COLUMCILLE
The third great patron Saint of Ireland, the man who stands out almost
as conspicuously as St. Patrick himself in the religious history
of the Gael, the most renowned missionary, scribe, scholar, poet,
statesman, anchorite, and school-founder of the sixth century is St.
Columcille.[1] Everything about this remarkable man has conspired to
fix upon him the imagination of the Irish race. He was not, like St.
Patrick, of alien, nor like St. Brigit, of semi-servile birth, but was
sprung from the highest and bluest blood of the Irish, being son of
Felemidh, son of Fergus, son of Conall Gulban--renowned to this day in
saga and romance--son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, that great monarch
of Ireland who ravaged Britain and exacted tributes far and wide from
his conquered enemies.
He was born on the 7th of December, 521,[2] twenty-nine years after
the reputed death of St. Patrick, and four years before that of St.
Brigit, at Gartan[3] in Donegal, a wild but beautiful district of which
his father was the prince. The reigning monarch of Ireland was his
half-uncle, while his mother Ethne was the direct descendant of the
royal line of Cáthaoir [Cauheer] Mór, the regnant family of Leinster,
and he himself would have had some chance of the reversion of the
monarchy had he been minded to press his claims. Reared at Kilmacrenan,
near Gartan, the place where the O'Donnells were afterwards
inaugurated, he received his first teaching at the hands of St. Finnén
or Finnian in his famous school at Moville, for already since Patrick's
death Ireland had become dotted with such small colleges. It was here
at this early age that his school-fellows christened him Colum-cille,
or Colum of the Church, on account of the assiduity with which he
sought the holy building. At this period the Christian clergy and the
bardic order were the only two educational powers in Ireland, and after
leaving St. Finnian, Columcille travelled south into Leinster to a
bard called Gemmán[4] with whom he took lessons. From him he went to
St. Finnén or Finnian of Clonard. While studying at Clonard it was the
custom for each of the students to grind corn in his turn at a quern,
but Columcille's Irish life in the Book of Lismore tells us naïvely, in
true old Irish spirit, "howbeit an angel from heaven used to grind on
behalf of Columcille; that was the honour which the Lord used to render
him because of the eminent nobleness of his race." St. Ciaran [Keeran]
was at this time a fellow-student with him, and Finnian, says the Irish
life, saw one night a vision, "to wit, two moons arose from Clonard,
a golden moon and a silver moon. The golden moon went into the north
of the island, and Ireland and Scotland gleamed under it. The silver
moon went on until it stayed by the Shannon, and Ireland at her centre
gleamed." That, says the author, signified "Columcille with the grace
of his noble kin and his wisdom, and Ciaran with the refulgence of his
virtues and his good deeds."
Leaving Clonard behind him, Columcille passed on to yet another
school--this time to that of Mobhí at Glasnevin, near Dublin, where
there were as many as fifty students at work, living in huts or cells
grouped round an oratory, some of whom were famous men in after-time,
for they included Cainnech and Comgall and Ciaran. A curious incident
is recorded of these three and of Columcille in the Irish life in the
Book of Lismore.
Columcille was driven from Glasnevin by the approach of the great
plague which ravaged the country, and of which his teacher Mobhí died.
"Once on a time," says the author, "a great church was built by Mobhí.
The clerics were considering what each of them would like to have in
the church. 'I should like,' said Ciaran, 'its full of church children
to attend the canonical hours.' 'I should like,' said Cainnech, 'to
have its full of books to serve the sons of life.' 'I should like,'
said Comgall, 'its full of affliction and disease to be in my own
body: to subdue me and repress me.' Then Columcille chose its full
of gold and silver to cover relics and shrines withal. Mobhí said it
should not be so, but that Columcille's community would be wealthier
than any community, whether in Ireland or in Scotland."[5]
Betaking himself northward with a growing reputation, he was offered by
his cousin, then Prince of Aileach, near Derry, and afterwards monarch
of Ireland, the site of a monastery on the so-called island of Derry,
a rising ground of oval shape, covering some two hundred acres, along
the slopes of which flourished a splendid forest of oak-trees, which
gave to the oasis its name of Derry or the oak grove. Columcille,
like all Gaels--and indeed all Celts--was full of love for everything
beautiful in nature, both animate and inanimate, and so careful was he
of his beloved oaks that, contrary to all custom, he would not build
his church with its chancel towards the east, for in that case some
of the oaks would have had to be felled to make room for it. He laid
strict injunctions upon all his successors to spare the lovely grove,
and enjoined that if any of the trees should be blown down some of them
should go for fuel to their own guest-house, and the rest be given to
the people.
This was Columcille's first religious institution, and, like every
man's firstling, it remained dear to him to the last. Years afterwards,
when the thought of it came back to him on the barren shores of Iona,
he expressed himself in passionate Irish poetry.
"For oh! were the tributes of Alba mine
From shore unto centre, from centre to sea,
The site of one house, to be marked by a line
In the midst of fair Derry were dearer to me.
That spot is the dearest on Erin's ground,
For the treasures that peace and that purity lend,
For the hosts of bright angels that circle it round,
Protecting its borders from end to end.
The dearest of any on Erin's ground
For its peace and its beauty I gave it my love,
Each leaf of the oaks around Derry is found
To be crowded with angels from heaven above.
My Derry! my Derry! my little oak grove,
My dwelling, my home, and my own little cell,
May God the Eternal in Heaven above
Send death to thy foes and defend thee well."[6]
Columcille was yet a young man, only twenty-five years of age, when
he founded Derry, but both his own genius, and more especially his
great friends and kinsfolk, had conspired to make him famous. For the
next seventeen years he laboured in Ireland, and during this time
founded the still more celebrated schools of Durrow in the present
King's County, and of Kells in Meath, both of which became most
famous in after years. Durrow,[7] which, like Derry, was named from
the beautiful groves of oak which were scattered along the slope of
Druim-caín, or "the pleasant hill," seems to have retained to the last
a hold upon the affections of Columcille second only to that of Derry.
