilgrimage for every Irishman, who loves the ancient glories of

his native land. He will during his visit see many things to instruct and

edify him, and teach him to love the ruins of holy Ireland 'with a love

far brought from out the storied past,' but elevated and purified by the

contemplation of holiness and self-denial.

There are numerous and interesting ruins of a similar character, both

pagan and Christian on the Middle and on the Eastern Island also. We

cannot, however, describe them at present; let us hope that we have said

enough to awaken a more general interest in those ancient sanctuaries. The

history of the Holy Islands of the West is yet to be written, and it will

be a story full of sacred and romantic interest.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SCHOOL OF ST. FINNIAN OF CLONARD.

"I would the great world grew like thee,

Who grewest not alone in power

And knowledge, but by year and hour

In reverence and in charity."

--_Tennyson._

I.--PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS.

We have said that as Aran was the novitiate, so Clonard was the great

college of the Irish Saints of the Second Order. Before, however, we

proceed to give an account of this great seminary and its founder, it will

be useful to give a short sketch of the Christian Schools up to that

period.

Of Christian Schools, in the modern sense of the word, there were none,

and there could be none, during the first three centuries of the Church's

history. She had then to struggle for a bare existence against the most

powerful enemies; neither her worship nor her schools would be sanctioned,

or even tolerated by the Roman Empire. Yet it was even then essential to

train the clergy in sacred learning, and to instruct the people in the

saving truths of faith. But, as a rule, this was done privately and

unostentatiously in the catacombs; in the houses of the bishops when they

had any fixed residence; and very frequently in the private grounds or

private houses of wealthy and influential Christians.

The first Christian School, really worthy of the name, so far as we can

judge, was established at Alexandria about the year A.D. 180. It became

famous as a catechetical school, or school of dogma, and was conducted by

several illustrious men--Pantaenus, Origen, Dionysius, and others--whose

learning was celebrated throughout the whole Church, and whose lectures

and writings exercised a very wide and enduring influence on their own, as

well as on later generations. But this was rather a school of theology

than of general literature, and designed more for adult inquirers, both

male and female, than for the systematic instruction of the young. Similar

schools were afterwards founded at Antioch, at Caesarea, at Edessa, and

subsequently at Nisibis in Armenia.

Even during the centuries when those schools of dogma were most

flourishing, young Christians found it necessary to frequent the schools

of the pagans for the purpose of obtaining a professional or general

education. The masters were pagan; the books were the ancient classics of

Greek and Rome; and the majority of the pupils in most cases belonged to

the old pagan religion. But it was a case of absolute necessity, as St.

Jerome says; and they should either forfeit the culture, or face the

danger. The most celebrated of those schools was at Athens, and there we

find together under a pagan professor of Rhetoric, St. Basil, St. Gregory

of Nazianzen and Julian, afterwards the Apostate, on the same benches with

sons of pagan senators and scoffing rhetors.

Christians might not be teachers in such schools, for they would have to

explain the mythology, and observe the festivals, and in other respects

honour the gods of Greece and Rome. But Christians were sometimes allowed

to attend the lectures of distinguished teachers, guarding themselves

against the dangers that might arise from the influence of the teachers,

of their companions, and of the pagan authors. It is true, indeed, the

more rigid Christians denounced the whole system as not only dangerous,

but essentially wrong and immoral. They preferred to do without this

mental culture, rather than obtain it at so much peril to their own souls.

They censured even the study of the pagan authors under the guidance of

Christian teachers. The false maxims of their philosophers would make some

impression, they alleged, on the retentive and plastic minds of the young;

the stories of the loves of their gods and goddesses would sully the

purity of innocent hearts; and the coarseness of the thoughts could not be

effectually screened by eloquence of language and mere beauty of literary

form. The study of the Sacred Scriptures ought to be enough for all true

Christians, whose sole aim should be to purify the heart and elevate their

thoughts to God and heavenly things.

Fortunately these strict principles were not generally followed in

practice. Most of the Greek and Latin Fathers not only studied the

classics, but availed themselves of the lectures of the most celebrated

professors of their own time, whether Christian or pagan; and so they were

enabled to meet their opponents on equal terms--to refute the philosophers

by philosophy, and the rhetoricians by rhetoric, to point out the

turpitude of the gods of Greece and Rome, and to contrast in glowing

language of the most fervid and lofty eloquence, the nobility of Christian

doctrine, and the purity of Christian morals with the false ethics and

unclean practices of the pagan religion.

