gather from his own Life, and from what we know of the monasteries in
which he was trained. We are told in the Life that on a certain occasion
he said to his beloved disciple Senachus, who succeeded him in the abbacy
of Clonard: "Go and see what each of my disciples is doing at this
moment." Senachus bowed his head and went; and lo! he found them all
intently engaged at their various occupations. "Some were engaged in
manual labour, some were studying the sacred Scripture, and others,
especially Columba of Tir-da-Glas, the son of Crimthann, he found engaged
in prayer with his hands stretched out to heaven, and the birds came and
alighted on his head and shoulders." "He it is," said Finnian, "who will
offer the Holy Sacrifice for me at the hour of my death," for his, it
seems, was pre-eminently the spirit of holy prayer and meekness.
The study of sacred Scripture, as this reference shows, was especially
cultivated at Clonard. It is the most sublime, and in one sense the most
difficult of all branches of sacred knowledge. Moreover it is a study in
which prayer and meditation can do more for the student than mere human
wisdom. It can be best acquired at the foot of the crucifix, and its best
teacher is the Holy Spirit of God. But human wisdom, too, is necessary,
and all the aids which it supplies; and Finnian made use of that, also,
for his own advancement and for the instruction of his pupils. From his
youth, under the guidance of St. Fortchern, he had been a diligent student
of the sacred Volume; he pursued the same studies in foreign schools under
many teachers; God's Holy Word was food for his mind and a lamp to his
feet through all his days, and in all his wanderings.
It was this knowledge of the sacred Scriptures, in which, it seems, he
excelled all others, that attracted so many holy and venerable men to the
banks of the Boyne at Clonard, and made his name so famous in the early
Church of Ireland.[175] For the Irish, though a newly converted people,
had an insatiable thirst for sacred knowledge, and hung on the lips of
every teacher who could expound with clearness and with power the
mysteries and beauties of God's revelation to man. And we know of our own
knowledge that it is so still. There is not a congregation in the wildest
part of Ireland that will not listen with the most intense interest to a
preacher who can clearly and literally explain the Gospel or Epistle for
any Sunday. They will be more attentive then than at any other time; they
will catch up his smallest word; they will take it home with them and tell
it to their children; and the children sometimes will take it home to the
parents. And they are right; for the words of God are far beyond any words
of men.
It seems to have been this power of expounding the sacred Scriptures to
his scholars that secured for Finnian such prominence in sacred learning
beyond all his contemporaries, and filled the school of Clonard not only
with scholars but with masters in Israel, who came with the rest to
acquire divine wisdom at his feet. Hence he enjoys in history the glorious
title of "Tutor of the Saints of Ireland." Of the Second Order of Saints,
the men who shone like the moon in the firmament of our early Irish
Church, Finnian has been always recognized as the teacher and the chief.
He has been compared to the rose tree to which the bees from every
quarter gather in order to extract the honey. His seminary at Clonard has
been described by others as a wonderful treasure-house, where illustrious
men from all parts of Ireland assembled together in order to enrich
themselves with the wealth of ecclesiastical discipline and Scriptural
knowledge. The hymn for the Lauds of his office has a stanza which may be
imperfectly rendered in English--
"Before three thousand scholars he,
Their humble master, meekly stood;
His mind a mighty stream that poured
For all its fertilizing flood."[176]
The Four Masters record his death under date of A.D. 548, but it may with
more probability be fixed about A.D. 552; Colgan, however, thinks he lived
until A.D. 563. The Four Masters frequently antedate by four or five
years, so that the date of his death as fixed by them is really equivalent
to A.D. 552 of the common era, which date is, we think, nearest the truth.
In O'Clery's calendar he is described as "St. Finnian, abbot of Clonard,
son of Finlogh, son of Fintan, of the Clanna Rudhraighe (Clan Rory). Sir
James Ware calls him Finnian, or Finan, son of Fintan[177] placing the
grandfather in place of the father.
"He was a philosopher and an eminent divine, who first founded the College
of Clonard in Meath, near the Boyne, where there were one hundred bishops,
and where with great care and labour he instructed many celebrated saints,
among whom were the two Brendans, the two Columbs, viz., Columkille and
Columb mac Crimthainn, Lasserian, son of Nadfraech, Canice, Mobheus,
Rodanus, and many others not here enumerated. His school was in quality a
holy city, full of wisdom and virtue, according to the writer of his life,
and he himself obtained the name of Finnian the Wise. He died on the 12th
of December, A.D. 552; or according to others A.D. 563, and was buried in
his own church at Clonard."
We could find no trace of his tomb, because in truth there is now no trace
of his church. The hand of the spoiler has devastated Clonard perhaps more
completely than any other of our ancient shrines. There was, we know, a
round tower there, which is said to have partially fallen in A.D. 1039.
"The Cloichtheach of Clonard fell," according to the Four Masters, in
that year. But the stump remained down to the close of the last century.
Sir W. Wild says nobody knows what has become of it; we believe it was
used for the purpose of building or repairing the present Protestant
church, which is a plainer and uglier building than even such edifices
usually are in Ireland. There are only two relics of antiquity now
remaining at Clonard, and it needs a close inspection to find them out.
The first and principal is an octagonal baptismal font of dark gray
limestone about 3 feet high (with its pedestal), 2 feet in diameter, and
some 20 inches deep, with an opening in the bottom to permit the water to
flow away, after use, into the sacrarium. The eight panels of the basin
are beautifully sculptured with various figures in bold relief, supposed
to represent St. Finnian himself in his episcopal robes, St. Peter, St.
John the Baptist, the Baptism in the Jordan, and other kindred and
appropriate subjects. The faces of the pedestal on which the basin rests
are in like manner appropriately ornamented with various floral
decorations. No date is marked, nor can it be exactly fixed; the work,
however, is in the highest style of Celtic art, and though it cannot by
any means be referred to so early a date as the time of St. Finnian
himself, it is of very great antiquity, at least dating back to the
eleventh century. Some persons fancy that on one of the panels there is a
representation of Augustinian monks, and hence they say this font cannot
be older than A.D. 1175, when Walter de Lacy rebuilt the abbey for monks
of that order. But as far as we could judge, the assumption that the
figures represent Augustinian monks is somewhat gratuitous. This
interesting monument of ancient monastic Clonard now stands before the
Communion table of the Protestant church. It is quite evident that the
worthies who placed it there knew little of ancient Christian usages.
The other relic is a curious stone trough now placed within a few paces of
the entrance to the church. It is 2 feet 2 inches long, 21 inches wide,
and 15 deep. It may have been a _piscina_ to receive the water that flowed
from the font referred to. My Catholic guide told many marvellous things
of the efficacy of its waters for curing various diseases, how it never
runs dry, and how fowl and other animals that profanely drink of it
perish. But the unbelieving sexton of the church promptly contradicted
him, at least on two points. He himself had seen it dry, and he saw the
hens that drank of the water live to lay many excellent eggs. There is
also a curious head-shaped stone which was once a corbel in the old abbey,
but is now inserted in the church tower over the door. Like everything
else of the olden time it is not only out of date, but out of place in its
present position.
From the time of St. Finnian to Stephen Rochfort, the Norman Bishop of
Meath, who transferred his episcopal residence from Clonard to Newtown,
near Trim, we have a chronicle of the bishops and abbots who sat in the
chair of St. Finnian. It is not certain that he was himself a bishop,
although he is spoken of in his office as Praesul and Pontifex.
It is much more probable, however, that he was a bishop, and his
successors, though frequently styled abbots, seem to have been in
episcopal orders; and all of them certainly exercised episcopal
jurisdiction. The school of Clonard, too, for many centuries retained its
ancient fame, and from time to time produced distinguished saints and
scholars. St. Aileran the Wise, who, like many other Irish saints, died of
the fatal yellow plague that devastated the country in A.D. 664, is
described as chief professor of the schools of Clonard. He was also, in
Colgan's opinion, the author of what is known as the _Fourth Life of St.
Patrick_, as well as of _Lives of St. Brigid, and St. Fechin_ of Fore, in
Westmeath. Moreover, he composed a Litany partly in Latin and partly in
Irish, which O'Curry discovered in the _Yellow Book of Lecain_ in Trinity
College. Fleming, too, has published a fragment of a Latin treatise by St.
Aileran on the "_Mystical Interpretation of the Ancestry of our Lord Jesus
Christ_." This fragment was found in the Irish monastery of St. Gall in
Switzerland. It was first published by Fleming in A.D. 1667, and reprinted
in the famous Benedictine edition of the Fathers in A.D. 1677. It may,
perhaps, with greater readiness be referred to in _Migne's Patrology_
(vol. 80, page 328). We make special reference to this fragment because we
have no other writings of the Clonard school remaining, either of St.
Finnian himself or of his immediate successors; and secondly because of
itself it furnishes ample proof of the high culture attained at that early
age in this great Irish seminary. The Benedictine editors say that
although the writer did not belong to their order, they publish it because
Aileran "unfolded the meaning of Sacred Scripture with so much learning
and ingenuity that every student of the sacred volume, and especially
preachers of the Divine Word, will regard the publication as most
acceptable (acceptissima)."
This is high praise from perfectly impartial and competent judges, and in
that opinion we cordially agree. We read over both fragments carefully,
that mentioned above, and also a "Short Moral Explanation of the Sacred
Names," by the same author, and we have no hesitation in saying that
whether we consider the style of the latinity, the learning, or the
ingenuity of the writer, it is equally marvellous and equally honourable
to the School of Clonard. The writer cites not only St. Jerome, St.
Augustine, and the author of the "Imperfect Work," but what is more
wonderful still, he quotes Origen repeatedly, as well as Philo, the
Alexandrine Jew. We cannot undertake to say that he was familiar with
these two authors in the original Greek, but even a knowledge of the Latin
versions in that rude age is highly honourable to our Irish schools. This
fragment shows, too, that a century after the death of the holy founder
scriptural studies of the most profound character were still cultivated
with eagerness and success in the great school of Clonard. But evil days
came upon this sanctuary of the holy and the learned, especially after the
advent of the Danes.
It was plundered and partially destroyed some twelve times in all. But the
Danes had half that work of sacrilege to their own exclusive credit--they
plundered it on five or six recorded occasions. It was burned no less than
fourteen times, sometimes partially, but on other occasions almost wholly,
as for instance in A.D. 1045, "when the town of Clonard, together with its
churches, was wholly consumed, being thrice set on fire within one week."
On another occasion, in A.D. 1136, the men of Breifney, led even then by
O'Rorke of the One-Eye, the husband of the faithless Dervorgilla,
"plundered and sacked Clonard, and behaved in so shameless a manner as to
strip O'Daly, then chief poet of Ireland. Amongst other outrages they
sacrilegiously took from the vestry of this abbey a sword which had
belonged to St. Finnian the Founder."--(_Four Masters._)
Even in that century of nameless outrage and bloodshed, Clonard was still
the home of poetry and learning, and to their shame be it spoken, it was
an Irish chieftain and his followers who destroyed what the Danes had
spared--the very men who claimed to have on their side "virtue and Erin,"
forsooth, while on the other was the "Saxon and guilt." But any one who
has ever read the bloody annals of the long reign of Tiernan O'Rorke in
Breifney will have some difficulty in accepting him as the representative
of virtue and Erin. His rival, Dermod McMurrough, who was not outdone in
villany by any other Irishman of the time, plundered and burned Clonard in
A.D. 1170, and was aided in his foul work by Earl Strongbow and his
friends from England; but next year he paid the penalty of his crimes,
dying of a loathsome disease, without the sacraments, accursed of God and
man, for the _Four Masters_ tell us that "he became putrid whilst living,
by the miracle of God, and Columkille, and _Finnian_, and the other saints
of Ireland, whose churches he had profaned and burned"--truly a fitting
end for such a life as his. In A.D. 1175 Walter de Lacy founded the
monastery of Clonard for the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, but in A.D.
1206, as we observed above, Simon de Rochford transferred the See of Meath
from Clonard to Trim[178]; and so the ancient glory of the place faded
away until now it is merely a name known only to scholars, without even a
broken arch or ruined wall to speak with saddening eloquence of its
glorious past.
CHAPTER X.
THE SCHOOL OF CLONFERT.
"I grew to manhood by the western wave,
Among the mighty mountains on the shore;
My bed the rock within some natural cave,
My food whate'er the seas and seasons bore;
My occupation morn and noon and night,
The only dream my hasty slumbers gave
Was time's unheeding, unreturning flight,
And the great world that lies beyond the grave."
--_The Voyage of St. Brendan._
The School of Clonfert was for many centuries the most celebrated and most
frequented in the West of Ireland. From the earliest times the fame of its
great founder, St. Brendan, did much to attract students to its halls from
all parts of Ireland. He was succeeded in the Monastery and See of
Clonfert by several other distinguished scholars, some of whose writings
still remain to show the extent and variety of their learning. In spite of
the incursions of the Danes a continuous succession of prelates and
abbots, whose names have been all handed down to us, continued in Clonfert
to cultivate and encourage the pursuit of sacred studies. Even in more
recent times its prelates were generous patrons of learning and learned
men, and many important works connected with Celtic Ireland still
remaining for us, are due in great measure to their munificence.
I.--ST. BRENDAN OF CLONFERT.
St. Brendan, the founder of the see of Clonfert, and the patron of the
dioceses of Ardfert and Clonfert, is in many respects the most interesting
figure amongst the saints of ancient Erin. His travels by land, and still
more his voyages by sea, have made him famous from the earliest times.