When its abbot, Cormac the voyager, visited him long years afterwards
in Iona, and expressed his unwillingness to return to his monastery
again, because, being a Momonian of the race of Eber, the southern
Ui Neill were jealous of him, and made his abbacy unpleasant or
impossible, Columcille reproached him in pathetic terms for abandoning
so lovely an abode--
"With its books and its learning,
A devout city with a hundred crosses."
"O Cormac," he exclaimed--
"I pledge thee mine unerring word
Which it is not possible to impugn,
Death is better in reproachless Erin
Than perpetual life in Alba [Scotland]."[8]
And on another occasion, when it strikes him how happy the son of Dima,
_i.e._, Cormac, must be at the approach of summer along the green
hillside of Rosgrencha--another name for Durrow--amid its fair slopes,
waving woods, and singing birds, compared with himself exiled to the
barren shores of rugged Iona, he bursts forth into the tenderest song--
"How happy the son is of Dima! no sorrow
For him is designed,
He is having, this hour, round his own cell in Durrow
The wish of his mind:
The sound of the wind in the elms, like the strings of
A harp being played,
The note of the blackbird that claps with the wings of
Delight in the glade.
With him in Rosgrencha the cattle are lowing
At earliest dawn,
On the brink of the summer the pigeons are cooing
And doves on his lawn," etc.[9]
Columcille continued his labours in Ireland, founding churches and
monasteries and schools, until he was forty-two years of age. He was
at this time at the height of his physical and mental powers, a man of
a masterful but of a too passionate character, of fine physique, and
enjoying a reputation second to that of none in Erin. The commentator
in the Féilire of Angus describes his appearance as that of "a man
well-formed, with powerful frame; his skin was white, his face was
broad and fair and radiant, lit up with large, grey,[10] luminous eyes;
his large and well-shaped head was crowned, except where he wore his
frontal tonsure, with close and curling hair. His voice was clear and
resonant, so that he could be heard at the distance of 1,500 paces,[11]
yet sweet with more than the sweetness of the bards." His activity was
incessant. "Not a single hour of the day," says Adamnan, "did he leave
unoccupied without engaging either in prayer, or in reading, or in
writing, or in some other work;" and he laboured with his hands as well
as with his head, cooking or looking after his ploughmen, or engaged in
ecclesiastical or secular matters. All accounts go to show that he was
of a hot and passionate temperament, and endowed with both the virtues
and the faults that spring from such a character. Indeed this was, no
doubt, why in the "famous vision"[12] which Baithin saw concerning
him, he was seated only on a chair of glass; while Ciaran was on a
chair of gold, and Molaisse upon a chair of silver. The commentator
on the Féilire of Angus boldly states that, "though his devotion was
delightful, he was carnal and often frail even as glass is fragile."
Aware of this, he wore himself out with fastings and vigils,[13] and no
doubt--
"Lenior et melior fit accedente senectu,"
for Adamnan describes him, from the recollections of the monks who
knew him, as being angelic in aspect[14] and bright in conversation,
and despite his great labours yet "dear to all, displaying his holy
countenance always cheerful." A curious story is told in the Leabhar
Breac, of the stratagems to which his people resorted to checkmate his
self-imposed penance; for having one day seen an old woman living upon
pottage of nettles, while she was waiting for her one cow to calve and
give her milk, the notion came to him that he too would thenceforward
live upon the same, for if she could do so, much more could he, and it
would be profitable to his soul in gaining the kingdom of heaven. So,
said the writer, he called his servant--
"'Pottage,' saith he, 'from thee every night, and bring not the milk
with it.'
"'It shall be done,' said the cook.
"He (the cook) bores the mixing-stick of the pottage, so that it
became a pipe, and he used to pour the meat juice into the pipe, down,
so that it was mixed through the pottage. That preserves the cleric's
(Columcille's) appearance. The monks perceived the cleric's good
appearance, and they talked among themselves. That is revealed to
Columcille, so he said, 'May your successors be always murmuring.'
"'Well now,' said Columcille, said he, to his servant, 'what dost thou
give me every day?'
"'Thou art witness,' said the cook, 'unless it come out of the iron of
the pot, or out of the stick wherewith the pottage is mixed, I know
nought else in it save pottage!'"
It was now, however, that events occurred which had the result of
driving Columcille abroad and launching him upon a more stormy and
more dangerous career, as the apostle of Scotland and the Picts. St.
Finnian of Moville, with whom he studied in former days, had brought
back with him from Rome a copy of the Psalms, probably the first
copy of St. Jerome's translation, or Vulgate, that had appeared in
Ireland, which he highly valued, and which he did not wish Columcille
to copy. Columcille however, who was a dexterous and rapid scribe,
found opportunity, by sitting up during several nights, to make a copy
of the book secretly,[15] but Finnian learning it claimed the copy.
Columcille refused it, and the matter was referred to King Diarmuid
at Tara. The monarch, to whom books and their surroundings were
probably something new, as a matter for legal dispute, could find in
the Brehon law no nearer analogy to adjudicate the case by, than the
since celebrated sentence _le gach boin a boinín_, "with every cow
her calf," in which terms he, not altogether unnaturally, decided in
favour of St. Finnian, saying, "with every book its son-book, as with
every cow her calf."[16] This alone might not have brought about the
crisis, but unfortunately the son of the king of Connacht, who had been
present at the great Convention or Féis of Tara, in utter violation of
the law of sanctuary which alone rendered this great meeting possible,
slew the son of the king's steward, and knowing that the penalty was
certain death, he fled to the lodging of the northern princes Fergus
and Domhnall [Donall] who immediately placed him under the protection
of St. Columcille. This however did not avail him, for King Diarmuid,
who was no respecter of persons, had him promptly seized and put to
death in atonement for his crime. This, combined with his unfortunate
judgment about the book, enraged the imperious Columcille to the last
degree. He made his way northward and appealed to his kinsmen to avenge
him. A great army was collected, led by Fergus and Domhnall, two first
cousins of Columcille, and by the king of Connacht, whose son had been
put to death. The High-king marched to meet this formidable combination
with all the troops he could gather. Pushing his way across the island
he met their combined forces in the present county of Sligo, between
Benbulbin and the sea. A furious battle was delivered in which he was
defeated with the loss of three thousand men.