In the fifth century, however, of the Christian era a change gradually

took place. With the decline of paganism the great schools in the various

cities of the empire began to decay, and were finally closed during the

reign of Justinian. Meanwhile episcopal schools for the education of the

clergy were further developed and enlarged. St. Augustine at Hippo, St.

Ambrose at Milan, St. Eusebius at Arles, had founded establishments of

this kind, and the fame of those great and learned prelates soon attracted

large numbers of pupils to their episcopal seminaries. The Churches of

Africa eagerly sought for pupils of St. Augustine's school to fill the

vacancies occurring in their sees, and many other pupils from the more

celebrated of these seminaries were raised to the highest dignities in the

Church.

But with the spread of monasteries in the West during the fourth and fifth

centuries a new and vigorous impulse was given not only to all branches of

sacred learning, but indirectly to profane literature also. Sacred reading

and sacred study was deemed an essential portion of monastic work. Legere,

orare, laborare--study, prayer, and labour--was the daily work of the

monk; and if it was not always the task of the individual it certainly was

of the community. Of course the sacred volume was the primary object of

their study; but almost all branches of human learning are aids to the

study and right understanding of Scripture, and were cultivated for that

purpose.

Then again, monasticism was, as we have seen, intended to be

self-sufficing. It was a world of its own, a city of God, producing for

itself all that is needed in the physical and moral order. So the monks

found it necessary to cultivate the ornamental as well as the useful arts

of life. They delved and sowed and reaped; but they also built their

churches, and decorated their altars, and wrote their books, and sang in

choir, and computed their festivals, and healed the sick. There must be

amongst them physicians, astronomers, geometers, and musicians, as well as

moralists, preachers, scribes, and illuminators. Every branch of human

knowledge was useful, if not necessary, for a great monastery, and they

all came to be cultivated in the great monastic schools.

One of the earliest and most celebrated of these schools in the West was

that founded by the illustrious John Cassian near Marseilles, between the

years A.D. 415-420. No man was better qualified than Cassian to introduce

the monasticism of Egypt into Europe. He spent the earlier years of his

life at a monastery in Bethlehem, then he retired to the Thebaid for seven

years, conversing with the Fathers of the Desert, whilst closely observing

their religious exercises, and the daily routine of their lives.

Afterwards he visited Constantinople, Rome, and even the far distant

Churches of Mesopotamia. At length about A.D. 415 he settled down in the

neighbourhood of Marseilles, then as in Cicero's time famous for

intellectual pursuits, and there founded the celebrated monastery of St.

Victor, which was the nursery of many of the greatest prelates of the

fifth century. He gave himself up with all zeal to the propagation of

monasticism in the West; and with this view wrote twelve books of Monastic

Institutes, in which he deals at great length with the nature of the

monastic life, its aids, and its hindrances. In the twenty-four books of

his 'Conferences'--Collationes--he deals with the eremitical life as he

saw it in Egypt, and purports to give the discourses of the Egyptian

Fathers, whom he had himself seen and heard. These works have been always

highly prized in the Church, although the author in one or two of his

'Conferences' is supposed to have touched too closely on the errors of

Semi-Pelagianism.

The most celebrated disciple of John Cassian was St. Honoratus of Arles,

the founder of the famous monastery of Lerins. There he put in practice

the divine maxims of Cassian, and changed that barren island, which he

found covered with brushwood and filled with serpents, into a garden of

Eden, where man once more walked in innocence with God; and bounteous

nature rewarded the incessant labour of the monks with fruits of choicest

flavour and flowers of richest hues. He was taken away much against his

will from his beloved island and made Bishop of Arles; but he survived

only two years, dying in the year A.D. 429, just at the time that St.

Patrick, his disciple, was preparing to come to Ireland. A similar

monastery and monastic school was about the same time, and under the same

influence, founded by St. Germanus at Auxerre, as we have already seen,

when speaking of St. Patrick's training for the Irish mission.