Manuscript copies of his Seven Years' Voyage in the Atlantic Ocean, some
of them dating from the ninth and tenth centuries, are to be found in
every great library, and almost in every language of Europe. In our own
times, poets and literary men, both in these countries and in France,
have been attracted to celebrate his romantic career, and their genius has
helped to lend a new immortality and more attractive grace to his strange
adventures. We can, however, at present only give the reader a very brief
sketch of his holy but adventurous career.
St. Brendan the Navigator, as he is frequently called, to distinguish him
from Brendan of Birr, was born on the sea-coast a little to the west of
Tralee, in the County Kerry, about the year A.D. 484. The time, place, and
circumstances of his birth can be fixed with greater accuracy than is
usual in the case of most of our Irish saints. He was the son of Findlug,
who was grandson of Alta, of the race of the celebrated Fergus Mac Roy;
and hence he is frequently called Brendan Mac Hy Alta. His family belonged
to the tribe called the Ciarri Luachra, and they dwelt, we are told, in
Altraighe Chaille, at Rand Bera.[179] This place, still called Barra,
retains its ancient name, and is close to the little promontory of Fenid,
north of the Bay of Tralee.[180] It is said that the ruins of an old
church, still traceable at Fenid Point, mark the exact spot where the
saint was born. Findlug was a Christian, and, with his wife, lived under
the spiritual direction of the holy Bishop Erc, who then dwelt at a place
about three miles north of Ardfert, still called by the peasantry Termon
Eirc. Brendan's mother had a vision foreshadowing his birth, in which she
thought she saw her bosom filled with purest gold and radiant with
heavenly light. This the holy bishop explained to signify the fulness of
the Holy Spirit which would adorn the offspring then in her womb. A
prophet of God called Bec Mac De also announced the future sanctity of
Brendan, and the fact of his birth, to a rich man called Mac Airde, who
dwelt at a place still called Cahir-Airde close to Rand-Bera. This rich
man made an offering of thirty cows, with their calves, to the infant, and
from his very birth took him to be the patron of his home and family.
The child was baptized shortly after his birth by Bishop Erc at Tubber na
Molt, or the Wedder's Well, which has given its name to the townland of
Tubrid, near Ardfert, and is still regarded as a holy well by the people,
who hold a station there on the festival of Brendan. Numerous votive
offerings of every kind, hung around the well, attest the faith of the
people in the healing virtue of its waters.
For one year the child was nursed in the house of his parents, and was
then taken away by Bishop Erc to be placed under saintly fosterage. St.
Ita had just then founded her convent of Ceall Ita, now known as Killeedy,
in the great plain south of Newcastle West, in the county Limerick, and
close to the northern limits of that Slieve Lougher range, which bounded
the native territory of St. Brendan. The ruins of her ancient church are
still to be seen, as well as the bountiful stream from which young Brendan
must have often drunk, and also the lofty fragment of an ancient castle,
doubtless built there to defend the church, like a round tower, during the
stormy centuries of the Danish incursions.
The young Brendan remained under the care of St. Ita for five years, and
no doubt during these years acquired much of that spirit of confiding and
fervent piety in which he walked all the days of his life. He always
looked upon St. Ita as a mother; in his temptations and trials he had
recourse to her holy counsels; "for she was prudent in word and work,
sweet and winning in her address, but constant of mind and firm of
purpose."[181]
St. Erc, the tutor of Brendan, then took the boy under his own charge. He
was a learned as well as a holy man, and is most probably to be identified
with Erc of Slane, 'the sweet spoken judge of Patrick,' who was one of the
high officials of the king, when St. Patrick visited Tara, and whose death
is recorded A.D. 512.
Young Brendan made great progress in learning under the care of St. Erc.
We are told that he read day and night under the holy bishop, and being
still very young he had many privations to endure in the hermitage of the
austere prelate. Once, it is said that in his thirst he cried for a little
milk, such as he used to get from St. Ita's dairy; but there was none to
be had from St. Erc, until a doe from the mountains came of her own accord
to be milked to satisfy the cravings of the child. His young sister,
Briga, came at this time to visit the holy youth, and was so much
impressed by what she saw and heard, that she too resolved to renounce the
world and devote her life to the service of God in perpetual virginity.
We are told that Brendan studied the Latin language from his 'infancy,'
and it is most likely that the Psaltery and the New Testament were his
principal books at this period. We may be sure, however, that the old
Brehon of King Laeghaire did not leave him in ignorance of his country's
language and history, nor of the sweet songs of her ancient bards.
St. Brendan remained under the tuition of the blessed Erc until he grew up
to be a young man able to take care of himself, and fully instructed in
all the learning that St. Erc could teach him. Then Brendan, with the
permission of his master, and the blessing both of his master and foster
mother, St. Ita, resolved to go, "and see the lives of some of the holy
fathers of Erin." "But come back," said Erc, "that you may receive
priestly orders from my hands before I die." "Go, my child," said Ita,
"and study carefully the rules of the perfect fathers of the Irish Church,
but do not visit often the holy virgins, lest evil tongues defame thee."
Fortified with God's blessing and this sage advice, Brendan travelled
northwards to visit the already celebrated school of St. Jarlath, near
Tuam. On his way he met Colman Mac Lenin, whom he induced to give up his
worldly life and accompany him, it seems, on his journey. This Colman
afterwards founded the see of Cloyne, and became its first bishop.
At this time St. Jarlath had a seminary for sacred learning at Cluainfois
(Cloonfush), about two miles to the west of Tuam. He himself had been the
pupil of St. Benignus, the sweet psalm-singer, and favourite disciple of
St. Patrick. The Church of Kilbannon, with its old round tower, may still
be seen in ruins a little to the north of Cluainfois. There is also a
vivid local tradition that St. Benignus, St. Jarlath, and other saints
used to hold spiritual conferences there together. St. Benignus, however,
was dead at least thirty years before young Brendan came to this seminary.
This "School of the Saints" is still vivid in the traditional memory of
the people. St. Jarlath was particularly skilled in the exposition of the
Sacred Scripture; and we are told that it was love for that branch of
knowledge especially that induced young Brendan to come to this remote
seminary of the West. St. Brendan remained some years at Cluainfois in the
acquisition of knowledge, and the practice of all virtue. Before his
departure he told St. Jarlath that Providence wished him to remove to
Tuam, which was destined by God to be the place of his resurrection, and
then getting his master's blessing he left the seminary of Cluainfois.
St. Brendan next travelled northward to the plain of An.[182] It is more
commonly called by our Irish writers, Magh Enna, which is the Celtic form
of the 'Campus An.' It includes the wide undulating plain that extends
from Manulla Junction to Castlebar. This district was colonized then or
shortly afterwards by the tribesmen of Brendan, and from them got the name
of Upper Kerry (Ciarraige Uachthair). There the Angel of the Lord appeared
to him saying:--"Write the Rule that I shall dictate, and live thou in
accordance with that Rule." Then Brendan wrote his Rule according to the
dictation of the Angel; and it was the Rule by which Brendan himself, and
the monastic families founded by him, have lived 'up to this day,' says
the writer of the _Latin Life of Brendan_.
Unfortunately this Rule is no longer extant, or at least has not yet been
discovered. It was in this plain called Magh Enna that Brendan performed a
very striking miracle in presence of a great crowd of people. A young man
was being carried to the grave, when Brendan met the corpse, and calling
on the mourning relatives to have confidence in God, he approached the
bearers, and with words of power bade the cold corpse rise up from the
bier. At once the dead man arose; and Brendan gave him to his friends.
Then they brought Brendan to the king, and told him all that had happened.
Whereupon the king offered to Brendan lands to found a monastery, if he
would consent to remain amongst them. But Brendan replied that he could
not found a monastery any where without the permission of his master,
Bishop Erc; and that he had promised to return and receive orders from him
before he died. The King of Connaught at that time was probably the
gallant warrior, Eoghan Beul, whose palace was on an island in Lough Mask.
He seems to have reigned from A.D. 510 to 542.
So Brendan returned home to Tralee, and received the priesthood from his
beloved master, the holy Bishop Erc. The death of St. Erc of Slane is
noticed in our Annals, A.D. 512 or 513; and it was therefore a little
before this time that Brendan was elevated to the priesthood, when he was
about twenty-six years of age.
At this period we are told that Brendan built cells in his native
territory for the accommodation of the disciples, who gathered round him,
attracted by the fame of his sanctity. But at that time he founded only a
few cells, and had comparatively few disciples; for he was yet young and
almost unknown outside his own country. However, when he returned from his
Atlantic voyages, his fame extended far and wide; and he founded many
monasteries both at home and in various parts of Ireland.
It was probably at this period that St. Brendan built his oratory on the
summit of Brandon Hill, and there conceived the bold idea of seeking the
Promised Land beyond the billows of the Atlantic. Brandon Hill rises over
the ocean to the height of 3,127 feet at the north-western corner of the
barony of Corcaguiny to the south of the Bay of Tralee. The entire
promontory of Corcaguiny is one range of bare and lofty hills, at the
extremity of which Mount Brandon rises as a huge detached cone overlooking
the western ocean. It was a daring thought to build his cell and oratory
on the bare summit of this lone mountain, which is frequently covered with
clouds, and nearly always rudely swept by the breezes that rise from the
Atlantic Ocean. But on a clear day the spectacle from its summit is one of
sublime and unapproachable grandeur. All the bold hills and headlands from
Aran to Kenmare, that go out to meet the waves, are visible from its
summit. The rocky islets of the Skelligs and the Maherees are the
sentinels that guard its base. Inland the spectator can cast his gaze over
half the South of Ireland--mountain and valley, lake and stream and plain
and town, stretching far away to the east and south. But the eye ever
turns seaward to the grand panorama presented by the ultimate ocean. No
such view can be had elsewhere in the British Islands; and Brendan while
dwelling on the mountain summit saw it in all its varying moods--at early
morning when the glory of the sun was first diffused over its wide
reaches; at midnight when the stars swept round the pole that feared to
dip themselves in the baths of ocean; at even--above all at even--when the
setting sun went home to his caverns beneath the sea, and the line of
light along the glowing west seemed a road of living gold to the Fortunate
Islands, where the sorrows of earth never enter, and peace and beauty for
ever dwell. It was a dim tradition of man's lost Paradise floating down
the stream of time, for with curious unanimity the poets and sages both of
Greece and Rome spoke of these Islands of the Blessed as located somewhere
in the Western Ocean. The same idea from the earliest times has taken
strong hold of the Celtic imagination, and reveals itself in many strange
tales, which were extremely popular especially with the peasantry on the
western coast. To this day the existence of O'Brazil, an enchanted land of
joy and beauty, which is seen sometimes on the blue rim of the ocean, is
very confidently believed in by the fishermen of our western coasts. It
is seen from Aran once every seven years, as Brendan saw it in olden
times, like a fairy city on the far horizon's verge:--
"And often now amid the purple haze
That evening breathed on the horizon's rim--
Methought, as there I sought my wished for home,
I could descry amid the waters green,
Full many a diamond shrine and golden dome,
And crystal palaces of dazzling sheen."
Brendan was confirmed in his resolution to seek the Blessed Islands by a
strange tale told by Barinthus, a monk from the neighbourhood, whose
church of Kilbarron is not far from Tralee. One of the monks of Barinthus,
Mernoc by name, had fled from his monastery in search of a desert in the
ocean. Barinthus followed after him, and at length found him in the island
called the 'Delicious,' from which they sailed further west, and came to
the Land of Promise of the Saints--a beauteous land of light beyond the
clouds and mists of the western sea, covered with verdant glades and
flowery fields. But an angel told them to return home again, that this
land of light and beauty was not yet to be revealed to men.
Then Brendan's heart was filled with only one thought to find out for
himself this 'Land of Promise,' if haply it were God's high will. So with
his monks he fasted forty days, and then choosing fourteen of their number
he made ready for the adventurous voyage. Even the great St. Enda of Aran
commended Brendan's purpose, and foretold that God would bring his
enterprise to a happy issue. So they built themselves a large currach with
ribs and frame of willow, but covered with hides, and taking with them
oars and sails, and provisions for forty days they set out upon the
trackless sea steering for the "Summer solstice."
It is not our intention at present to follow Brendan and his monks in
their wanderings through the Atlantic. For seven years they sailed from
island unto island in the Atlantic main, seeing many marvels by land and
sea, following God's guidance, fed by His Providence, and protected by His
power. At length, it is said, they reached the Continent of America, and
found the place where they landed to be indeed a delicious country
abounding in everything to gratify the palate and please the eye--
"The wind had died upon the ocean's breast,
When like a silvery vein through the dark ore,
A smooth bright current gliding to the west,
Bore our light bark to that enchanted shore.
It was a lovely plain--spacious and fair,
And blessed with all delights that earth can hold,
Celestial odours filled the fragrant air,
That breathed around that green and pleasant wold.
"There may not rage of frost, nor snow, nor rain
Injure the smallest and most delicate flower;
Nor fall of hail wound the fair healthful plain,
Nor the warm weather, nor the winter's shower.
That noble land is all with blossoms flowered,
Shed by the summer breezes as they pass;
Less leaves than blossoms on the trees are showered,
And flowers grow thicker in the fields than grass.
"We were about to cross its placid tide
When lo! an angel on our vision broke,
Clothed in white upon the further side;
He stood majestic, and thus sweetly spoke--
'Father, return, thy mission now is o'er,
God who did bring thee here, now bids thee go,
Return in peace unto thy native shore,
And tell the mighty secrets thou dost know.'"