It was soon after this battle that Columcille decided to leave Ireland.
There is a great deal of evidence that he did so as a kind of penance,
either self-imposed or enjoined upon him by St. Molaíse [Moleesha],
as Keating says, or by the "synod of the Irish saints," as O'Donnell
has it. He had helped to fill all Ireland with arms and bloodshed,
and three thousand men had fallen in one battle largely on account
of him, and it was not the only appeal to arms which lay upon his
conscience.[17] He set sail from his beloved Derry in the year 593,
determined, according to popular tradition, to convert as many souls
to Christ as had fallen in the battle of Cooldrevna. Amongst the dozen
monks of his own order who accompanied him were his two first cousins
and his uncle.
It was death and breaking of heart for him to leave the land of Erin,
and he pathetically expresses his sorrow in his own Irish verses.
"Too swiftly my coracle flies on her way,
From Derry I mournfully turned her prow,
I grieve at the errand which drives me to-day
To the Land of the Ravens, to Alba, now.
* * * * *
How swiftly we travel! there is a grey eye
Looks back upon Erin, but it no more
Shall see while the stars shall endure in the sky
Her women, her men, or her stainless shore.
From the plank of the oak where in sorrow I lie,
I am straining my sight through the water and wind,
And large is the tear of the soft grey eye
Looking back on the land that it leaves behind.
To Erin alone is my memory given,
To Meath and to Munster my wild thoughts flow,
To the shores of Moy-linny, the slopes of Loch Leven,
And the beautiful land the Ultonians know."
He refers distinctly to the penance imposed upon him by St. Moleesha.
"To the nobles that gem the bright isle of the Gael
Carry this benediction over the sea,
And bid them not credit Moleesha's tale,
And bid them not credit his words of me.
Were it not for the word of Moleesha's mouth
At the cross of Ahamlish that sorrowful day,
I now should be warding from north and from south
Disease and distemper from Erin away."
His mind reverts to former scenes of delight--
"How dear to my heart in yon western land
Is the thought of Loch Foyle where the cool waves pour,
And the bay of Drumcliff on Cúlcinnê's strand,
How grand was the slope of its curving shore!
* * * * *
O bear me my blessing afar to the West,
For the heart in my bosom is broken; I fail.
Should death of a sudden now pierce my breast
I should die of the love that I bear the Gael!"[18]
Columcille is the first example in the saddened page of Irish history
of the exiled Gael grieving for his native land and refusing to be
comforted, and as such he has become the very type and embodiment of
Irish fate and Irish character. The flag in bleak Gartan, upon which
he was born, is worn thin and bare by the hands and feet of pious
pilgrims, and "the poor emigrants who are about to quit Donegal for
ever, come and sleep on that flag the night before their departure
from Derry. Columcille himself was an exile, and they fondly hope that
sleeping on the spot where he was born will help them to bear with
lighter heart the heavy burden of the exile's sorrows."[19] He is the
prototype of the millions of Irish exiles in after ages--
"Ruined exiles, restless, roaming,
Longing for their fatherland,"[20]
and the extraordinary deep roots which his life and poetry have struck
into the soil of the North was strikingly evidenced this very year
(1898) by the wonderful celebration of his centenary at Gartan, at
which many thousands of people, who had travelled all night over the
surrounding mountains, were present, and where it was felt to be so
incongruous that the life of such a great Irish patriot, prince, and
poet, in the diocese, too, of an O'Donnell, should be celebrated in
English, that--probably for the first time in this century--Irish poems
were read and Irish speeches made, even by the Cardinal-Primate and the
Bishop of the diocese.
Of Columcille's life on the craggy little island of Iona, of his
splendid labours in converting the Picts, and of the monastery which
he established, and which, occupied by Irish monks, virtually rendered
Iona an Irish island for the next six hundred years, there is no need
to speak here, for these things belong rather to ecclesiastical than to
literary history.
Columcille himself was an unwearied scribe, and delighted in poetry.
Ample provision was made for the multiplication of books in all the
monasteries which he founded, and his Irish life tells us that he
himself wrote "three hundred gifted, lasting, illuminated, noble
books." The life in the Book of Lismore tells us that he once went
to Clonmacnois with a hymn he had made for St. Ciaran, 'for he made
abundant praises for God's household, as said the poet,
"Noble, thrice fifty, nobler than every apostle,
The number of miracles [of poems] are as grass,
Some in Latin, which was beguiling,
Others in Gaelic, fair the tale."'
Of these only three in Latin are now known to exist, whilst of the
great number of Irish poems attributed to him only a few--half a dozen
at the most--are likely to be even partly genuine. His best known hymn
is the "Altus," so called from its opening word; it was first printed
by Colgan,[21] and its genuineness is generally admitted. It is a
long and rudely-constructed poem, of twenty-two stanzas, preserved in
the Book of Hymns, a MS. probably of the eleventh century. Each stanza
consists of six lines,[22] and each line of sixteen syllables. There
is a pause after the eighth syllable, and a kind of rhyme between
every two lines. The first verses run thus with an utter disregard of
quantity.
"Altus prosător, vetustus dierum et ingenitus,
Erat absque origine primordii et crepidine,
Est et erit in sæcula sæculorum infinitus,
Cui est unigenitus Christus et Spiritus Sanctus," etc.