It is in these cradles of western monasticism that we must try to find the

true character of the monasticism, as well as of the discipline and

ritual, which St. Patrick introduced into Ireland. If, as the _Tripartite_

asserts, St. Patrick spent some thirty years in France and Italy, and the

islands of the Tyrrhene Sea, preparing for the work for which Providence

destined him in Ireland, he had ample time to visit all their celebrated

monasteries, and doubtless spent some of these years not only at

Marmoutier of St. Martin, and with St. German at Auxerre, but also with

Cassian at St. Victor's, and with Honoratus in Lerins, and probably also

at Arles. The _Tripartite_ states distinctly that first of all he resolved

to go to Rome, the citadel and mistress of Christian faith and doctrine,

in order that he might draw from these fountains of true wisdom and

orthodox doctrine; that he went to France and even beyond the Alps to the

southern region of Italy where he found Germanus, then a most famous

bishop, with whom he read, like another Paul at the feet of Gamaliel, the

ecclesiastical canons, serving God in labour, in fasting, in chastity, in

compunction, and in love of God and his neighbour. The same writer adds

that he went to St. Martin's of Tours to receive tonsure, and that he

studied at Arles--or what he calls _insula Aralanensis_--which he seems to

confound with the city of St. Germanus.

We are also told that when he was in the Tyrrhene Sea[163] he met three

other Patricks, which is not at all unlikely, for Patrick was a common

name, and the great monastery of Lerins had attracted strangers from every

part of the Christian world, who had established themselves in some of the

neighbouring islets. These three Patricks lived together in a rocky cave

between the cliff and the sea, and our Patrick wished to live with them in

the solitary service of God. But it was only for a time, for God had

destined him for another and loftier purpose. It is quite evident,

however, that Patrick was trained under the greatest masters of the

spiritual life, and in the greatest monastic schools of the Western

Church. These considerations will also serve to explain why the Irish

Church of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries was so monastic in its

character and tendencies, why the religious houses rather than the

cathedrals were the centres of its spiritual life, and also why its

greatest schools were in the halls of the cloister, and its greatest

scholars wore the frontal tonsure and the monk's cowl.

Yet St. Patrick did not himself establish monasteries or monastic schools

in Ireland. His work was to preach, to baptize, to ordain, to found

churches. Monasteries are the outcome of an existing Church. The nation

must become Christian before the Church could in any wide sense become

monastic. It was always so, even in the time of the Apostles. They did

not found monasteries or monastic schools, or colleges of any kind. They

had other and more urgent work on hand. It was only after Christianity

took hold of men's minds that the nobler and more grateful hearts amongst

them sought to realize the Gospel ideal of Christian perfection.

Even in the time of St. Patrick, however, there were monks and nuns in

Ireland, as we have already seen. He himself expressly declares it. "The

sons of the Scots," he says, "and the daughters of the princes became

monks and virgins of Christ." And he tells a touching story of an Irish

maiden of noble birth and of great beauty--pulcherrima--whom he himself

baptized: "A few days afterwards the maiden came to me and told me that

she got an intimation from God to become a virgin of Christ, and thus

become nigh to God. Thanks be to Him--on the sixth day after, she

perfectly and ardently embraced that vocation; and so do all the virgins

of Christ, even against the will of their parents, from whom they

patiently endure reproaches."[164]

With such ardour did the noble sons and daughters of the Scottic race

advance in the paths of perfection. And therefore Patrick loved them so

dearly that he would not leave them, as he tells us, even to pay a visit

to his own country and his own friends. He sowed the seed, and after ages

reaped the crop. The great monasteries and monastic schools of the sixth

century, though not founded by him, were the outcome of that spirit of

faith and love which he had planted so deeply, especially in the hearts of

the young.

II.--ST. FINNIAN OF CLONARD.

St. Finnian of Clonard is set down first in the Catalogue of the Saints of

the Second Order; and his School of Clonard was certainly the most

celebrated, if not the earliest, of the great schools of the sixth

century. It was the nursery of so many learned and holy men that its

founder came to be known as the "Tutor of the Saints of Erin." Twelve of

his most distinguished disciples were called the "Twelve Apostles of

Erin," because, after St. Patrick, they were recognised as the Fathers and

Founders of the Irish Church; and the monasteries and schools which they

established became, in their turn, the greatest centres of piety and

learning throughout the entire island.

It must not, however, be supposed that all these holy men were themselves

younger than Finnian of Clonard, or remained for a very long period at his

monastic school. It sometimes happened that the disciple was quite as old,

if not older than the master; for it was by no means unusual at this

period for holy men to visit the monasteries of younger men who had become

remarkable for sanctity and learning, and, placing themselves under their

spiritual guidance, take rank in their humility as disciples of their

juniors. Lanigan, keen and learned as he was, allows himself sometimes to

be led into error by forgetting this custom, which is more than once

explicitly referred to in the lives of those saints themselves.