Therefore Brendan, in obedience to the voice of God's angel, would not
cross the mighty river that watered this all-beauteous land; so they
embarked once more, and guided by Providence, they all returned in safety
to their native homes.
After this voyage, which was soon noised abroad, Brendan became very
famous, and crowds of holy men from all parts of the country came to place
themselves under his spiritual direction. There can hardly be any doubt
that it was then these villages of beehive cells and stone oratories at
Kilmalkedar and Gallerus, as well as on the Blasquet Islands, were built
for the accommodation of the disciples of St. Brendan.
But like Ulysses, Brendan had become a name, and had a hungry heart for
much roaming, that he might preach the Gospel to the half-instructed
natives, whom he had met in his journey through Connaught. So he left his
native place, having founded the See of Ardfert, and crossing over the
estuary of the Shannon, then called Luimnech, he founded a monastery in
the island called anciently Inis-da-druim, or the Island of the Two
Ridges, in that great expanse of water which flows up to Clare, near the
town of Ennis. The island is at present called Coney Island, and some
remains of ancient churches are still to be seen there, but probably of
later date than the time of Brendan.
About this time, too, he went to Wales, where he met the great St. Gildas,
and journeyed still further north to Iona, as we know from Adamnan's _Life
of St. Columcille_. It is said that this pilgrimage to Britain was imposed
on Brendan by St. Ita, as a penance for a rash command given by him in
Inis-da-druim, which caused the death by drowning of a too obedient monk.
It is probable that in the first instance he went to the Scottish
Dalriada, visiting Iona and the neighbouring islands; for it is only after
three years spent in 'Britain' (which included Scotland) that we find him
in Wales with St. Gildas.
During this journey he preached the Gospel everywhere, and founded many
churches. He visited the Island of Heth, or Tiree, which is about twenty
miles north-west of Iona. Kilbrandon in the Island of Seil, a little to
the south of Oban, still bears his name, and Cuilbrandon shows where he
made his temporary residence. He visited a place called Ailech in the
Latin Life, which is probably Alyth in Perthshire, and the Sound between
Aran and Kintyre is still called Kilbrennan Sound.[183]
We gather from an incidental reference during his Welsh journey, that
Gildas had a missal written in Greek characters, which he himself had
probably got during his sojourn at the Greek monasteries of Marseilles,
and he invited Brendan to offer up the Body of Christ on the altar, and
make use of this missal. When Brendan saw the strange characters he prayed
to God for help, and "sang the Mass from this missal with the Greek
characters, even as if they were the Latin letters, which he had known
from his infancy." This seems to have taken place at Gildas' monastery of
Llancarvan, in South Wales, and it is remarkable that Gildas, David, and
Docus, or Cadoc of Llancarvan, are said to have given a new Mass, or
Liturgy, to the saints of the Second Order in Ireland.
It was perhaps after his return from Britain that Brendan spent some time
at the great College of Clonard, and visited the King of Tara. All
accounts agree in making the two Brendans--the one of Clonfert and the
other of Birr--disciples of St. Finnian of Clonard, who was known as the
tutor of the Saints of Erin. This does not imply that Brendan might not
himself be quite as old as his tutor, and he probably was so at the time.
The saints were not ashamed to become pupils even of younger men than
themselves, if they had anything to learn either of knowledge or holiness.
It is more likely, however, that he spent his time at Clonard before his
sojourn in Britain, and that it was after his return that he visited King
Diarmaid at Tara.
On this occasion it seems he came to Tara on an errand of mercy, which was
destined to have very important consequences.
King Diarmaid Mac Cerbhaill reigned from A.D. 544 to A.D. 564 or 565. His
high steward, when going round the country to enforce the ancient laws of
hospitality, was slain by Aedh Guaire at his Dun in Hy-Many. Guaire fled
to escape the vengeance of the king, and took refuge with his uncle, St.
Ruadhan of Lorrha, on the other side of the Shannon. But the king
discovered his retreat, and dragged off the criminal to Tara to be
punished for his crime. Ruadhan closely followed, and begged his
neighbour, St. Brendan, who had by this time founded Clonfert on the
Shannon in Hy-Many, to accompany him. Brendan did so; and thus both
saints, with their clerics, and their bells, and their croziers, came to
Tara to intercede for the criminal. But the king was obdurate, and refused
to release his prisoner. All the courtiers joined the bishops in asking
his pardon, but Diarmaid still refused. Then Ruadhan of Lorrha and
"another bishop who was with him," incensed with the king for his
obduracy, "took their bells that they had, which they rung hardly, and
cursed the king and the place, and prayed God that no King or Queen would
or could ever dwell in Tara, and that it should be waste for ever, without
court or palace, and so it fell out accordingly."[184] Next year the king
was slain, and after him no king or queen ever reigned again in Tara. The
spot where Ruadhan and Brendan stood, when pronouncing this dreadful
excommunication, was on the Rath of the Synods, which is still shown on
Tara Hill.
St. Brendan founded one church at least in Leinster at a place called
Cluain Imaire, now Clonamery, in the co. Kilkenny. It stands on the left
bank of the river Nore, about two miles below Inistiogue. Brandon Hill
rises a little to the east of the old church, whose ruins are still to be
seen, and show it to have been of the most primitive type of church
architecture.
Brendan, also, probably at an earlier date, founded two still more
celebrated establishments in the West of Ireland even before founding
Clonfert, which has always borne his name.
The first of these was the celebrated monastery of Annaghdown, on the
shore of Lough Corrib, which he founded for his sister, St. Briga, and
where he himself died on Sunday, the 16th of May, A.D. 577.
It seems that after Brendan's return from Britain, he paid a second visit
to Connaught. During his first sojourn there he became familiar with the
great plain stretching westward from Tuam to Lough Corrib, and doubtless
also saw the beautiful islands that stud that noble sheet of water. In one
of these islands, called Inchiquin, which is separated by a narrow rocky
channel from the eastern shore of the lake near Headford, he founded his
first monastery in the province of Connaught. It seems to have been
founded about the year A.D. 550 or 552. He was accompanied to the island
by his nephew, the Bishop Moennu, or Moinenn, whom he afterwards appointed
to preside over Clonfert. With their own hands they carried the stones and
built their cells and little oratory. Here, too, St. Fursey, who was a
near relation of St. Brendan, received his early training, as we shall see
further on.
When Brendan had established himself on Inchiquin, his sister, St. Briga,
came from Kerry; for she loved her brother dearly, and was anxious to be
near him for spiritual advice and instruction. Then Brendan built for his
sister the convent of Annaghdown, on the shore of the lake a few miles to
the south, and there she governed under Brendan's guidance a convent of
holy nuns. The place afterwards became very celebrated and was greatly
enlarged. A parish church, and later on a cathedral were established
there, which flourished for many centuries as the chief church of
O'Flaherty's territory, until it was finally appropriated somewhat harshly
by the Archbishops of Tuam.
It was probably whilst Brendan lived at Lough Corrib that seeking after
solitude, which has always had such a charm for pious souls, he went
further north to the extreme west of Erris, and there founded an oratory
and a cell that still remain, though in ruins, and still bear his name.
The island of Inis-gluair, or Inishgloria, lies off the extreme west of
Erris, and is about one mile distant from the mainland at Cross in the
Mullet. We have, not without difficulty, visited this remote and lonely
island, and we found the place still teeming with recollections of Brendan
and his few disciples, but we found only three cells on the island. It is
a long, low-lying rocky island, containing only about twenty acres of fair
pasture land for sheep. It is at present without inhabitants, for it is
bare and barren of itself, and besides is separated from the shore by a
shallow stormy sea, which can be navigated only in currachs with safety,
and even then only in very mild weather. In broken weather, as there is no
landing place on the island, it is absolutely unapproachable. Brendan's
oratory is still to be seen, and the remains of two churches--one the
Church of the Men, and the other the Church of the Women--the latter
without the monastic enclosure. The cells have almost disappeared, and
doubtless, in a few years nothing but a heap of stones will be left to
mark the spot where these men of God slept, and prayed, and fasted,
surrounded by the billows of that angry and desolate sea. A few paces to
the east of the doorway of Brendan's oratory are two flags which mark the
spot where the Children of Lir, whose fate is so pathetically told in
Celtic legend, sleep in peace awaiting their resurrection. "After this,"
says the tale, "the Children of Lir were baptized; and they died and were
buried; and Fiachra and Conn were placed at either side of Fionnghuala,
and Aedh before her face; and their tombstone was raised over their tomb,
and their Ogham names were written and their lamentation rites performed;
and heaven was obtained for their souls." Inishgloria is one of the least
known but most interesting of the many holy islands around Ireland.
According to an ancient tradition, no flesh can corrupt in this island of
purity; even the bodies of the dead remain for ages free from
putrefaction; their nails and hair continue to grow, so that people may
there recognise the features of their ancestors, who left the world
centuries before. This strange story is not corroborated by modern
experience; but it is as old as the time of the veracious and
legend-loving Gerald Barry, who, however, in his account mistakes Aran for
Inishgloria.
It was in A.D. 556 or 557 that St. Brendan founded his great monastery of
Clonfert. It was regarded as a very important event; and hence its date is
expressly recorded in all our Annals. "Brendinus ecclesiam in Cluain
fertha fundavit."--(_Annals of Ulster_, ANNO 557). The celebrity of the
founder soon attracted a vast number of students and religious men to this
great monastic school, so that Brendan in his life is said to have been
the father of 3,000 monks. Probably this refers to the number of monks and
scholars in the various monasteries governed by him, who lived under his
rule and obedience. But making the allowance even for this sub-division,
there still must have been a vast number of students in that monastery on
the banks of the Shannon. Its name implies that it was a retired and
sheltered meadow, surrounded on one side by what was then a vast forest,
and is now an equally vast bog. To the north and east it was bounded by
fertile meadows stretching away towards the river, which at the nearest
point is two miles distant; but in rainy weather the river overflowed its
low and sedgy banks, converting all these meadows into one vast lake, so
that the Cluain itself became an island. It is so called in some ancient
references, which have been misunderstood even by Dr. Lanigan, who could
not understand why it was called the "Island of Clonfert."
For twenty years Brendan presided over this great establishment; but
occasionally left it for a time in order to visit his other monasteries.
Hence he placed Moinenn over Clonfert as permanent prior, or Head of the
House, so that his own frequent absences might not interfere with the
permanent efficiency of the monastic and scholastic work.
Brendan died at his sister's monastery of Annaghdown in the year A.D. 577,
as already stated, in the ninety-fourth year of his age. His remains had
to be carried away by stealth from his western people around Lough Corrib,
who loved him much, and by his own directions were brought to his Church
of Clonfert, where they were interred with all honour by the myriads of
his spiritual children, who crowded to his obsequies.
We find no reference to any writings of St. Brendan except the Rule
already referred to, which he wrote at the dictation of the Angel. The
great influence which he exercised in his own time was due to the zeal and
sanctity of his life; and was felt for many centuries after his death. He
has even now more--far more--than 3,000 spiritual children in Kerry and
Galway who revere his memory as a precious inheritance and a bright
example. The ancient cathedrals of Clonfert and Ardfert have been seized
by the stranger, and are desolate or decaying. Inishgloria and Inchiquin
are waste and silent solitudes. Annaghdown and Inish-da-druim are in
ruins; yet the tree of Christian faith and virtue, which Brendan planted,
flourishes like the palm-tree by the waters, producing each year richer
and more abundant fruit.[185]
II.--ST. MOINENN.
This name is spelled in a great variety of ways. Here we shall adopt the
form given in the Felire of Ængus, our oldest and best authority. The
nominative there is Moinen, the genitive is Moinend or Moinenn.[186] His
festival day, as we know from the same authority, and from all our
martyrologies, was the first day of March.
As Colgan observes in the sketch which he has given us of this saint,
there are some things concerning him which are certain, and some which are
doubtful--we should say very doubtful. First of all it is certain that he
was the intimate friend and associate of St. Brendan for many years, both
during his Atlantic voyages, and when he was founding his monasteries on
Lough Corrib's shores and islands. Secondly, he was chosen by St. Brendan
from amongst his three thousand disciples to rule over Clonfert, and if he
outlived his master, to succeed him in the See and Abbacy. He was in fact
a Coadjutor to St. Brendan, chosen by that saint himself on account of his
great learning and holiness. Thirdly, it is certain that St. Moinenn after
governing Clonfert with great prudence and success, died in the year A.D.
570 or 571, that is six or seven years before the death of Brendan
himself. In the scholiast's annotations to the _Felire_ of Ængus, Moinenn
is described as "bishop and comarb of Brendan;" and the _Martyrology of
Donegal_ calls him at the same date, like all our other
Martyrologies--Bishop of Cluain-fearta-Brenainn. The scholiast on Ængus,
from the fact that he and St. Senan of Iniscathy are mentioned on the same
day, the eighth of March, which is Senan's proper festival, infers that
the latter was Bishop Moinenn's psalmist.
Now as to what is uncertain, Colgan is inclined to think that this Bishop
Moinenn of Clonfert is identical with Monennius, the founder of the great
Monastery of Rosnat in Britain, and the master of several of our most
distinguished Irish saints, including St. Tighernach of Clones, St.
Eugenius of Ardstraw, St. Enda of Aran, and St. Cairbre of Coleraine. It
is well known that the prefix _mo_ is merely a term of endearment, and
hence the name Moinenn or Mo-nenn, is really the same as Nennio or
Mo-nennius, the great and celebrated saint who was undoubtedly the tutor
of the saints of Northern Erin, as St. Finnian of Clonard was the tutor of
the Saints of the South and West--the celebrated Twelve Apostles of Erin.