The second Latin hymn is a supplement to this one, composed in praise
of the Trinity, because Pope Gregory who, as the legend states,
perceived the angels listening when the "Altus" was recited to him,
was yet of opinion that the first stanza of the original poem, despite
its additional line, was insufficient to express a competent laudation
of the mystery, consequently Columcille added, it was said, fifteen
rude-rhyming couplets of the same character as the "Altus," but it
is very doubtful whether they are genuine. The third hymn, the "Noli
Pater," is still shorter, consisting of only seven rhyming couplets
with sixteen syllables in each line. It was in ancient times considered
an efficient safeguard against fire and lightning. Some of his reputed
Irish poems we have already glanced at; three that Colgan considered
genuine were printed by Dr. Reeves in his "Adamnan;" and another, the
touching "Farewell to Ara," is contained in the "Gaelic Miscellany"
of 1808; and another on his escape from King Diarmuid, when the king
of Connacht's son was put to death for violating the Féis at Tara, is
printed in the "Miscellany" of the Irish Archæological Society.[23]
There are three verses, composed by him as a prayer at the battle of
Cooldrevna, ascribed to him in the "Chronicon Scotorum;" and there is
a collection of fifteen poems attributed to him in the O'Clery MSS. at
Brussels, and nearly a hundred more--mostly evident forgeries--in the
Bodleian at Oxford.[24] He does not seem to have ever written any work
in prose.
There are six lives of Columcille still extant, the greatest of them
all being that in Latin by Adamnan,[25] who was one of his successors
in the abbacy of Iona, and who was born only twenty-seven years after
Columcille's death. This admirable work, written in flowing and
very fair Latin, was derived, as Adamnan himself tells us, partly
from oral and partly from written sources. A memoir of Columcille
had already been written by Cuimine Finn or Cummeneus Albus,[26] as
Adamnan calls him, the last Abbot of Iona but one before himself,
and that memoir he almost entirely embodied in his third book. He
had also some other written accounts before him, and the Irish
poems, both of the saint himself and of other bards, amongst them
Baithine Mór, who had enjoyed his personal friendship, and St. Mura,
who was a little his junior--poems now lost. He had also constant
opportunities of conversing with those who had seen the great saint
and had been familiar with him in life, and he was writing on the spot
and amidst the associations and surroundings wherein his last thirty
years had been spent, and which were inseparably connected with his
memory. The result was that he produced a work, which although not
ostensibly a history, and dealing only with the life of a single man,
and that rather from the transcendental than from the practical side,
is nevertheless of the utmost value to the historian on account not
only of the general picture of manners and customs, but still more
on account of its incidental references to contemporary history. "It
is," says Pinkerton, who, as Dr. Reeves remarks, was a writer not
over-given to eulogy, "the most complete piece of such biography that
all Europe can boast of, not only at so early a period but even through
the whole Middle Ages." Adamnan's other great work on Sacred Places is
mentioned by his contemporary, the Venerable Bede, but he is silent as
to Columcille's life. There is, however, abundant internal evidence of
its authenticity. This evidence, however it might satisfy the minds of
mere Irish students like Colgan and Stephen White, proved insufficient,
however, to meet the exacting claims of certain British scholars. "I
cannot agree," said Sir James Dalrymple, in the last century, "that
the authority of Adamnanus is equal, far less preferable to that of
Bede, since it was agreed on all hands to be a fabulous history lately
published in his name, and that he was remarkable for nothing, but
that he was the first abbot of that monastery who quit the _Scottish_
institution, and became fond of the _English Romish_ Rites."[27] Dr.
Giles, too, who thought of editing it, tells us in his translation
of Bede's "Ecclesiastical History," that he had "strong doubts of
Adamnan's having written it."[28] And, finally, Schoell, a German,
professed to have convinced himself that Adamnan's preface could not
have been written by the same hand which wrote the life, so different
did the style of the two appear to him, and wholly rejected it as a
work of the seventh century written at Iona.
But it so happened that shortly before the year 1851, when Schoell was
impugning the genuineness of this work, the ancient manuscript from
which it had been copied by the Irish Jesuit, Stephen White--and, from
his copy, printed by Colgan--actually came to light again, discovered
by Dr. Ferdinand Keller at the bottom of an old book-shelf in the
public library of Schaffhausen, into which it had been turned with
some other old manuscripts and books. A close examination of this
remarkable text written in a heavy round Irish hand, in nearly the same
type of script as the Books of Kells and Durrow, and of a more archaic
character than that of the Book of Armagh (written in 807), rendered
it certain that here was a codex of great value and antiquity. Nor was
the usual colophon containing the scribe's name and asking a prayer
for him missing. That name was Dorbene, a most rare one, of which only
two instances are known, both connected with Iona, the first of which
records the death of Faelcu, son of Dorbene, in 729, but as we know
that Faelcu died in his eighty-second year his father could hardly
have been the scribe. The other Dorbene was elected abbot of Iona
in 713 and died the same year, so that it may be regarded as almost
certain that this book was written by him and that this copy is in his
handwriting. We have in this codex, then, the actual handwriting[29]
of a contemporary of Adamnan himself, the handiwork of the generation
which succeeded Columcille, a volume a hundred years older than even
the Book of Armagh, a volume which had been carried over to some of the
numerous Irish institutions on the Continent after the break-up of Iona
by the Northmen. There are several corrections of the orthography in
a different and later hand, the date of which is fixed by Dr. Keller
at 800-820, and these are evidently the work of a German monk, who
was displeased with the peculiar orthography of the Irish school, and
who made these emendations after the MS. had been brought from Iona
to the Continent. The following passage describing the last hours of
Columcille will both serve as a specimen of Adamnan's style and also
afford a minutely particular account of the end of this great man. Its
accuracy can hardly be impugned as it is written by one who had every
minute particular from eye-witnesses, and as the actual manuscript from
which it is printed was copied from the author's own, either during his
life or within less than ten years after his death.[30]
Adamnan first tells us of several premonitions which the saint had of
his approaching end, how he, "now an old man, wearied with age," was
borne in his waggon to view his monks labouring in the fields on the
western slope of the island, and intimated to them that his end was not
far off, but that lest their Easter should be one of grief, he would
not be taken from them until it was over. Later on in the year he went
out with his servant Diarmuid to inspect the granary, and was pleased
at the two large heaps of grain which were lying there, and remarked
that though he should be taken from his dear monks, yet he was glad to
see that they had a supply for the year.