Clonard--in Irish Cluain Eraird, and sometimes Cluain Iraird, that is,

Erard's meadow--was very favourably situated for a great national college.

Although within the territory of Meath, it was situated on the Boyne close

to the Esker Riada, which formed the ancient and famous boundary between

the northern and southern half of Ireland. It was thus a kind of neutral

territory, open to the North and South alike; and both North and South

availed themselves of its advantages.

Its founder, St. Finnian, was by birth a Leinster man. His father,

Finloch, was descended from Ailill Telduib, of the Clanna Rory, hence his

own patronymic, Ui Telduib. His mother's name, according to all the

authorities, was Talech, and she belonged to the family of a Leinster

chieftain. He was born at Myshall, in the Barony of Forth, county Carlow.

The date of his birth cannot be ascertained; but if we are to accept the

statements in his life, it cannot have been later than A.D. 470. When the

child was born, his parents sent him to be baptized by the holy Bishop

Fortchern, in the church of Roscur--_Roscurensem ecclesiam_. This Bishop

Fortchern was son of Fedlimidh, and grandson of King Laeghaire. He was

converted by Loman of Trim,[165] shortly after the year A.D. 432, the date

of St. Patrick's arrival, and being a skilful artisan in metal work, he

made chalices and patens for the use of the new churches founded by St.

Patrick. At the earnest entreaty of St. Loman, he consented to become

Bishop of Trim after that saint's death, but he retained, it is said, that

onerous office only for three days. After his resignation, he retired into

Leinster, where many churches are said to have been founded by him in a

district up to that time only partially evangelized. The Church of

Killoughternan, parish of Slyguff, in the ancient Ui Drona, still bears

his name; it is a corruption of Cill Fortchern. The town of Tullow, in the

county Carlow, was anciently called Tullagh Fortchern,[166] and it is said

that the saint had a school there, in which young Finnian studied for many

years.

When the women were carrying the child to be baptized by Fortchern at

Roscur, it chanced that the holy priest Abban met them, and inquired

whither they were going. They replied that they were carrying the child to

be baptized by Fortchern. Thereupon Abban, moved by a divine inspiration,

took the child and baptized him, giving him the name of Finluch, or

Finloch, because he was baptized at the place where two streams meeting

formed a pool of clean water. But the name Finnian was afterwards given to

him as a more appropriate one--retaining the first, but omitting the

second part of the compound. A cross afterwards marked the spot where the

saint was baptized, and it was called the Cross of Finnian.

When the child grew up he was placed under the care of St. Fortchern, most

probably at Tullow, and remained, it is said, under his care until he

reached the age of thirty years. We thus see that St. Finnian was brought

under British influence from his boyhood, for the mother of Fortchern was

of British birth, and it was probably at the suggestion of his holy

teacher that Finnian resolved to visit the saints of Wales, and perfect

his education in the schools of that country. On his way, however, he

stopped to visit a holy elder named Coemhan, who dwelt in the Island of

Dairinis, in Wexford Harbour, and there he remained some time in the

further pursuit of knowledge. Then taking voyage with some merchants, who

were going to Britain, he set sail from Wexford, and arrived at Kilmuine,

since called St. David's, in South Wales.[167]

Here he had the good fortune to meet three celebrated saints, who seem to

have exercised great influence over the mind of Finnian, and through him

over the destinies of the Irish Church--St. David, St. Gildas, and St.

Cathmael, or Cadoc, or Docus. As Finnian was trained, at least to some

extent, by these holy men, and as they are all more or less intimately

connected in many other respects also with the early monastic Church of

Ireland, it is well to know something about their history.

Dubricius (A.D. 421-522), Bishop of Landaff, who was a contemporary of St.

Patrick, and was consecrated by St. Germanus of Auxerre, perhaps at the

time of his second visit to Wales, A.D. 449, or some years later, is

exhibited in the doubtful chronicles of this early period as the first

Archbishop of South Wales, and the great father of monasticism in Wales.

His monastery at Llancarvan was the nursery of those great saints, whose

names are still familiar both in Ireland and in Wales. Dubricius himself

was, it is said, a grandson of that Brychan, who has given his name to

Brecknockshire, and who was by birth an Irish chieftain, though settled in

Wales. It is certain that the Irish monks, like Finnian, found a warm

welcome in Llancarvan, both during the life of Dubricius, as well as after

his death; and in that celebrated college were trained many Irish saints,

who afterwards carried its learning and its discipline to their native

land.