Colgan's opinion is always entitled to the highest respect, and the more
deeply one is versed in the ecclesiastical history of ancient Ireland, the
more one is likely to set a high value on the opinion of Colgan. Still we
cannot assent to this conjecture of his, especially for reasons of
chronology.
We agree with the learned and judicious Skene that the monastery of
Rosnat, the _magnum monasterium_, which was also called _Alba_[187] and
_Candida_, can be no other than Whiterne[188] in Galloway, or as it is
sometimes called, Futerna. There is no doubt that St. Nennio, Nennius or
Ninian, was the founder of that great monastery, and he may have been the
teacher of some of the great saints from the north of Ireland, whose names
are mentioned above. Furthermore it was through him and his great
monastery that monastic life and discipline were introduced into those
parts of Ireland, where these early saints, his disciples, founded their
own establishments. St. Nennio or Ninian of Candida Casa was building his
new stone church--the White House--in Galloway when he heard of the death
of St. Martin of Tours, whose disciple he had been. Now, Martin died the
11th of November, A.D. 397; and it is manifestly out of the question to
suppose that this Ninian, or Nennio, could have lived on to the year A.D.
570, when he would be at least 200 years of age. This assumes, however,
the identity of Rosnat with Candida Casa. But if Rosnat were a Welsh
monastery, and that Moinenn is merely another name for St. Manchan, or
Manchenus, the Master, as some think; then Moinenn, Bishop of Clonfert,
was very likely that person, and derived his training and knowledge of
monastic discipline, at least to some extent, from that source. We have
seen that St. Brendan spent some time in Wales, and that he belonged to
the Second Order of Saints, which got a Mass from the three great Saints
of Wales. As St. Moinenn had accompanied him in his voyages in the
Atlantic, nothing is more likely than that he would also accompany him to
Wales, and remain there until such time as Brendan founded Clonfert, when
he was called home by the latter to take charge of this new and important
foundation. It is evident, moreover, that he was a man of large culture,
and that during his presidency over Clonfert he laid the foundations of
that celebrity which the school subsequently attained.
There is no satisfactory evidence that St. Brendan himself ever received
episcopal orders, but rather that in his humility he, like the great St.
Columba of Iona, continued all his life a presbyter-abbot. Of course the
necessary episcopal functions would be preformed by St. Moinenn; and no
doubt that was one of the reasons why he was chosen to preside over the
monastery and school of Clonfert. A similar arrangement existed for a long
period in Iona. The head of the community was a presbyter-abbot; but there
was nearly always a bishop belonging to that great House, who conferred
the necessary orders on the various members of the Community. All, or
nearly all, Brendan's successors, however, appear to have been bishops, as
well as abbots, down to a comparatively recent period, when the offices
and mensal estates of the bishop and abbot became quite distinct. The
monastery as such was nominally suppressed in the reign of Henry VIII.,
but the incumbents contrived to hold their ground until A.D. 1571, when
the bishop, Roland de Burgo, came into possession of the monastic as well
as of the See lands. They afterwards passed to the Protestant prelates
whose representatives hold them still.
St. Fintan, surnamed Corach, seems to have been the immediate successor of
St. Brendan, for, as we have seen, St. Moinenn was really coadjutor to
Brendan, and died before the coadjutus.
We are told in the _Felire_ of Ængus that Fintan's feast was the 21st of
February, _i.e._, Fintan Coragh or the Melodious, because he was famed as
a psalm-singer and choir-master. The scholiast after giving other
explanations of the term, adds that he was Brendan's successor, and came
of the Corco-Duibne race, and that Brendan's mother belonged to the same
tribe. That tribe has given its name to the present barony of Corcaguiny,
and we know that Brendan spent many years of his life in that district, in
which the famous Mount Brandon is situated. He had only to cross the Bay
of Tralee to reach it from the place where his father's family lived at
Fenid. Fintan's father, according to the same authority, was Gaibrene, son
of Cocran. The names of his two immediate successors in Clonfert are also
given:--
"Fintan the melodious, Senach the rough,
Colman, son of Comgall, the guileless,
Three great (spiritual) kings with warfare of valour,
One after the other in the abbey (of Clonfert)."
The _Martyrology of Donegal_ describes Fintan Corach as "Bishop of
Cluain-ferta-Brenainn, and he is in Cluain-eidhnech also." But it is
uncertain if Fintan ever went to Clonenagh, and it seems highly probable
that he was confounded with one of the other Fintans, who founded and
ruled that Church. The fact that he was a connection of St. Brendan by the
mother's side, will explain why he was chosen to succeed that saint in the
government of the Church of Clonfert. It was an established rule to select
the comarb from the kin, or failing that, from the tribe of the founder,
when a suitable candidate so recommended was forthcoming.
No doubt St. Fintan, whilst he governed Clonfert, did much to encourage
the study and practice of sacred psalmody in the abbey choir. He could
hardly be false to his name, or allow discords to prevail, where
harmony--heavenly harmony--should help to raise the mind to God and His
Angelic Choirs. He seems to have died towards the end of the sixth
century. Archdall gives the date as A.D. 590, but nothing is known for
certain on the point.
The Abbot Seanach Garbh appears to have been the successor of St. Fintan,
but beyond the record of his death, which the _Ulster Annals_ give A.D.
620, we know nothing. St. Colman, son of Comgall, is mentioned by the
scholiast of Ængus as the next of the three 'kings' who ruled the abbey in
succession to Brendan, but of him in like manner we know nothing more.
The next Abbot-Bishop of Clonfert was the celebrated Cummian Fada, or
Cummian the Tall, perhaps the most distinguished scholar of his time in
Ireland. Before, however, we give an account of his life and writings, it
is necessary to refer briefly to another famous disciple of St. Brendan,
that is, the celebrated St. Fursey.
After Brendan himself, St. Fursey is the most remarkable saint of the
times in which he lived, and it is fortunate that we have a Life of this
saint still extant which at least in substance must be accepted as
authentic. This Life is referred to by Bede, who himself gives a long and
most interesting account of the saint. It is evident that the Life quoted
by Bede was the work of an almost contemporary writer; for he speaks of
the plague and the great eclipse of the sun, which happened _last_ year,
that is, as we know from Bede himself, on the 3rd of May, A.D. 664. The
Life was therefore written within ten or fifteen years of the death of St.
Fursey; and although additions were probably made to it afterwards, it
must be accepted even in its present shape as authentic and truthful, at
least in substance. It is, moreover, confirmed in many particulars by the
evidence of our native annals.
According to this Life, which has been published by Colgan at January
16th, St. Fursey was the son of a Munster prince named Fintan,[189] son of
Finloga; and this Fintan, either by his father's or mother's side was a
nephew of St. Brendan. The history of the birth of the saint is not
without an element of romance, and hence we shall refer to it more in
detail than our purpose would otherwise require.
Young Fintan from some cause or other left the home of his father, who is
described as king of Western Munster, and came as a soldier of fortune to
the court of Brudin, or as he is sometimes called, Brendinus, King of
North Connaught. In some of the versions of the Life of Fursey he is made
to come to the court of Brandubh, King of Leinster; but this error arose
from confounding the latter with Brendinus, or Brudinus, King of North
Connaught.
The Hy-Briuin race of Connaught derived their descent from Duach Galach,
youngest son of Brian, son of Eochaidh Muighmheadhoin (Eochy Moyvane).
Feargus, great grandson of Duach "the Victorious" (galach), was king, or
prince of Connaught about the year A.D. 517, whilst St. Brendan was still
a young man. He had three sons, who became the ancestors of the three
great branches of the Hy-Briuin race--namely, Eochaidh Tirmcharna, the
ancestor of the O'Conors, Duach Teangumha, the head of the great clan of
the O'Flahertys of West Connaught, and Feargna the common ancestor of the
O'Rorkes and O'Reillys of Breifney. Now Aedh, son of Eochaidh, was King of
Connaught--at least of South Connaught--when St. Brendan founded his
monastery on Inchiquin, about A.D. 550. His uncle Feargna had three sons,
who at the same time ruled in North Connaught--Brendin or Brudin, Aedh
Finn, and Fearadach. It was to Brudin, the eldest, it seems, of these
three brothers, that young Fintan came from Kerry as a soldier of fortune.
It must be borne in mind, too, that there was a great emigration at this
period from Kerry to North Connaught. So that probably Fintan did not come
alone, but accompanied by some of his tribesmen.
Now Aedh Finn, the Prince of North Connaught, had a beautiful daughter
called Gelges, and she fixed her affections on the young prince from
Kerry. The father would not allow her to marry a penniless exile, but love
ignores such obstacles; they were secretly married, and the fact was first
disclosed to the king by the visible pregnancy of his daughter. In his
wrath he condemned the daughter and her unborn child to be burned alive.
But Providence extinguished the fire; and it seems, too, that the king's
sub-chieftains would not tolerate the commission of this great crime. So
Fintan and Gelges were allowed to escape death, but were ordered to return
no more to Breifney.
In this great difficulty Fintan bethought himself of his uncle, St.
Brendan, just then established in Inchiquin; and to him he fled for
refuge. The saint received his kinsman kindly, and as he and his wife were
in danger of their lives, he allowed them to lodge for the time in the
hospice of Inchiquin. There within a few days the unhappy Gelges gave
birth to a boy, the future Fursey, the renowned saint of Ireland, and
England, and France. He was baptized by St. Brendan, and we are told that
so long as Brendan lived[190] he instructed the youth in all knowledge,
sacred and profane, and that the work was afterwards continued by his
disciple, St. Meldan, of Inchiquin. It is no wonder that Brendan,
remembering his own youth spent under the care of St. Ita and St. Erc, now
in his turn sought to give to this princely boy the same tender care, and
the same religious training which he had himself received. We can even
trace the vivid imagination of Brendan himself in the wonderful visions of
Fursey; and that same restless longing, _peregrinari pro Christo_, to
preach Christ in strange lands, which caused Brendan to sail the Atlantic
seas, caused Fursey to preach at first in Ireland, then in England, and
afterwards in France.
It is said in his life that Fursey founded a monastery of his own in the
Island of Rathmat, or Ramath, in Lough Corrib. This island cannot now be
identified, but on the shore of Lough Corrib, not far from Inchiquin, is
the old church and parish of Killursa, which bears his name, and of which
Fursey was undoubtedly the founder and the patron.
There is also a place near Inchiquin on the mainland called
Ard-fintain--Fintan's Height--near Headfort, which still gives its name to
the townland; and there are traces of an ancient rath in the place.[191]
It seems almost certain that Fintan, leaving Inchiquin, took up his
residence with his wife at Ard-fintain, that there his children, St. Ultan
and St. Foillan, brothers of St. Fursey, were born, and like him, were
educated on the neighbouring island of Inchiquin by the good monks of St.
Brendan. It is likely, too, though not mentioned in Fursey's Life, that
the brothers were sent, when they grew up, to the great School of
Clonfert, which had been founded by their grand uncle, and which was still
governed by their own kinsmen.
Of the subsequent career of the great St. Fursey we cannot now speak at
length. His celebrated visions were known to all mediæval Europe; and it
is said they furnished Dante with the groundwork of the plot of the best
scenes in the _Divina Commedia_. His influence has been felt according to
certain writers in shaping the entire course of mediæval theology with
regard to the state of the souls in the world to come. This of course is
an exaggeration; but it shows how widely the influence of his life and
actions is supposed to have extended. Bede evidently believed in the
reality of these visions of the saint, and was very far indeed from
regarding them as the purely subjective visions of a disordered
imagination. Of Fursey's subsequent career, both in England and France, we
shall, let us hope, learn more hereafter.
III.--ST. CUMMIAN THE TALL, BISHOP OF CLONFERT.
St. Cummian, surnamed the Tall (fada), to distinguish him from Cummian the
Fair (finn), Abbot of Hy, was the most learned Irish scholar of the
seventh century. He took a leading part in the famous Paschal controversy,
and his letter on that question, which is fortunately extant, proves that
he was perfectly familiar with Church history, and deeply versed in Sacred
Scripture. He was well skilled, too, in the moral theology of the times,
as the _Liber de Mensura Poenitentiarum_ clearly shows. He tried his hand
at poetry also, but we cannot say as much for his verses as for his
theology: it is rarely, indeed, that theologians are good poets--they have
too much sobriety of mind. His contemporaries likened Cummian in morals
and life to St. Gregory the Great, and one of his admirers, in an old
_rann_ preserved by the Four Masters, says he was the only Irishman of his
time fit to succeed that illustrious Pontiff in the chair of St. Peter.
Yet, the birth of this holy and learned man was the fruit of an
unspeakable crime, to which it is unnecessary here to make further
reference. His father was Fiachna, son of Fiachra Gairine, King of West
Munster. The clan were known as the Eoghanach of Lough Lein, because they
were sprung from the great Eoghan More, son of Ollioll Olum, and dwelt in
the woods and mountains round the beautiful lakes of Killarney. His
unhappy mother was, it seems, in early youth called Flann, but she was
also called Mughain or Mugania, and was sometimes known as Rim, or, as
Colgan latinises it, Rima. Her identity, however, under these various
names is sufficiently established by the great misfortune of her life, for
which, perhaps, she may not have been responsible.
The child was born in A.D. 589, or 590, for he died in A.D. 661, at the
age of seventy-two. Drumdaliter--Marianus O'Gorman tells us--was "the name
of his town," and Aedh or Hugh was his "proper name" at first. Shortly
after his birth the infant was exposed by his parents, and left at the
head of the cross in a small _Cummian_ or basket near St. Ita's Convent of
Killeedy, and the holy sisterhood finding the child thus abandoned took
charge of the foundling, and called him Cummian, because he was found in
the basket.