"And," says Adamnan, "when Diarmuid his servant heard this he began
to be sad, and said, 'Father, at this time of year you sadden us too
often, because you speak frequently about your decease.' When the
saint thus answered, 'I have a secret word to tell you, which, if you
promise me faithfully not to make it known to any before my death, I
shall be able to let you know more clearly about my departure.' And
when his servant, on bended knees, had finished making this promise,
the venerable man thus continued, 'This day is called in the sacred
volumes the Sabbath, which is interpreted Rest. And this day is indeed
to me a sabbath, because it is my last of this present laborious
life, in which, after the trouble of my toil, I take my rest; for in
the middle of this coming sacred Sunday night, I shall to use the
Scripture phrase, tread the way of my fathers; for now my Lord Jesus
Christ deigns to invite me, to whom, I say, at the middle of this
night, on His own invitation, I shall pass over; for it was thus
revealed to me by the Lord Himself.' His servant, hearing these sad
words, begins to weep bitterly: whom the saint endeavoured to console
as much as he was able.
"After this the saint goes forth from the barn, and returning to the
monastery sits down on the way, at the place where afterwards a cross
let into a millstone, and to-day standing there, may be perceived on
the brink of the road. And while the saint, wearied with old age,
as I said before, sitting in that place was taking a rest, lo! the
white horse, the obedient servant who used to carry the milk-vessels
between the monastery and the byre, meets him. It, wonderful to
relate, approached the saint and placing its head in his bosom, by the
inspiration of God, as I believe, for whom every animal is wise with
the measure of sense which his Creator has bidden, knowing that his
master was about to immediately depart from him, and that he would
see him no more, begins to lament and abundantly to pour forth tears,
like a human being, into the saint's lap, and with beslavered mouth to
make moan. Which when the servant saw, he proceeds to drive away the
tearful mourner, but the saint stopped him, saying, 'Allow him, allow
him who loves me, to pour his flood of bitterest tears into this my
bosom. See, you, though you are a man and have a rational mind, could
have in no way known about my departure if I had not myself lately
disclosed it to you, but to this brute and irrational animal the
Creator Himself, in His own way, has clearly revealed that his master
is about to depart from him.' And saying this he blessed the sorrowful
horse [the monastery's] servant, as it turned away from him.
"And going forth from thence and ascending a small hill, which rose
over the monastery, he stood for a little upon its summit, and as he
stood, elevating both his palms, he blessed his community and said,
'Upon this place however narrow and mean, not only shall the kings of
the Scots [_i.e._, Irish] with their peoples, but also the rulers of
foreign and barbarous nations with the people subject to them, confer
great and no ordinary honour. By the saints of other churches also,
shall no common respect be accorded it.'
"After these words, going down from the little hill and returning to
the monastery, he sat in his cell writing a copy of the Psalms, and
on reaching that verse of the thirty-third Psalm where it is written,
'But they that seek the Lord shall lack no thing that is good;'
'Here,' said he, 'we may close at the end of the page; let Baithin
write what follows.' Well appropriate for the parting saint was the
last verse which he had written, for to him shall good things eternal
be never lacking, while to the father who succeeded him [Baithin], the
teacher of his spiritual sons, the following [words] were particularly
apposite, 'Come, my sons, hearken unto me. I shall teach you the fear
of the Lord,' since as the departing one desired, he was his successor
not only in teaching but also in writing.[31]
"After writing the above verse and finishing the page, the saint
enters the church for the vesper office preceding the Sunday; which
finished, he returned to his little room, and rested for the night on
his couch, where for mattress he had a bare flag, and for pillow a
stone, which at this day stands as a kind of commemorative monument
beside his tomb.[32] And there, sitting, he gives his last mandates to
the brethren, in the hearing of his servant only, saying, 'These last
words of mine I commend to you, O little children, that ye preserve
a mutual charity with peace, and a charity not feigned amongst
yourselves; and if ye observe to do this according to the example of
the holy fathers, God, the comforter of the good, shall help you, and
I, remaining with Him, shall make intercession for you, and not only
the necessaries of this present life shall be sufficiently supplied
you by Him, but also the reward of eternal good, prepared for the
observers of things Divine, shall be rendered you.' Up to this point
the last words of our venerable patron [when now] passing as it were
from this wearisome pilgrimage to his heavenly country, have been
briefly narrated.
"After which, his joyful last hour gradually approaching, the saint
was silent. Then soon after, when the struck bell resounded in the
middle of the night,[33] quickly rising he goes to the church, and
hastening more quickly than the others he entered alone, and with bent
knees inclines beside the altar in prayer. His servant, Diarmuid,
following more slowly, at the same moment beholds, from a distance,
the whole church inside filled with angelic light round the saint;
but as he approached the door this same light, which he had seen,
swiftly vanished; which light a few others of the brethren, also
standing at a distance, had seen. Diarmuid then entering the church,
calls aloud with a voice choked with tears, 'Where art thou, Father?'