St. David, Archbishop of Menevia, is the most striking figure amongst the

Cambro-British saints, and his memory is still venerated by all true

Welshmen of every religious sect. Ricemarch, his successor in the See of

St. David's towards the close of the tenth century, has written his life,

which was afterwards dressed up in more elegant language by the celebrated

Gerald Barry. St. David was born about the middle of the fifth century,

and lived, it seems, till the middle of the sixth. His father was Sanctus

or Xantus, Prince of Ceretica, and his mother was Nonna, a religious,

forcibly carried off by this rude prince, who was captivated by her

beauty. The child was born at Old Menevia, near the place where he

afterwards founded his cathedral city at the extremity of that bare and

bold promontory which overlooks St. George's Channel. St. Ailbe of Emly

just then happened to arrive by divine guidance at Menevia, and he

baptized the child. The young David was at first a pupil of St. Iltutus,

and afterwards of Paulinus, who were both, it seems, disciples of St.

Germanus of Auxerre.

In course of time David founded a great college of his own at a place

called by Gerald Barry, 'Vallis Rosina,' which may mean either the 'Marshy

Valley,' or the 'Valley of Roses,' for _rhos_ is a swamp, and _rhosyn_

means a rose.[168] It was, we are told, to this seminary that Finnian came

on his first arrival in Wales. St. David afterwards became so celebrated

that he succeeded Dubricius as Archbishop of Caerleon-upon-Usk; but with

the permission of King Arthur, who was his near relative, he changed the

seat of his Episcopal Chair from the City of the Legions to Menevia, which

was at once his birthplace and monastic home, during what he doubtless

regarded as the happiest and holiest years of his life.

It is said that Finnian also met Cathmael, as well as David and Gildas, at

the city of Killmuine in Britain. Killmuine of the Irish Lives is the

exact equivalent of the Latin _Ecclesia Menevensis_, called in Welsh

_Mynyw_ or _Miniu_. The old monastic buildings still surround the

cathedral, but are now much dilapidated. Gerald Barry, himself a Welshman,

describes in his odd incisive way, "this remote angle overlooking the

Irish Sea, as a stony, barren, and unfruitful soil, neither clothed with

woods, nor diversified by streams, nor adorned with meadows, but exposed

to perpetual storms and whirlwinds--the storms of nature and the storms of

war."[169]

Cathmael is commonly identified with Cadoc or Docus, one of the most

celebrated fathers of the Welsh Church. It is said there were two saints

who bore that name; if so, Finnian's tutor must have been Cadoc the Elder.

His mother was Gladys, the daughter or grand-daughter of the Irish

chieftain, Brychan, who gave his name to Brecknock--so Cadoc "who has made

a deep impression on the Celtic race," was not only of Irish blood, but

was baptized, and trained up from his youth for many years, by an Irish

anchorite named Meuthi, whose cell was in the neighbourhood of his

father's castle. Afterwards he went to Givent in Monmouthshire, where he

studied under another Irish master, St. Tathai. There he made great

progress in learning and holiness--especially in the knowledge of the

Sacred Scriptures, so that he was called Cadoc or Cattwy, the Wise. He was

under Dubricius the founder and chief professor of the celebrated College

of Llancarvan, near Cowbridge in Glamorgan. This became the most famous

centre both of secular and sacred learning in Wales. A great number of

young Irishmen crowded its lecture rooms, who afterwards became very

famous in their own country, so that if Cadoc received much from Irishmen

himself, he gave them even more in return. There can be no doubt that, as

we shall see further on, he visited Ireland afterwards, and spent some

time with those who were once his own pupils in Wales.

The influence exercised over the Celtic Church in Ireland by David,

Gildas, and Cadoc may be estimated from the fact already referred to, that

they are said to have given a Mass to the Second Order of the Irish

Saints. This would seem to imply that these saints, most of whom spent

some time in Wales, adopted the liturgy of the Welsh Church, which may

have in some respects differed from the older liturgy established by St.

Patrick. Finnian was the great means of diffusing the learning and

practices of Llancarvan in Ireland. He taught at Clonard, what he had

himself learned or seen at St. David's and at Llancarvan; and thus became

the means of diffusing the monasticism of the Welsh Church through most of

Erin, especially in its southern parts.