The history of the lady Flann, the mother of Cummian, is very singular.
The great misfortune of her life seems to have happened when she was very
young, and it may have been greatly, if not entirely, against her own
will. It seems, too, that she was very beautiful--in a stanza composed by
Cummian himself, she is called Flann the Fair--it is said also that she
was four times married, and became the mother of no less than six kings
and six bishops.
After the death of her fourth husband, Flann, whether tired of the cares
of married life, or anxious to do penance for the sin of her youth,
consulted her son Cummian as to her future; and he advised her to retire
from the world, and spend the rest of her days in prayer and penance. She
did so, and died a holy nun at an advanced age.
From Killeedy, or perhaps from Killarney, young Cummian was sent to the
great school of Cork, founded by St. Finnbarr about the beginning of the
seventh century, when Cummian would be twelve or fifteen years of age.
Among the teachers in Cork, either then, or a little later on, was Colman
Mac O'Cluasaigh, who is called the "tutor" of young Cummian, to whom he
became greatly attached. Colman O'Cluasaigh was, it seems, a most
accomplished scholar, and had, moreover, an Irishman's love for poetry and
song. Dr. Todd[192] has published, in the first volume of the _Liber
Hymnorum_, a very beautiful Irish hymn composed by Colman to invoke for
himself and his pupils the protection of God and His Saints against the
yellow plague, which devastated Ireland between the years A.D. 660-664. He
is described in the preface to that hymn as a reader of Cork
(_fer-legind_), and is said to have composed it when he was fleeing, with
his pupils, from the plague, to take refuge in some island of the sea,
because it was thought the contagion could not extend beyond nine waves
from the land, which, even from a sanitary point of view, was likely
enough. He also composed, about the same time, an elegy on the death of
Cummian.
Colman inspired his pupil with his own love for poetry; and fortunately we
have, in the same Book of Hymns, a Latin poem written by Cummian, which we
should reprint if the space at our disposal were not so limited.
From St. Finnbarr's school Cummian seems to have gone to visit his half
brother Guaire, who was King of South Connaught at this period, or a
little later on. As Cummian was already famous for sanctity and learning,
and belonged to an influential family, who would now be ready enough to
acknowledge the relationship, we can easily conceive how his own merits
and Guaire's influence, would have procured his selection for the
bishopric of Clonfert. "All the Martyrologies and Annals," says Cardinal
Moran,[193] "agree in styling St. Cummian Fada, Bishop and Abbot of
Clonfert."
But it is not easy to fix the exact date of his appointment. We find the
death of Senach Garbh, Abbot of Clonfert, marked by the Four Masters under
the date of A.D. 620, and his successor Colman died, according to
Archdall, in the same year which he gives as A.D. 621. As there is no
other obituary of a Bishop or Abbot of Clonfert noticed in our Annals
until the death of Cummian himself in A.D. 661, we may, perhaps, fairly
assume that he succeeded the Abbot Colman and governed the See for forty
years. Colman, King of Connaught, the uncle of Cummian and father of
Guaire, was slain in A.D. 617, and Guaire, if not actually king at this
date, was an influential chief, and his defeat with others at the battle
of Carn Fearadhaigh in Limerick is noted by the annalists in A.D. 622, and
his death in A.D. 662, so that the two brothers, the Bishop and Chieftain,
were contemporaries ruling in South Connaught during a long and chequered
career. This fact will help to explain the great influence which Cummian
possessed, and the leading position which he occupied in the Irish Church
at that period.[194] His fame as a saint and scholar spread throughout all
Ireland, and attracted crowds of students to his great school at Clonfert.
He appears, as we shall see further on, to have taken a leading part in
the Synod of Magh Lene, held about A.D. 630, and no doubt it was at the
request of the Fathers of that Synod, that he wrote his famous epistle on
the Paschal Question to the Abbot Segienus of Hy, about the year A.D. 634.
There is every reason to believe that Segienus and Cummian were, if not
personal friends, at least well known to each other, for the Columbian
Abbey of Durrow in King's County, was not far from Clonfert, and the uncle
of Segienus had been Abbot of that house until he was transferred to Hy in
the year A.D. 600. Segienus himself was very likely educated there under
his uncle's care, and perhaps succeeded him later on in the government of
the Abbey. It is at all events certain that frequent intercourse existed
between Hy and Durrow; and that Cummian must have been well known at
Durrow is manifest.
About a mile and a-half from Shinrone, to the west of Roscrea, there is an
old ruin, perhaps originally built by St. Cummian, which gives its
name--Kilcommin--to the parish. This was _Disert Chuimin in regione
Roscreensi_, to which Cummian probably retired before the Synod of Magh
Lene, to devote himself to a year's study of the Paschal question. It is
about twenty-five miles from Durrow, and fifteen from Clonfert. The old
church was built under the shadow of Knockshigowna, the beautiful hill on
which the Tipperary fairies hold their revels.
The knowledge of these facts will help to explain Cummian's relations with
King Domhnall a few years later.
When Domhnall, King of Ireland from A.D. 628 to 642, was a mere boy, he
accompanied his father to the great Synod of Drumceat. On that occasion
his relative Columcille put his hands on the boy's head and blessed him,
foretelling at the same time that he would survive his brothers, and
become a great king, and, moreover, that he would expire peaceably and
happily on his bed surrounded by his family--quite an unusual occurrence
for an Irish king in those days. King Domhnall reigned and sinned, like
most other kings; so that towards the end of his life he did not feel
himself well disposed to die, because, says the scholiast, he had not the
gift of penance to bewail his sins. However, he had confidence in
Columcille's prediction, so he sent a message to the Abbot of Hy to ask
whether he should go there in person to do penance, or, if not, what
soul's-friend the Abbot would recommend him. Segienus, then Abbot of Hy,
sent back word to the king, that his confessor would come to him from the
south, and he very likely asked, at the same time, Cummian to visit the
monarch. This message was attributed, in accordance with the custom of the
times, to Columcille himself. It is preserved by the scholiast on
Cummian's hymn, and is to the following effect:--
"A Doctor who shall come from the south,
It is with him (Domhnall) shall find what he wants;
He will bring _Communion_ to his house,
To the excellent grandson of Ainmire."
There is a play on the word _Communion_ which in Irish is the same, or
almost the same, as _Cummian_, the man's name.
Thus, it came to pass, whether by accident or design, that Cummian, the
great _Saoi_ or Doctor of the south, came all the way to Derry to visit
the king, and administer spiritual consolation to him. But it seems the
heart of the king still continued dry and impenitent. Then Cummian had
recourse to prayer, and in order to obtain the gift of tears for his royal
penitent, he composed, in honour of the Apostles, the very striking hymn
in the _Liber Hymnorum_. It seems that this poetic prayer was efficacious;
Domhnall became a sincere penitent, bewailing his sins with floods of
tears. The prediction of Columcille was completely verified, and the Four
Masters tell us that Domhnall died at Ard-folhadh, near Ballymacgrorty, in
the Barony of Tirhugh, "after the victory of penance, for he was a year in
mortal-sickness, and he used to receive the body of Christ every Sunday."
As King Domhnall died in A.D. 642, we may fix this visit of Cummian at
A.D. 640 or 641; the scholiast in the poem that caused the conversion of
the king, tells us expressly, that it was "written in Derry," nigh to the
ancient Aileach, the royal residence of the northern kings.
By far the most important and interesting event in the life of Cummian was
the part he played in the great Paschal controversy. We can at present
give only the merest sketch of the history of this great discussion, so as
to enable our readers to understand Cummian's share in the controversy.
Of course the system of computing the date of Easter in use both in
Ireland and England at the beginning of the seventh century was that which
was introduced by St. Patrick himself, and which he acquired in the
schools of France and Italy. From the very beginning, however, much
diversity of practice existed between the Churches of the East and West,
and even between some Churches in the West itself, in reference to the
date of Easter Day. With a view to secure uniformity as far as possible,
the Synod of Arles, to which Cummian refers, held in A.D. 314, prescribes
in its first canon that the whole world should celebrate the Easter
festival on one and the same day, and that the Pope, _according to
custom_, should notify that day to all the Churches.[195] There were three
British bishops present at that Synod. But the diversity of practice still
continued, to the joy of the pagans and to the scandal of the faithful.
Then the Nicene Synod intervened in A.D. 325 and commanded all the Eastern
Churches "which heretofore used to celebrate the Pasch with the
Jews,"[196] to celebrate it in future at the same time with the Romans and
with us--so say the prelates of the Synod in their circular letter to the
Egyptian Churches. Constantine, the Emperor, in his own circular says that
the Synod agrees that all should celebrate the Pasch on the same day, but
that it should never be on the same day with the Jews; and Cyril of
Alexandria states, and Leo the Great confirms the statement, that the
Alexandrian Church was to calculate the dates, and then notify them to the
Roman Church, which was to convey the information to the other Churches.
This was virtually adopting the Alexandrian cycle of nineteen years--which
was very different from the Roman cycle. Then at Alexandria the equinox
was rightly fixed on the 21st March, at Rome it was the 18th; at
Alexandria they celebrated Easter on the 15th day of the moon, _when the
14th was a Saturday_; at Rome they did not celebrate Easter in any
circumstances before the 16th day of the moon--assuming that as the 14th
day represented Good Friday, the Pasch of the Passion, Easter Sunday, the
Pasch of the Resurrection, could not rightly take place before the 16th.
It is curious that Cummian in his Epistle supports this opinion, although
Bede makes the 15th of the moon a possible Easter Sunday, and such is
still the usage. A diversity of practice, therefore, between Rome and
Alexandria still continued for many years. However, the Alexandrian usage
ultimately prevailed, but was finally accepted in the Western World only
about A.D. 530, when explained and developed by Dionysius Exiguus.
This, the correct system, therefore, lays down three principles. First,
Easter Day must be always a Sunday, never on, but _next after_ the 14th
day of the moon. Secondly, that 14th day, or the full moon, should be that
on or next after the vernal equinox; and thirdly, the equinox itself was
invariably assigned to the 21st of March.
Whilst, however, the Continental Churches aimed at uniformity after a
troublesome experience of their own errors, the Irish and British
Churches, practically isolated from their neighbours, tenaciously clung to
the system introduced by St. Patrick. It was the system of their sainted
fathers, and that was enough for them. So when Augustine and his
companions, having partially converted the Saxons, came into contact with
the Christians of the north of England, they were much scandalized at
their celebrating Easter at a different time from the rest of the world.
They remonstrated, but in vain; the Scots of England and Ireland would not
change their ways; some of them would not even eat with the newcomers; the
Britons of Wales refused to aid them in converting the Saxons. Colman,
after his discussion with Wilfred at Whitby, refuted but not convinced,
left England with his monks and sailed away to a lonely island in his
native Mayo, rather than give up his Irish tonsure and his Irish Easter.
Columbanus was equally obdurate in France, and the Abbots of Hy for a
hundred years more tenaciously adhered to the traditions of their own
great founder. But all Ireland was not equally stubborn, and the
Southerns yielded first.
The English Prelates, Laurence of Canterbury, Millitus of London, and
Justus of Rochester, shortly after the death of Augustine, addressed a
letter to "their most dear brothers the Lords, Bishops, and Abbots
throughout all Ireland (Scotia)," admonishing them to give up their
"errors" in reference to Easter, and celebrate it in conformity with the
Universal Church. But the Irishmen appear to have taken no notice of this
document, for it looked like an attempt to assert a spiritual supremacy
over the "Scots" which they always vigorously repudiated.
Millitus afterwards went to Rome, and others, too, going there after him
spoke of the errors and contumacy of the Scots in this matter of Easter as
well as in some other things also. So Pope Honorius, about the year A.D.
629, addressed an admonition to the pastors of the Irish Church, sharply
rebuking them for their pertinacity in their erroneous practices,
especially in reference to Easter, and calling upon them to act
thenceforward in conformity with the Universal Church.
The main charge brought against the Irish, so far as we can gather from
Bede and Cummian, was that they celebrated Easter from the 14th to the
20th day of the moon, thus celebrating it on the same day with the Jews,
viz., the 14th, _if that should happen to be Sunday_, which was contrary
to the express prohibition of the Council of Nice. Most certainly they did
not celebrate it with the heretical Quartodecimans on the 14th day of the
moon, no matter what day of the week it might happen to be--they never
celebrated Easter on any day but a Sunday, as both Bede and Cummian
expressly admit. Cummian says that St. Patrick assigned the equinox to the
21st of March, but their cycle was the older Roman cycle of eighty-four
years, not the new and more correct cycle of nineteen years adopted first
at Alexandria and afterwards at Rome. The main charge, however, was
opposition to the Universal Church in celebrating Easter from the 14th to
the 20th of the moon, because the 14th of Nisan being the Jewish festival
was, by the Council of Nice, declared unlawful for the Christian festival.
How, then, could St. Patrick have come to admit the 14th of the moon in
any circumstances as a lawful date for Easter Day? This is a difficult
point not yet clearly determined. We rather think that this usage of
celebrating Easter on the 14th of Nisan, if it fell on Sunday, was
retained in several of the Gallican Churches even after the Council of
Nice. The Council itself expressly tells us that it was retained up to its
own time in the Eastern Churches. Now, Eastern influence and Eastern
customs prevailed to a considerable extent in Southern Gaul during the
fifth century. The great monastery of Lerins was founded about A.D. 410,
and from its cloisters issued the greatest prelates of Southern France.