And the lamps of the brethren not yet being brought, groping in the
dark, he found the saint recumbent before the altar: raising him up
a little, and sitting beside him, he placed the sacred head in his
own bosom. And while this was happening a crowd of monks running up
with lights, and seeing their father dying, begin to lament. And as
we have learned from some who were there present, the saint, his soul
not yet departing, with eyes upraised, looked round on each side, with
a countenance of wondrous joy and gladness, as though beholding the
holy angels coming to meet him. Diarmuid then raises up the saint's
right hand to bless the band of monks. But the venerable father
himself, too, in so far as he was able, was moving his hand at the
same time, so that he might appear to bless the brethren with the
motion of his hand, what he could not do with his voice, during his
soul's departure. And after thus signifying his sacred benediction,
he straightway breathed forth his life. When it had gone forth from
the tabernacle of his body, the countenance remained so long glowing
and gladdened in a wonderful manner by the angelic vision, that it
appeared not that of a dead man but of a living one sleeping. In the
meantime the whole church resounded with sorrowful lamentations."[34]
Besides the lives of Columcille, written by Adamnan and Cummene, at
least four more exist; an anonymous life in Latin, printed by Colgan
and erroneously supposed by him to be that of Cummene; a life by John
of Tinmouth, chiefly compiled from Adamnan, which is also printed
by Colgan; the old Irish life contained in four Irish MSS., namely,
in the Leabhar Breac, in the Book of Lismore, in a vellum MS. in
Edinburgh, and in an Irish parchment volume found by the Revolutionary
Commissioners, during the Republic, in a private house in Paris, and by
them presented to the Royal Library of that city--
"Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris!"
This life has been printed from the Book of Lismore by Dr. Whitley
Stokes. The last and most copious life is a compilation of all existing
documents and poems both in Latin and Old Irish, and was made by order
of O'Donnell in 1532.
"Be it known," says the preface, "to the readers of this Life that
it was Manus, son of Hugh, son of Hugh Roe, son of Niall Garv, son
of Turlough of the wise O'Donnell, who ordered the part of this Life
which was in Latin to be put into Gaelic; and who ordered the part
that was in difficult Gaelic to be modified, so that it might be clear
and comprehensible to every one; and who gathered and put together
the parts of it that were scattered through the old Books of Erin;
and who dictated it out of his own mouth with great labour and a
great expenditure of time in studying how he should arrange all its
parts in their proper places, as they are left here in writing by
us; and in love and friendship for his illustrious saint, relative,
and patron, to whom he was devoutly attached. It was in the Castle
of Port-na-tri-námhad [Lifford] that his Life was indited, when were
fulfilled 12 years and 20 and 500 and 1000 of the age of the Lord."
This life, written in a large vellum folio, is preserved in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford and has never yet been printed.[35]
The remains of Columcille, which after a three days' wake were interred
in Iona, were left undisturbed for close upon a hundred years. They
were afterwards disinterred and placed within a splendid shrine of
gold and silver, which, in due time, became the prey of the marauding
Norsemen. The belief is very general that his remains found their last
resting-place in Downpatrick, along with those of St. Patrick and St.
Brigit. The present appearance of the spot where they are supposed to
lie, may be gathered from the indignant verses[36] of a member of a
now defunct literary body, to which I had the honour of belonging some
years ago, one of those numerous Irish literary societies which produce
verses as thick as leaves in Vallombrosa.
"I stood at a grave by the outer wall
Of the Strangers' Church in Down,
All lorn and lost in neglect, and crossed
By the Church of the Strangers' frown.
All lorn and waste, and with footsteps crossed
The grave of our Patrons Three,
Not a leaf to wave o'er that lonely grave
That seemed not a grave to me!
But a trench where some traitor was flung of yore--
'Twas "a sight for a foeman's eye"!
Where Patrick still and Saint Columbkille
And the Dove[37] of the Oak Tree lie.
* * * * *
Those men who spoke bravely of rending chains
(And never a fetter broke!)
Those men who adored the flashing sword
(When never a tocsin spoke!)
Those little men, who are very great
In marble and bronze, are still
The city's pride, whilst that trench holds Bride
And Patrick and Columbkille!"
[1] Also often called St. Columba, to be strictly distinguished
from Columbanus, who laboured on the Continent. The name is written
sometimes Colomb Cille and Colum Kille or Columkille. It is pronounced
in Irish Cullum-killă, and means literally the "Dove of the Church,"
but in English the name is generally pronounced Columkill.
[2] As calculated by Dr. Reeves, who coincides with the "Four Masters"
and Dr. Lanigan. The other Annals waver between 518 and 523.
[3] See the lines in O'Donnell's life of the saint, ascribed to St.
Mura:
"Rugadh i nGartan da dheóin / S do h-oileadh i gCill mhic Neóin
'S do baisteadh mac na maise / A dTulaigh De Dubhghlaise."
[4] He is called "Germán the Master" in the Book of Lismore life.
In the life of Finnian of Clonard he is called _Carminator nomine
gemanus_, who brings to St. Finnian "quoddam carmen magnificum."
[5] A similar story of Cummain the Tall, of Guaire the Connacht
king who still gives his name to the town of Gort, which is Gort
Inse-Guaire, and of Cáimine of Inisceltra, is told in the Leabhar na
h-Uidhre, and printed by Whitley Stokes in a note at p. 304 of his
"Lives from the Book of Lismore." Each of the three got as he had
desired, for, says the chronicler, "all their musings were made true.
The earth was given to Guaire. Wisdom was given to Cummain. Diseases
and sicknesses were inflicted on Cáimine, so that no bone of him joined
together in the earth, but melted and decayed with the anguish of every
disease and of every tribulation, so that they all went to heaven
according to their musings." (See for the same story the Yellow Book of
Lecan, p. 132, of facsimile.)