The Life of Finnian given in the _Salamanca MS._ records many miracles

which he performed in Wales. By his prayers and his great faith in God he

dried a lake to get a site for a monastery; he caused mountains to

overwhelm the invading Saxons; he drove away the serpents, wasps, and

birds that afflicted the religious men in the island called Echin, whom he

visited in order to derive consolation from their life and doctrine. It is

evident, however, from the narrative that he spent most of the thirty

years of his sojourn in Britain under the spiritual guidance of Cathmael,

and most probably in his great school at Llancarvan. The years being

expressed in the manuscript _Lives of the Saints_ by Roman numerals, are

always liable to error--the addition of an X will make thirty out of

twenty, and a double XX added by the fault of the copyist would make

thirty out of ten. It is, however, stated expressly that Finnian having

completed the XXXth year of his pilgrimage returned to his native country

with Biteus and Genocus and some other religious men of the Britains, who

followed the saint on account of the great holiness of his life and

conservation. By God's help they landed at Magh Itha in the south of

Wexford,[170] at a port called _Dubglais_, whence they proceeded to visit

his ancient preceptor, the holy Coemhan, who still dwelt in Dairinis.

There was a Dairinis or Oak island in the Blackwater, which was known as

Dairinis Molana; but the island here referred to is "Dairinis of Coemhan,"

as it is called in the _Four Masters_, A.D. 820. It was in Wexford

Harbour; and, as we have already seen, Finnian when going to Wales spent

some time with Coemhan in that island, so it is only natural that he

should return to the scenes of his early years. From Dairinis Finnian

went to visit Muiredach Melbrugh, King of Hy Kinselagh at that time, and

sought permission to build a church in his territory. The king received

Finnian with all honour and reverence, and sent him effective aid in

building a church at a place called Achadh Abhail, now Aghold, a parish

church in the barony of Shillelagh, county of Wicklow.

Leaving some of his monks to continue his work at Aghold, he went himself

into the neighbouring district of Hy Bairrche, and spent seven years

teaching and preaching at a place called Maonaigh in the saint's Life. It

takes its name from the Hy Maonaigh, an influential tribe who possessed

that territory, some of whom having migrated to the North settled near the

river Erne and gave their name to the co. Monaghan. The are now known as

Mooneys.[171]

As we are told that Finnian, during his residence in this neighbourhood,

sometimes preached before St. Brigid and her nuns, his sojourn there must

be fixed before the death of that saint, A.D. 523 or 525. In his great

love for holy poverty the saint refused to accept even from St. Brigid a

gold ring which she presented to him as a token of her esteem.

Going still further north he founded another church at a place called

Esker Brenain, which in the Irish fashion he fenced in with a circular

mound and trench, dug with his own hands. One day he found beside his

church a poor boy, who had been carried off as a captive by some robbers,

and was abandoned by them near the church. Finnian took charge of the poor

child, and finding him a youth of good parts, diligently instructed him

both in virtue and learning, gave him the tonsure, and made him it seems,

his assistant, either there or at Clonard. After the departure of Finnian

he became his master's successor in Esker Brenain.

Then an angel appeared to Finnian and told him that he was to seek

elsewhere the place of his resurrection. Finnian promptly obeyed, and

rising up, under the guidance of the angel, he came to the place called

Cluain Eraird.

III.--THE SCHOOL OF CLONARD.

St. Finnian seems to have founded his school at Clonard about the year

A.D. 520, when he himself was in all probability not less than forty-five

years of age. The place was previously a wilderness inhabited by wild

beasts, which seem to have made their lairs in the dense shrubberies that

covered the marshy banks of the Boyne and Kinnegad rivers. We are told

expressly in Finnian's Life, that a huge wild boar, which had frequented

the spot where the saint resolved to remain, abandoned the place for ever.

The saint threw himself on his knees in prayer, crying out in the words of

the Psalmist--"This shall be my resting-place for ever; here will I dwell

for I have chosen it." So he built his hut in Erard's Meadow, where the

wild boar had previously kept his lair.