John Cassian came from the East, and, as we know, was imbued with Eastern
ideas--Cassian, the greatest man of his time, so holy, so learned, and so
amiable, was a monk of Lerins, and in A.D. 415 founded the great monastery
of St. Victor, where Eastern ideas were also prevalent. It is not unlikely
that St. Patrick derived his Paschal computation from these monasteries,
or from some of the great scholars who issued from their cloisters.
Be that as it may, when the Irish clergy received the admonition of Pope
Honorius, they convened a National Synod, which met at a place called Magh
Lene, or Campus Lene, in the ancient Feara-Ceall, close to Rahan, in the
King's County. Cummian, in his epistle, incidentally tells us almost all
we know of this important Synod. The successors of Ailbe, of Ciaran of
Clonmacnoise, of Brendan, of Nessan, of Molua, were there assembled about
the year A.D. 630. The result of their deliberations was "to receive
humbly and without hesitation" the doctrines and practices brought to them
from the Holy See as their forefathers had commanded them, and therefore
they resolved to celebrate Easter next year, and thenceforward with the
Universal Church. But shortly after a "whitened wall" rising up amongst
them caused disunion, under pretext of urging them to preserve the
traditions of the elders. At last a compromise was adopted, and it was
resolved to send messengers to Rome to see with their own eyes what was
the custom of the Holy City in reference to the celebration of Easter. The
messengers returned in the third year, and told them how they saw
strangers from the whole world keeping the Roman Easter in the Church of
Peter. Many wondrous cures were also wrought by the relics of the martyrs
which they had brought with them from Rome, so it was resolved
thenceforward to celebrate Easter on the same day with "their mother the
Church of Rome;" and that resolution was faithfully carried out in the
southern and midland parts of the kingdom, which were principally
represented at the Synod. The north still held out, mainly through the
influence and example of the great monastery of Iona and its dependent
houses in Ireland. It was to try and induce Segienus, Abbot of Hy, to
give up the ancient usage, and like the rest of the world, to adopt the
Roman practice, that Cummian, probably at the request of the Synod, wrote
this Paschal Epistle. He was favourably known in Iona, as we have already
seen; his learning and sanctity were greatly respected there, and having
given special study to the question, he not unnaturally thought he might
be able to persuade the abbot to give up the old Columbian usage. Though
he failed in the attempt, his letter was carefully preserved, and either
the original, or a copy, was carried by refugees from Iona to St. Gall,
where it was fortunately secured for posterity.
The epistle begins with the motto or inscription: "I confide in the Divine
Name of the Supreme God"--and is addressed by its author, who calls
himself a suppliant sinner, to the Abbot Segienus, successor of St.
Columba, and of other saints, and to the Solitary Beccan,[197] "my brother
in the flesh and in the spirit." The following is a brief analysis of this
most interesting monument of our early Irish Church.
First of all the writer humbly apologises for presuming to address these
holy men, and he calls God to witness that in celebrating the Paschal
solemnity with the learned generally he does so in no spirit of pride or
contempt for others. For when the new (Dionysian) cycle of 532 years was
first introduced into Ireland, he did not at once accept it, but held his
peace, not presuming to praise or censure either party.
For he did not think himself wiser than the Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins,
nor did he venture to disdain the food he had not yet tasted; he rather
retired for a whole year into the sanctuary of sacred study,[198] to
examine as best he could the testimonies of Scripture, the facts of
history, and the nature of the various cycles in use. The results of this
year's study he sums up in this epistle. He first proceeds to explain from
Scripture the proper date of the Jewish Pasch, which, including the days
of unleavened bread, began on the 14th day of the moon, and ended on the
21st; and he quotes St. Jerome, who declares that as Christ is our Pasch,
we must celebrate _that festival_ from the 14th to the 21st day of the
moon (the date with us necessarily varying with the day of the week). But
the Pasch, he says, means the day on which _the lamb was slain_, for our
Saviour himself said, "With longing I have longed to eat this Pasch with
you before I suffer." Hence, the day of Passion in the Christian Festival
can never begin before the 14th day of the moon; then the day of burial
will be the 15th of the moon, and therefore the day of the Resurrection
can never be earlier than the 16th day of the moon; and being always a
Sunday, must be on some day between the 16th and 22nd day of the moon,
inclusive. "For if, he says, as you do, the Resurrection were celebrated
on the 14th of the moon, then the day of burial will be the 13th, and the
day of Passion the 12th, which is preposterous and opposed to the clear
testimony of Scripture."
Then he appeals to the authority of the Ecclesiastical Synods against the
Irish usage. There was, he admits, in the beginning a diversity of
practice even in the Apostolic churches founded by Peter the Key-bearer,
and John the Eagle-pinioned, for the Apostles themselves, driven hither
and thither by persecution, had no time to fix a uniform cycle for all the
Churches. But afterwards "I find it was ordered that all those were to be
excommunicated who dared to act against the statutes of the four Apostolic
Sees of Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria." The Nicene Synod, he
adds, composed of three hundred and eighteen bishops, ordained that the
same rule should be followed in all the Churches of the East and West. The
Synod of Arles also, where six hundred bishops were present, insisted on
uniformity throughout the whole world in the observance of the Pasch,
lest, as St. Jerome observes, we should run the risk of eating the Pasch
contrary to the law, _extra unam domum_, that is, outside the communion of
the Universal Church. "Consider you well, therefore, whether it is the
Hebrews, Greeks, Latins, and Egyptians, united together, that are the
_extra domum_, or a fragment of the Scots and Britains, living at the end
of the world, that form a conventicle separated from the communion of the
Church. You are the leaders of the people; beware how you act, leading
others into error by your obstinacy. Not so our Fathers, whom you pretend
to follow, for they were blameless in their own days, seeing that they
faithfully followed what they thought in their simplicity to be best; but
you can scarcely excuse yourselves for knowingly rejecting the observances
of the Universal Church." The writer then proceeds to insist at great
length on this argument from the practice and authority of the Church; and
recites various passages from St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Cyprian, and
St. Gregory, on the unity of the Church, and the guilt and danger of
schismatical practices. "Non alia Romanae urbis ecclesia, alia totius
orbis aestimanda est," he says, quoting St. Augustine; and then he adds
from St. Jerome, "Si quis Cathedrae S. Petri jungatur meus est
ille,"--communion with Rome was in Cummian's estimation, as in Jerome's,
the test of orthodoxy both in doctrine and discipline. "Can anything," he
says, "be more absurd than to say of our mother the Church--Rome errs,
Jerusalem errs, Antioch errs, and the whole world errs, the Irish (Scoti)
and Britons alone are in the right?" In this part of his letter Cummian
certainly displays not only great learning, but also great vigour and
eloquence of style.
Lastly, he discusses the various cycles in use at different periods, and
although he found much diversity with various nations, "you," he says,
"have one of your own quite different from them all. First, there is the
Paschal cycle introduced by St. Patrick,[199] our spiritual Father (Papa
nostra), according to which the Æquinox was assigned to the 21st of March,
and Easter day ranged from the 14th to the 21st day of the moon." He then
refers to the cycles of Anatolius, Theophilus, Dionysius, Cyril, Morinus,
Augustine, Victorius, and lastly he mentions the cycle of Pachomius to
whom an angel revealed the proper way to calculate Easter--cycle meaning,
it would seem, the special manner of calculating Easter peculiar to each.
He then refers to the cycle of nineteen years adopted by the Nicene
Fathers, calling it by its Greek name--ἑννεά-καιδεκατήριδα--which, he
adds, might enable them to ascertain the date of Easter with sufficient
accuracy. "It is, as I find, quite different from yours in its kalends,
its bissextile, in its epact, in its fourteenth moon, in its first month,
and in its equinox." This is an important passage, because it shows that
the Irish cycle was in every respect different from the cycle of nineteen
years as adopted by the Church of Alexandria. He then refers to St. Cyril,
and the cycle of Victoricius, clearly showing that he was familiar with
the entire subject, and probably had in his hands some works which we no
longer possess.
After referring to the Synod of the Campus Lene, as explained above, and
the appeal to Rome in accordance with the ancient statute (mandatum) of
the Irish Church, he goes on to say that according to the synodical
decree[200] all such "causae majores ad caput urbium sunt referenda."
This refers to the decree of the Synod of Patrick, Auxilius, and
Iserninus, bidding the Irish prelates if any cause of disunion arose, to
go to the place which the Lord hath chosen (to Rome, the 'caput urbium')
for the decision of these more important causes, "so we sent there certain
wise and humble men, whom we knew, as children to their mother." And they
returned in the third year, and told us what they had seen and heard, and
how in the Church of St. Peter, the common hospice of all the faithful,
Greeks and Hebrews, Scythians and Egyptians--"all celebrated Easter on the
same day, which differed an entire month from our own, and we saw with our
own eyes many miracles wrought by the relics of the saints and martyrs
which they had carried home with them from the holy city." In conclusion,
he adds that he had not written to attack them but to defend the truth; he
apologises for any wrong or harsh words that might have fallen from him,
and in the last sentence implores on them all the strong blessing of the
Holy Trinity to guard them from all evil.
This remarkable epistle affords a striking proof, not only of Cummian's
own learning, but of the high efficiency of the schools of his native
land, in which he studied. He gives the Hebrew, Greek and Egyptian names
of the first lunar month. He refers to almost every cycle, and emendation
of a cycle, of which we have any account, briefly, indeed, but
sufficiently to show that he was acquainted with them, and with the
decrees of synods, and with the passages of the Fathers that make
reference to them. Above all things, he insists upon the unity of the
Church, and incontestably establishes the Irish tradition in his own time,
that the Irish Church was founded from Rome, that Rome is the Source of
Unity, the final Court of Appeal, and the Mother of the Irish, as of all
other Churches. The text is unfortunately somewhat corrupt, and the style
wants polish; but, though in this respect Cummian is inferior to several
Irish writers of the seventeenth century, his Latin is much superior to
that of several ecclesiastical documents that we have seen in our own
nineteenth century.
The _Liber de Mensura Poenitentiarum_, cannot with certainty be ascribed
to Cummian Fada; but it is highly probable that he was the author. It was
preserved like so many other invaluable Irish MSS., in the Monastery of
St. Gall, and has been published in the _Bibliotheca Patrum_, and,
together with the Paschal Epistle, has been republished by Migne.[201]
We have seen that Cummian was regarded by the Abbot of Hy as a great
moralist, and it may be that the same Segienus was the "faithful friend,"
whom the author addresses--mi fidelissime--in the prologue. The treatise
consists of fourteen chapters, giving the canonical penances assigned to
sins of various kinds. It treats of these sins in the most minute detail,
but contains little original matter; for the penances are, in most cases,
taken from the works of the Fathers and the penitential canons of various
early Councils. But it shows how carefully these matters were attended to
in our early Irish Church, and is another striking monument of its
ecclesiastical learning.
Cummian Fada has not unfrequently been confounded with Cummian Finn, the
nephew of Segienus, Abbot of Hy. The latter wrote a life of St. Columba,
to which Adamnan refers, and most of which he, Adamnan, inserted in the
Third Book of his own Life of St. Columba. The Paschal Epistle has also
been attributed to him, but without any grounds. The intrinsic evidence of
the letter itself shows that it was written by a prelate of the southern
half of Ireland; he speaks of Ailbe, Brendan, and the rest as "our fathers
and predecessors;" he had accepted the Roman usage which Hy and its family
refused to accept for many years after; and he uses in reference to St.
Peter the very peculiar expression, "clavicularis," which is also used by
the author of the poem in honour of the Apostles, which was undoubtedly
the work of Cummian Fada, the Bishop of Clonfert.
The Four Masters say that "St. Cummian Fada, son of Fiachna, Bishop of
Cluainfearta Brennain, died on the 12th of November, 661," which is his
festival day. The entry of the death of his beloved tutor, St. Colman
O'Cluasaigh, is marked a little later on as happening in the same year,
and therefore towards its close. Colman, however, lived long enough after
Cummian to compose an elegy on his death. The Four Masters have preserved
a few lines, which may be thus translated:--
"No bark o'er Luimneach's bosom bore,
From Munster to the Northern shore,
A prize so rich in battle won,
As Cummian's corpse, great Fiachna's son.
Of Erin's priests, it were not meet
That one should sit in Gregory's Seat,
Except that Cummian crossed the sea,
For he Rome's ruler well might be.
Ah! woe is me, at Cummian's bier
My eyelids drop the ceaseless tear;
The pain, of hopeless anguish bred,
Will burst my heart since Cummian's dead."
The poet's verse was true--Colman died within a month of his pupil to whom
he was so deeply and tenderly attached. We may infer, too, from these
verses that Cummian died at home in his native Kerry, but that his remains
were carried up the Shannon in a boat to his own Cathedral of Clonfert,
where he was interred. The Four Masters tell us that in A.D. 1162 the
"relics of Maeinenn and of Cummian Fada[202] were removed from the earth
by the clergy of Brenainn (that is, of Clonfert), and they were enclosed
in a protecting shrine." So far as we know there is no account to be had
now of the existence of this shrine.
IV.--SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF CLONFERT.
Frequent reference is subsequently made in our Annals to the monastery and
See of Clonfert, but it is oftentimes a saddening record. Its buildings
were four times plundered, and six times burnt. Nor was this the work of
the Danes alone. The degenerate chieftains of Ireland too frequently
followed their bad example, and provoked Divine vengeance by unspeakable
acts of sacrilege, especially during the tenth and eleventh centuries.