[6] Literally, "Were the tribute of all Alba mine, from its centre
to its border, I would prefer the site of one house in the middle of
Derry. The reason I love Derry is for its quietness, for its purity,
and for the crowds of white angels from the one end to the other. The
reason why I love Derry is for its quietness, for its purity, crowded
full of heaven's angels in every leaf of the oaks of Derry. My Derry,
my little oak grove, my dwelling and my little cell, O Eternal God in
heaven above, woe be to him who violates it."
"Is aire, caraim Doire
Ar a reidhe, ar a ghloine,
's ar iomatt a aingel find
On chind go soich aroile."
This poem is taken from a Brussels MS., copied by Michael O'Clery for
Father Colgan, and by him accepted apparently as genuine. Some of
it may very well be so, only, as usual, it has been greatly altered
and modified in transcription, as may be seen from the above verse.
(_See_ p. 288 of Reeves' "Adamnan.") Some of the verses are evidently
interpelations, but the Irish life in the Book of Lismore distinctly
attributes to him the verse which I have here given, going out of its
way to quote it in full, but the third line is a little different as
quoted in the life: "ár is lomlan aingeal bhfinn."
[7] In Irish Dair-magh, "oak-plain." Columcille seems to have been
particularly fond of the oak, for his Irish life tells us that it was
under a great oak-tree that he resided while at Kells also. The writer
adds, "and it"--the great oak-tree--"remained till these latter times,
when it fell through the crash of a mighty wind. And a certain man took
somewhat of its bark to tan his shoes with. Now, when he did on the
shoes, he was smitten with leprosy from his sole to his crown." It is
well known to this day that it is unlucky, or worse, to touch a saint's
tree. I have been observing one that was, when in the last stage of
decrepitude, blown down a few years ago at the well of St. Aracht or
Atracta, a female saint of Connacht in the plains of Boyle; yet, though
the people around are nearly famished for want of fuel, not one twig
of it has yet been touched. In the Edinburgh MS. of Columcille's life
we read how on another occasion he made a hymn to arrest a fire that
was consuming the oak-wood, "and it is sung against every fire and
against every thunder from that time to this." (_See_ Skene's "Celtic
Scotland," vol. ii. pp. 468-507.)
[8]
"_Is sí mo cubhus gan col_
_'s nocha conagar m' eiliughadh_
_Ferr écc ind Eirind cen ail_
_Ina sir beatha ind Aipuin._"
For the whole of this poem, in the form of a dialogue between Cormac
and Columcille, see p. 264 of Reeves' "Adamnan." It is very hard to say
how much or how little of these poems is really Columcille's. Colgan
was inclined to think them genuine. Of course, as we now have them,
the language is greatly modernised; but I am inclined to agree with
Dr. Healy, who judges them rather from internal than from linguistic
evidence; and while granting, of course, that they have been retouched
by later bards, adds, "but in our opinion they represent substantially
poems that were really written by the saint. They breathe his pious
spirit, his ardent love for nature, and his undying affection for
his native land. Although retouched, perhaps, by a later hand, they
savour so strongly of the true Columbian spirit that we are disposed to
reckon them amongst the genuine compositions of the saint." ("Ireland's
Schools and Scholars," p. 329.) "The older pieces here preserved," says
Dr. Robert Atkinson in his preface to the contents of the _facsimile_
of the Book of Leinster, "_and of whose genuineness and authenticity
there seems no room for doubt, ex. gr., the Poems of Colum Cille_, bear
with them the marks of the action of successive transcribers, whose
desire to render them intelligible has obscured the linguistic proofs
of their age."
[9] Literally, "How happy the son of Dima of the devout church, when he
hears in Durrow the desire of his mind, the sound of the wind against
the elms when 'tis played, the blackbird's joyous note when he claps
his wings; to listen at early dawn in Rosgrencha to the cattle, the
cooing of the cuckoo from the tree on the brink of summer," etc. (_See_
Reeves' "Adamnan," p. 274).
"Fuaim na goithi ris in leman ardos peti
Longaire luin duibh conati ar mben a eti."
[10] He himself refers to his "grey eye looking back to Erin" in one of
his best-known poems.
[11] In token of which is the Irish quatrain quoted in his life--
"Son a ghotha Coluim cille,
mór a binne os gach cléir
go ceann cúig ceád déag céimeann,
Aídhbhle réimeann, eadh ba réill."
[12] "So then Baithine related to him the famous vision, to wit, three
chairs seen by him in heaven, even a chair of gold and a chair of
silver and a chair of glass. Columcille explained the vision. Ciaran
the Great, the carpenter's son, is the chair of gold for the greatness
of his charity and his mercy. Molaisse is the chair of silver because
of his wisdom and his piety. I myself am the chair of glass because of
my affection, for I prefer the Gaels to the men of the world, and Kinel
Conall [his own tribe] to the [other] Gaels, and the kindred of Lughid
to the Kinel Conall." (Leabhar Breac, quoted by Stokes, "Irish Lives,"
p. 303; but the reason here given for being seated on a chair of glass
is, as Stokes remarks, unmeaning.)
[13] "Jejunationum quoque et vigiliarum indefessis laboribus sine
ulla intermissione, die noctu-que ita occupatus ut supra humanam
possibilitatem uniuscujusque pondus specialis videretur opens," says
Adamnan in the preface to his first book.
[14] "Erat enim aspectu angelicus, sermone nitidus, opere sanctus,
ingenio optimus, consilio magnus ... et inter hæc omnibus carus,
hilarem semper faciem ostendens sanctam, spiritus sancti gaudio intimis
lætificabatur præcordiis."