An Irish school and monastery of the sixth century was, as we have seen,

very different from the monastic establishments of modern times. Finnian

began alone without, it seems, a single disciple. He built his little cell

of wattles and clay, for stones are scarce at Clonard, and with such help

as he could procure he also built his church quite near his cell, and in

all probability of similar materials. We know, indeed, that afterwards

there was a _daimhlaig_ or large stone church at Clonard--for we are told

that it was burnt down in A.D. 1045 no less than three times in one week,

which is to be understood, however, of the furniture and the perishable

materials of the roof. This stone church, however, was not built until the

place had become famous by the life and labours of the saint. When the

little church was built, he fenced around both the cell and the church

with a deep trench or fosse which formed the monastic enclosure, and,

heedless of the world, began to live for God alone in labour and watching,

fasting and perpetual prayer. We are told that he slept on the bare

ground, that he had a chain around his naked body which sank into his

flesh, and that he wore the same old clothes until they fell to pieces

from his back.

His ordinary food was a little bread with herbs and salt and water.[172]

On festival days he allowed himself some fish, or whey and porridge; but

flesh meat he never tasted. It was not difficult to procure these

luxuries; and what time he could spare from labour he devoted to prayer

and sacred study, especially to the study of the Sacred Scriptures, for

deep knowledge of which he became pre-eminently remarkable.

The fame of a life so austere and self-denying very soon spread abroad,

and great numbers came to visit him. He performed many wondrous miracles;

and, moreover, gave his visitors such heavenly instruction as showed that

he was a man not only of great holiness but of great learning. He had all

the science of the saints, for he had been in the great monastic schools

of Britain; some said he had been to Tours,[173] others added that he had

gone all the way to Rome--and these statements have come down even to our

time, but unsupported by any satisfactory evidence. Then a great crowd of

scholars began to gather round him; they were of all ages and came from

all parts. Abbots left their own monasteries; even great bishops, some of

them older than Finnian himself, left their cathedrals to profit by his

bright example, and learn the lessons of divine wisdom that fell from his

lips. To Clonard came all the men who were afterwards famous as "The

Twelve Apostles of Erin." Thither came the venerable Ciaran of Saigher, a

companion of St. Patrick, to bow his hoary head in reverence to the wisdom

of the younger sage; and that other Ciaran, the Son of the Carpenter, who

in after years founded the famous monastic school of Clonmacnoise in the

fair meadows by the Shannon's shore. Thither, too, came Brendan of Birr,

"the prophet," as he was called, and his still more famous namesake,

Brendan of Clonfert, St. Ita's foster son, the daring navigator, who first

tried to cross the Atlantic to preach the Gospel, and revealed to Europe

the mysteries of the far off Western Isles. There, too, was young Columba,

who learned at the feet of Finnian those lessons of wisdom and discipline

that he carried with him to Iona, which in its turn became for many

centuries a torch to irradiate the spiritual gloom of Picts, and Scots,

and Saxons. And there was that other Columba of Tir-da-glass, and

Mobhi-Clairenach of Glasnevin, and Rodan, the founder of Lorrha near Lough

Derg, and Lasserian, the son of Nadfraech, and Canice of Aghaboe, and

Senanus from Inniscathy, and Ninnidh the Pious from the far off shores of

Lough Erne. It is said, too, that St. Enda of the Aran Islands and

Sinellus of Cleenish, and many other distinguished saints spent some time

at Clonard, but they are not, like those mentioned above, reckoned amongst

"the Twelve Apostles of Erin."

We are told in the office of St. Finnian that he had no less than 3,000

scholars under his instruction, and that, too, not meaning those merely

who were there at different times, but that there were so many as 3,000

together in his school. It might seem at first sight that this was a

rather extravagant number, and that it would be impossible to find

suitable accommodation for so many persons in this wild spot. We must

remember, however, not to judge things according to modern notions. There

were no school buildings necessary in our sense,--no libraries, lecture

halls, or museums.

The instruction was altogether oral. There were no books except a few

manuscripts, and they were very highly prized. The instruction was

generally given in the open air, and no more suitable place could be

selected for the purpose than the green fields around the moat of Clonard.

If the preceptor took his stand on its summit, or seated his pupils around

its slopes, he could be conveniently heard, not only by hundreds, but even

by thousands. They were easily accommodated, too, with food and lodging.

They built their own little huts through the meadows, where several of

them sometimes lived together like soldiers in a tent. They sowed their

own grain; they ground their own corn with the quern, or hand-mill; they

fished in the neighbouring rivers, and had room within the termon lands to

graze cattle to give them milk in abundance. When supplies ran short they

put wallets on their backs and went out on their turn to seek for the

necessaries of life, and were never refused abundant supplies by the

people. They wore little clothing, had no books to buy, and generally, but

not always, received their education gratuitously.[174]