In A.D. 838, Turgesius brought a great fleet to Lough Ree, which he
stationed there for the express purpose of harrying the banks and islands
of the Shannon. He plundered and burnt Clonfert, Clonmacnoise, and indeed
all the monasteries and churches from Lanesborough to Limerick, which were
within reach of his marauders; and not once but frequently between the
years A.D. 838 and 845. Yet strange to say it is stated in the old _Annals
of Innisfallen_, that Feidhlimidh, son of Crimthann, King of Munster, had
a friendly conference with Niall, son of Hugh, King of Ulster, in the year
A.D. 840, at Clonfert, and there received Niall's homage as High King, and
sat in the seat of the abbots of Clonfert.
Still the schools were not entirely destroyed, for in A.D. 868 is recorded
the death of Cormac--Steward, Scribe, and Doctor of Clonfert-Brenainn. It
was well that God then called him away, for next year, in A.D. 869, came
Earl Tomrar with his warriors from Limerick to Clonfert. "He was a fierce,
cruel, rough man of the Lochlans;" and hoped to obtain a great prey in the
church and monastery. But he was disappointed, for the brethren heard of
his approach, and fled expertly before him, as the Annals tell us, some in
boats, and some into the surrounding morasses. Others took refuge in the
church, but the disappointed freebooter killed them all, both those whom
he found in the church and in the cemetery. Tomrar, however, died of
madness three days afterwards, "for Brendan wrought a miracle upon him for
plundering his monastery and killing his monks." In A.D. 949, Ceallachan,
King of Cashel, plundered the monastery of Clonfert. But the men of
Munster were not without rivals in their deeds of sacrilege. In A.D. 1031
Art O'Rorke, surnamed the 'Cock,' plundered the monastery once more, but
providentially when returning laden with his pillage, he fell in with
Doncha, son of Brian, who defeated him and his followers with great
slaughter.
Some thirty years later in A.D. 1065, Aedh O'Rorke and Diarmaid O'Kelly
plundered Clonfert and Clonmacnoise, and once more speedy vengeance
overtook the robbers; for Aedh O'Connor came against them and defeated
them through the miracles of Ciaran and Brenainn, whose churches they had
plundered. A bloody slaughter was made by Aedh, and, moreover, he captured
or sunk their boats, and drove great numbers of the plunderers into the
river. Yet the monastery and School of Clonfert still lived on down to the
advent of the Anglo-Normans, for in the year A.D. 1170, is recorded the
death of Cormac O'Lumluini, whom the Four Masters in pathetic language
describe as the remnant of the Sages of Erin. The subsequent history of
the School and See of Clonfert is foreign to our present purpose.
The old Cathedral of Clonfert still survives, and is one of the few of our
ancient buildings now used for religious worship. It has passed, however,
from Catholic hands, and will, doubtless, soon be abandoned by the
Protestants too, for the few persons who attend divine worship in the old
Cathedral of St. Brendan can hardly be called a congregation.
The church consisted of a nave with a western tower in the centre, and a
chancel with two transepts branching nearly at the centre of the nave. The
building is small, the nave being 54 feet by 27 in the clear, but very
beautiful. The western doorway is described with great fulness of detail
by Brash (p. 43), who declares that in point of design and execution, it
is not excelled by any similar work that he has seen in these islands.
There is not, he says, a square inch of any portion of this beautiful
doorway, with its six orders of shafts and arches, that is without the
mark of the sculptor's tool, every bit of the work being finished with
the greatest accuracy. Romanesque and Norman porches and doorways, he
adds, exist of grander proportions, but none exhibiting the fertility of
invention and beauty of design which this one does.
The altar window of the chancel is also greatly praised by the same
competent authority. "The design of this window is exceedingly chaste and
beautiful, the mouldings simple and effective, and the workmanship
superior to anything I have seen either of ancient or modern times. The
mouldings are finely wrought, and the pointing of the stone work so close,
that I cannot believe they were ever worked by tools."[203]
He says the work is, in his opinion, of the twelfth century, and he is
inclined to attribute its building to the celebrated Peter O'Mordha, a
Cistercian monk, who was first Abbot of Boyle, and afterwards became
Bishop of Clonfert. He was unfortunately drowned in the Shannon two days
after Christmas Day, in the year A.D. 1171. With him we may fitly close
the history of the School of Clonfert.
CHAPTER XI.
THE SCHOOL OF MOVILLE.
----"Transfigured Life!
This was the glory, that, without a sigh,
Who loved thee, yet could leave thee."
I.--ST. FINNIAN OF MOVILLE.
There are two saints of the same name whom it is absolutely necessary to
keep distinct in dealing with the literary history of the early Irish
Church--St. Finnian of Clonard, and St. Finnian of Moville. We have
already spoken of the former; we now propose to speak of the latter and of
the great school of which he was the founder.
Moville, or Movilla, is at present the name of a townland less than a mile
to the north-east of Newtownards, at the head of Strangford Lough, in the
county Down. This district was in ancient times famous for its great
religious establishments. Bangor, to which we shall refer presently, is
not quite five miles due north of Moville. Newtownards, as its name
implies, is a much more modern place, but it was the seat of a great
Dominican Priory almost since the first advent of the Friar Preachers to
Ireland. Comber, a few miles to the west at the head of Strangford Lough,
contained both a Cistercian and an Augustinian Monastery. Abbey Grey, on
the opposite or eastern shore of the Lough, had another great Cistercian
house, founded by John de Courcy, the conqueror, and, we must add, the
plunderer of Ulster. Further south, but on the western shore of the same
Lough, anciently called Lough Cuan, were the Abbey of Inch, the famous
Church of Saul, in which St. Patrick died, and the Church of Downpatrick,
in which he was buried with SS. Brigid and Columcille. And in one of the
islands in the same Strangford Lough, now called Island Mahee, quite close
to the western shore, was that ancient monastery and school of Noendrum,
of which we have already spoken. Religious men from the beginning loved to
build their houses and churches in view of this beautiful sheet of water,
with its myriad islands and fertile shores, bounded in the distance by
swelling uplands, that lend a charming variety to this rich and populous
and highly cultivated county.
Of the boyhood and education of St. Finnian little is known with
certainty. He belonged to the noble family of the Dalfiatach, who seem to
have been dynasts of the district to the north of this great inlet of the
sea, which they called Lough Cuan. He was probably born some years before
the beginning of the sixth century. His first teacher was St. Colman,
afterwards Bishop of Dromore, who at that time seems to have been himself
under the guidance and instruction of St. Mochae in the Island of
Noendrum, but known at present as Island Mahee, in Strangford Lough.
Colman became a favourite pupil of Mochae, who, when he himself was
growing old, seems to have entrusted him with the care of the younger boys
who had come to the island seminary to be trained up by these great
masters in learning and piety. It is said that, on one occasion St. Colman
was going to chastise the young Finnian for some real or imaginary fault,
when he felt his hand invisibly restrained by an angel, and he thereupon
declared that he was unworthy to be entrusted with the care of so holy a
youth, and that henceforward he would resign that office, so far as
Finnian was concerned, to St. Mochae himself. This story at least shows
that the young boy made great progress in virtue and wisdom under the
guidance of both these holy men on the Island of Noendrum.
Now it came to pass whilst Finnian was at Noendrum, under the care of St.
Mochae, that "ships" came from Britain into Strangford Lough, and cast
anchor in front of the island. On board these vessels was a certain bishop
called Nennio, who, with several of his disciples, had come from the
famous monastery called Candida Casa, on the opposite shores of Galloway,
to pay a visit to the religious family of Noendrum. We know from the lives
of our early saints that this was no unusual occurrence. In those early
days religious men were inspired with a spirit of spiritual enterprise,
and several of them made it a point to visit the most renowned saints both
in Ireland and Britain, in order to benefit by their instruction and
example.
As we have seen, Candida Casa, or the White House was a stone church built
on the extremity of a promontory in Galloway, about the year A.D. 397, by
the great St. Ninian, the first apostle of the Northern Britons, at least
after the departure of the Romans. It is true Christianity had been
previously known in the district, for St. Patrick himself was in all
probability a native of the valley of the Clyde, and was a captive in
Ireland about the very time that St. Ninian first came to Galloway. But
after the withdrawal of the Roman troops from the northern province the
district was overrun by the Picts and Scots, so that the remnants of the
faithful were almost all driven out from the Lowlands of Scotland.
Ninian, who was a native of the district, had been educated in Rome during
the pontificate of Pope Damasus, and later on returned to preach the
Gospel anew in his native land. On his way he stopped for a short time at
Tours, to pay a visit to St. Martin, the most prominent figure at the time
in Christendom. It was from St. Martin, as Bede informs us, that he got
the masons through whose means he was able to build the first stone church
in Britain. The people had never before seen anything of the kind--they
had no stone houses and no masons able to build them--hence in their
admiration they called the new building the White House, to signify, just
as the Americans do, that it was the grandest building in the kingdom. We
are enabled to fix the date of its erection, because it is distinctly
stated that during the progress of the work Ninian heard of the death of
St. Martin of Tours, and dedicated the new church to him, which could only
be done after his death, that is, about the year A.D. 397--some
thirty-five years before St. Patrick began to preach in Ireland.
It cannot have been St. Ninian himself under whom St. Finnian studied at
the Candida Casa, which was founded at least a hundred years before the
date of this visit. In some of the lives his teacher is called
Nennio,[204] in others Mugentius (see Colgan, page 633). It seems,
certain, however, that young Finnian, thirsty for sacred knowledge, begged
permission from St. Mochae to accompany the visitors on their return to
the White House. The permission was readily granted; so, gliding southward
in their boats between the multitudinous islands of Lough Cuan, they were
carried out to sea through its narrow mouth by the swiftly receding tide,
and then spreading every sail to catch the western breeze a few hours
would bring them across the narrow channel that separates the Ards of Down
from the Mull of Galloway. At the southern extremity of the inner
promontory of Wigtown, there is a very small island which still bears the
name of the Isle of Whithern. On this island are the ruins of an old
church, which is probably all that now remains of the Candida Casa--a spot
like Aran, Glastonbury, and Iona, to be ever venerated as one of the
cradles of Celtic Christianity.
How long Finnian remained at Candida Casa cannot be exactly ascertained;
but it was at least long enough to acquire the learning and discipline of
the place in which, according to some accounts, he succeeded so well as to
incur the bitter jealousy of his master.
The original founder of the Candida Casa had been educated at Rome, and no
doubt the thoughts of its inmates were from time to time turned to the
school of their great founder. Finnian, at least, resolved to go to the
fountain head, and so, putting on his wallet and grasping his pilgrim
staff, he set out upon his long journey. It was much more difficult and
dangerous then to go to Rome than it is now, but these heroic Christian
men despised dangers and hardships. Their life was a warfare for Christ;
so they cared little when or where they fell in their Master's cause.
Besides, they were never refused hospitality at the religious houses where
they called, and even the rude mariners welcomed on board their vessels a
holy man whose prayers were strong to calm the wrath of tempestuous seas.
Finnian spent three months at Rome "learning the Apostolical customs and
the Ecclesiastical Laws," and then resolved to return to his native land.
But he bore with him from Rome a priceless treasure, or, as the
_Martyrology of Ængus_ calls it "yellow gold from over the sea;" not,
however, yellow gold from the mine, but what our Celtic fathers valued
more, the pure red gold of the Gospel corrected by the great St. Jerome
and formally sanctioned by the Pope as the authentic text. The Vulgate, as
we now have it, is substantially the work of St. Jerome to this extent,
that he corrected the New Testament of the Old Vulgate; he translated from
the Hebrew the proto-canonical books of the Old Testament; and moreover
corrected the deutero-canonical books of the Old Testament according to
the best MSS. of the Septuagint. It is, however, his correction, and not
his own translation from the Hebrew, which under the name of the Gallican
Psaltery, is still retained in our Latin Vulgate. But although this great
work had been performed with the sanction of the Popes between the years
A.D. 383 and 403, yet two hundred years elapsed before this version came
into general use; and though it was commonly, it was not yet exclusively
used even when St. Finnian was in Rome, between, A.D. 530 and 540. It was,
however, a great improvement on the previous version, and as such highly
valued by all scholars. It seems, however, that the new version had not
been hitherto introduced into Ireland, and so special mention is made of
Finnian's copy in the _Calendar of Cashel_ quoted by Colgan--"Finnian the
White, of Maghbile (Moville); it was he who first carried into Ireland the
Mosaic Law and the whole Gospel"--meaning thereby that it was he who first
brought the first _integral_ copy of St. Jerome's Vulgate, which
afterwards came into exclusive use in the Irish as in the other churches.
Colgan identifies St. Finnian of Moville with St. Fridian, or Frigidian,
who became bishop of Lucca in Italy about the middle of the sixth century.
There are undoubtedly several facts narrated in the lives of both that go
to establish this identity; but there is one great difficulty. According
to the life of Fridian he died at Lucca, where it is said his blessed body
is still preserved and reverenced; but according to the ancient _Life of
St. Comgall_ of Bangor and the local traditions, Finnian the bishop, or
Finbarr, as he is often called, "sleeps amid many miracles in his own city
of Maghbile."
Finnian is said to have returned to Ireland and founded his school at
Moville about the year A.D. 540, that is some twenty years after his
namesake of Clonard had opened his own great school on the banks of the
Boyne. The name _Maghbile_ means the _plain of the old tree_, probably
referring to some venerable oak reverenced by the Druids before the advent
of St. Patrick. At present there is nothing of the ancient abbey-school
except a few venerable yews to mark the city of the dead, and an old
ruined church on the line of the high road from Newtownards to Donaghadee.
This old church, which was one hundred and seven feet in length, in all
probability did not date back to the original foundation of the place,
although it undoubtedly stands on the site of St. Finnian's original
church. The spot was aptly chosen, sheltered by an amphitheatre of hills
from the winds of the north and east, and commanding far away to the south
a noble prospect of Lough Cuan's verdant islets and glancing waters.
The most famous pupil of this infant seminary was St. Columba, the light
of all the Celtic west. If the incident to which Adamnan refers[205] in
his _Life of St. Columba_ be understood of Moville rather than Clonard, it
seems that at this period Columba was studying Sacred Scripture under
Finnian, that he was then a deacon, and on one occasion when the wine
failed for the Holy Sacrifice, he went with the cruet to the neighbouring
well (since closed up, but within living memory), and blessing the water,
it was changed into wine, with which the Holy Sacrifice was duly offered
up on that Festival Day.
There is another very celebrated incident recorded of SS. Finnian and
Columcille, which seems to have really happened, and produced consequences
of great import in the designs of Providence.
As we have seen, Finnian had brought from Rome a copy of the entire Bible,
partly translated, partly corrected by St. Jerome. Very naturally this
copy was highly prized and jealously guarded by the saint, for if any part
were lost or injured the damage might have been, at least for him,
irreparable. Now, the young Columba was an ardent student of the sacred
volume; and especially he was anxious to get a copy of the new Psaltery,
which most of our early saints were in the habit of reading daily. In
truth it was their Breviary, and in their estimation was the greatest of
their treasures. So Columba begged Finnian to allow him to make a copy of
the Gallic Psaltery, as we now have it in the Vulgate, but Finnian,
fearing for his treasure "of pure red gold," would not allow him, lest the
manuscript might be lost or injured. Then Columba, finding a suitable
opportunity, stealthily transcribed the Psalter, remaining up all night
for the purpose, so that when Finnian came to his cell he found Columba
hard at work at midnight, and, lo! a divine radiance illuminated his cell.
Next day Finnian sought his manuscript, and Columba confessed that he had
made the copy without his permission. Finnian thereupon demanded the copy,
but Columba claimed it as his own--it was the fruit of his labour, and the
original was uninjured. Nevertheless, as Finnian persisted in his demand,
it was agreed to leave the matter to the arbitration of King Diarmaid at
Tara. Tara was not far from Druim-fhinn (now Drumin in Louth) where this
incident is said to have taken place. The king heard the parties, and then
pronounced his award: "The calf goes with the cow, and the son-book, or
copy, must go with the mother-book, or original."[206] The decision was
not equitable, and Columba was sore distressed. Moreover, it came to pass
that a young prince, Curnan by name, accidentally killed a companion at
court, and fled for refuge to Columba, who was then standing near at hand.
But the king had him dragged from the protection of the saint and slain on
the spot. Columba, thus doubly wronged, fled from Tara, and told his royal
kinsmen how he had been treated by King Diarmaid. They at once flew to
arms to avenge the insults offered to a prince of Conal Gulban's royal
line, whose holiness moreover even then was celebrated through all the
North. They gathered together a mighty army--all the Clanna Niall of the
North--and met the monarch and his forces at a place called Cuil-Dreimhne
(now Cooldrummon) in the parish of Drumcliff, to the north of Sligo. In
the bloody battle which followed, the forces of king Diarmaid were nearly
annihilated--but Columcille was praying for his kinsmen during the battle,
and so they nearly all escaped, whilst the enemy was destroyed. The
Psalter, too, it seems, became the prize of the victors, and the most
famous heirloom in the family of the O'Donnells. But the blood shed on
this occasion weighed heavily on the conscience of Columba, although he
may have been the innocent cause of it; and for his share in this battle
he narrowly escaped excommunication at the hands of the saints of Ireland
later on. With heroic fortitude, however, he accepted the penance imposed
upon him by St. Molaise of Innismurray at the cross of Ahamlish in
Sligo--to go to foreign lands to preach the Gospel and never look upon his
native land again. The saint obeyed and, it is said, religiously kept his
vow--for though he returned to Ireland again at the high call of duty, he
bandaged his aged eyes with a cloth, so that they were never gladdened
even with one glance of the green hills of his native land, which he loved
with even more than the passionate tenderness of the Irish heart. He gave
expression to his bitter grief in several touching poems, written in the
sweet and musical tongue of Erin.
The copy of St. Finnian's Psaltery furtively made by Columcille has had a
very strange, eventful history, and is perhaps the most interesting of our
ancient relics. At present the manuscript, with the casket which contains
it, is the property of Sir Richard O'Donnell of Newport in the County
Mayo; but it is preserved for public inspection in the strong room of the
Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. It is known as the Cathach, or Battler,
from the Irish word _Cath_, a battle; and was so called because if carried
three times around O'Donnell's host, in battle, on the breast of a priest
free from mortal sin, it was sure to bring victory to the clan. Columcille
was himself great grandson of Conal Gulban, the great sire of all the
Cinel Conal. He thus became the patron of that warlike clan; in defence of
his honour and to maintain his right to this very Psalter, they fought the
great battle of Cuildreimhne, and they won the victory through his strong
prayers. So it was only natural that the Psalter on earth and the saint in
heaven should still be shield and buckler for the clan in the hour of
danger.
And so indeed it was. But St. Cailin of Fenagh had told them to guard it
well, and above all to see that it never fell into the hands of the
foreigner, for that day would work woe for Erin and confusion to the
O'Donnells. Thus it became the most precious treasure of the Clan-Conal,
and not a man of them that was not ready to die in its defence on the
field of battle. Moreover, they appointed as hereditary guardians of the
Cathach, the family of McRobartaigh--now McGroarty--and assigned for their
maintenance the lands still called from them Ballymacgroarty, in the
parish of Drumhome, county Donegal. The casket, or _cumdach_, in which
this treasure was contained, bears an inscription in Irish on three sides
to this effect:--"Pray for Cathbarr O'Donnell for whom this casket was
made, and for Sitric, son of Mac Aedha, who made it, and for Domnall
MacRobartaigh (abbot) of Kells at whose house it was made." The casket
itself is of the most exquisite workmanship, and this inscription proves
that it was made at the expense of Cathbarr O'Donnell, chief of his name
in Donegal about the end of the eleventh century--he died in A.D. 1106. It
was made, however, in the Abbey of Kells, which had been founded by
Columcille, and was then ruled by a member of that very family of
McGroarty, who were the hereditary custodians of the Cathach. The
McGroartys were more faithful to their trust than the McMoyres, who had
the custody of the _Book of Armagh_, and several members of the family met
their death in defence of their sacred charge. In A.D. 1497 Con O'Donnell
led an army against McDermott of Moylurg; but he and his troops were
defeated, and "the Cathach of Columcille was also taken from them, and
McGroarty, the keeper of it, was slain." It was restored, however, two
years later. Again, in A.D. 1567, McGroarty, the keeper of the Cathach,
was slain in a fratricidal conflict between the O'Donnells and O'Neills on
the shore of Lough Swilly. In A.D. 1647, when John Colgan wrote, it was
still, he tells us, in his own native county of Donegal. Daniel O'Donnell,
who fought well for King James, carried it with him to the Continent, and
had a new rim fixed on the casket with his name and the date, A.D. 1723.
He died in A.D. 1735, leaving this precious relic on the Continent, where
it remained until 1802, when it was claimed and recovered by Sir Neal
O'Donnell of Newport in the county Mayo, from whom it passed to its
present owner, Sir Richard O'Donnell.
It was deemed a heinous crime to open the sacred casket, and the widow of
Sir Neal actually brought an action in the Court of Chancery in 1814
against Sir W. Betham, Ulster King-at-Arms, for daring to open the casket
without her permission. His crime at any rate gratified our curiosity, for
when opened it was found to contain a small wooden box very much decayed.
Within the box was a dark, damp mass, which, on careful and cautions
examination, proved to be a portion of the Psalter in Latin, written in a
neat but hurried hand, of which, however, several folios at the beginning
and end were utterly destroyed by the damp. Fifty-eight leaves remain,
containing the Psalter from the 31st to the 106th psalm. We have examined
the fac-similes published in the first volume of the _National Manuscripts
of Ireland_, and we find that it is a portion of the Gallican Psalter,
that is the Psalter at present in our Latin Vulgate, which was a second
and more careful correction of the then existing Psalter made by St.
Jerome, not according to the Septuagint, like his first correction, the
Roman Psalter, but made according to the Hexaplar Greek of Origen. St.
Columcille's copy is executed with wonderful neatness and accuracy,
containing even the asterisks and obelisks of St. Jerome's correction. We
note these facts to show that the Bible brought from Rome by St. Finnian
was in truth the new and corrected edition of the old Vulgate, which was
just then coming into universal use. This fact is quite enough to explain
St. Columcille's anxiety to get a copy, as well as St. Finnian's fear that
his own treasure might be lost or injured.
Tourists visiting Ireland would do well to examine this venerable memorial
of our ancient Church, as well as the other relics in the Royal Irish
Academy. The casket itself consists of a brass box nine and a half inches
long, eight in breadth, and two in thickness. The top, however, is covered
with a silver plate, richly gilt, chased, and adorned with marvellously
wrought figures of Columcille, the Crucifixion, and other sacred objects.
The corners, too, were set in precious stones--crystals, pearls,
sapphires, and amethysts, many of which, as might be expected, have been
lost. The whole work furnishes a striking proof of the skill of our Celtic
forefathers in metallurgy so early as the eleventh century, when it was
almost lost as an art elsewhere.
St. Finnian composed a Rule for his monks, and a penitential code, which
latter is still extant, and of much interest to antiquarians, as it is,
perhaps, the earliest expression of the discipline of the primitive Irish
Church on this important subject. These penitential canons are fifty-three
in number, and several of them are rather rigorous, at least according to
our relaxed modern notions. In those days men were more in earnest in the
work of saving their souls, and punished with voluntary severity any grave
neglect of this great duty. A penance of seven years was imposed for
perjury, with the additional penalty of setting free a bondsman or
bondswoman. This goes to show that slavery had not yet been abolished in
Ireland; but that the Church took every opportunity of promoting its
abolition, not indeed by violence or injustice, but by the gentler method
of persuasion and mercy. These penitential canons have been published by
Wasserschleben at Halle in 1851, from manuscripts in the libraries of St.
Gall, Paris, and Vienna. There is also extant in MSS. an interesting
romantic dialogue said to have taken place between Tuan Mac Cairill and
Finnian of Moville. In all probability, however, it is a composition of a
much later date, and the dialogue, though highly interesting, is purely
imaginary. There is a copy of this romantic tale in the book known as
_Leabhar na h-Uidhre_, an ancient work said to have been originally
written at Clonmacnoise, in the lifetime of its founder, St. Ciaran.
St. Finnian died in A.D. 589, according to the _Annals of Ulster_, at a
very great age. In those days, when men led temperate and active lives,
free from care, and always rejoicing in God, it was no unusual thing to
live to the age of one hundred, or even one hundred and twenty, like St.
Patrick and St. Kevin of Glendaloch. This date, too, goes to show that
Finnian of Moville was identical with St. Frigidian of Lucca in Italy, for
the death of the latter is assigned to A.D. 588 by Ughelli in his _Italia
Sacra_.[207]
His death was much lamented, for his fame was great throughout all the
land; and all our martyrologists bear testimony to his merits. Marianus
O'Gorman calls him "Finnian with heart devout;" and another writer
exclaims, "O blessed school (of Maghbile) the resting place of Finnian;
how blessed that one saint should be the tutor of his fellow saints." His
festival is celebrated on the 10th of September, the day after the
festival of his contemporary, St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise, and his blessed
relics rest amid many miracles within that old Church of Moville, under
the shadow of its ancient yews, forgotten by men, but watched over by the
angels of God.
There is an ancient poem in the _Saltair na Rann_ on the patron Saints of
the various Irish clans. In the opening stanza Finnian is described as the
patron of Ulidia--the Ulidians, it is said, all stand behind his back,
that is, under his protection. Here it is in poetry:--
"Of Erin all is Patrick judge
On Macha's Royal Hill;
They bless his name with loud acclaim,
Our King by God's high will.
"The Clanna Neil a sheltering oak
Have found in Columcille,
And Uladh's sons are strong behind
Great Finnian of Moville."
St. Finnian was, it seems, a bishop, and his successors in Moville for
some two hundred years are spoken of as bishops; but from A.D. 731 they
are merely described as abbots, and seem to have lost their episcopal
jurisdiction. Still the School of Moville then and long after continued to
flourish, although it appears to have been eclipsed by the brighter flame
of Bangor, its younger neighbour to the north.
In A.D. 730 flourished Colman, son of Murchu, Abbot of Moville, who is
regarded as the author of a Latin hymn of singular beauty preserved in the
famous work known as the _Liber Hymnorum_ now in Trinity College, Dublin.
"Colman, son of Murchu," is described as the author of the hymn, and hence
Dr. Todd very justly regards him as identical with the Abbot of Moville.
The following is an English translation made for the learned Father
O'Laverty, author of the _History of the Diocese of Down and Connor_, by
the late lamented Denis Florence McCarthy, a poet whose own pure heart
could well interpret the soaring aspirations of a saintly soul:--
THE HYMN OF ST. COLMAN, SON OF MURCHU, IN PRAISE OF ST. MICHAEL THE
ARCHANGEL.