[15] This copy made by Columcille is popularly believed to be the
celebrated codex known as the Cathach or "Battler," which was an
heirloom of the saint's descendants, the O'Donnells. It was always
carried three times round their army when they went to battle, on
the breast of a cleric, who, if he were free from mortal sin, was
sure to bring them victory. The Mac Robartaighs were the ancestral
custodians of the holy relic, and Cathbar O'Donnell, the chief of the
race at the close of the eleventh century, constructed an elaborately
splendid shrine or cover for it. This precious heirloom remained with
the O'Donnells until Donal O'Donnell, exiled in the cause of James
II., brought it with him to the Continent and fixed a new rim upon the
casket with his name and date. It was recovered from the Continent in
1802 by Sir Neal O'Donnell, and was opened by Sir William Betham soon
after. This would in the previous century have been considered a deadly
crime, for "it was not lawful" to open the Cathach; as it was, Sir
Neal's widow brought an action in the Court of Chancery against Sir
William Betham for daring to open it. There turned out to be a decayed
wooden box inside the casket, and inside this again was a mass of
vellum stuck together and hardened into a single lump. By long steeping
in water however, and other treatment, the various leaves came asunder,
and it was found that what it contained was really a Psalter, written
in Latin, in a "neat but hurried hand." Fifty-eight leaves remained,
containing from the 31st to the 106th Psalm, and an examination of
the text has shown that it really does contain a copy of the second
revision of the Psalter by St. Jerome, which helps to strengthen the
belief that this may have been the very book for which three thousand
warriors fought and fell in the Battle of Cooldrevna.
[16] Keating says that this account of the affair was preserved in the
Black Book of Molaga, one of his ancient authorities now lost. The king
decided, says Keating, "_gorab leis gach leabhar a mhaic-leabhar, mar
is le gach boinn a boinín_."
[17] "These were," says the commentator on St. Columcille's hymn,
the "Altus," "the three battles which he had caused in Erin, viz.,
the battle of Cúl-Rathain, between him and Comgall, contending for
a church, viz., Ross Torathair; and the battle of Bealach-fheda of
the weir of Clonard; and the battle of Cúl Dremhne [Cooldrevna] in
Connacht, and it was against Diarmait Mac Cerball [the High-king],
he fought them both." Keating's account also agrees with this, but
Reeves has shown that the two later battles in which he was implicated
probably took place after his exile.
[18] Literally: "How rapid the speed of my coracle and its stern turned
towards Derry. I grieve at the errand over the proud sea, travelling to
Alba of the Ravens. There is a grey eye that looks back upon Erin: it
shall not see during life the men of Erin nor their wives. My vision
o'er the brine I stretch from the ample oaken planks; large is the
tear from my soft grey eye when I look back upon Erin. Upon Erin is my
attention fixed, upon Loch Leven [Lough Lene in West Meath], upon Linè
[Moy-linny, near Antrim], upon the land the Ultonians own, upon smooth
Munster, upon Meath.... Carry my benediction over the sea to the nobles
of the Island of the Gael, let them not credit Moleesha's words nor his
threatened persecution. Were it not for Moleesha's words at the Cross
of Ahamlish, I should not permit during my life disease or distemper
in Ireland.... Beloved to my heart also in the west is Drumcliff at
Cúlcinne's strand: to behold the fair Loch Foyle, the form of its
shores is delightful.... Take my blessing with thee to the west, broken
is my heart in my breast, should sudden death overtake me it is for my
great love of the Gael."
[19] Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. 293. A fact which
is also confirmed by Dr. Reeves, p. lxviii of his "Adamnan," where he
says: "The country people believe that whoever sleeps a night on this
stone will be free from home-sickness when he goes abroad, and for this
reason it has been much resorted to by emigrants on the eve of their
departure." I cannot say whether the breaking up of old ties produced
by the National Board--which has elsewhere so skilfully robbed the
people of their birthright--may not have put an end to this custom
within the last few years.
[20]
"Deoraidhe gan sgith gan sos,
Mianaid a dtír 's a ndúthchas."
This verse was either composed or quoted by John O'Mahony, the Fenian
Head-centre, when in America.
[21] Also in the "Liber Hymnorum," vol. ii.; and again in 1882 with
a prose paraphrase and notes by the Marquis of Bute, who says: "the
intrinsic merits of the composition are undoubtedly very great,
especially in the latter _capitula_ [_i.e._, stanzas], some of which
the editor thinks would not suffer by comparison with the _Dies Iræ_."
Dr. Dowden, Bishop of Edinburgh, has printed, in his pleasant little
volume on the "Celtic Church in Scotland," p. 323, a most admirable
translation of it into English verse by the Rev. Anthony Mitchell.
[22] Except the first stanza, which being in honour of the Holy Trinity
has seven lines.
[23] This poem begins--
"M'œnuran dam is in sliab,
A rig grian rop sorad sed,
Nocha n-eaglaigi dam ní,
Na du mbeind tri ficit céd."
I find other verses attributed to him in the MS marked H 1. 11. in
Trinity College, Dublin.
[24] Laud, 615.
[25] Edited in 1857 for the Irish Archæological Society by Dr. Reeves,
afterwards Bishop of Down, with all the perfection which the most
accurate scholarship and painstaking research could accomplish. It is
not too much to say that his name is likely to remain in the future
associated with those of Adamnan and Columcille.
[26] Book iii., chapter 5 of Adamnan's "Life of Columcille."
[27] Alluding to the fact that Adamnan tried to persuade his countrymen
to change their mode of calculating Easter, and to adopt the Roman
tonsure. Sir James Dalrymple is here engaged in defending the
Presbyterian view of church government.
[28] "It is to be hoped," Dr. Reeves caustically remarked, "that the
doubts originated in a different style of research from that which made
Bede's _Columcilli_ an island, and Dearmach [Durrow] the same as Derry!"
[29] "It may be objected," says Dr. Reeves, "that it was written
by another person of this name, or copied by a later hand from the
autograph of this Dorbene. The former exception is not probable, the
name being almost unique, and found so pointedly connected with the
Columbian society; the latter is less probable, as the colophon in
Irish MSS. is always peculiar to the actual scribe and likely to be
omitted in transcription, as is the case of later MSS. of the same
recension preserved in the British Museum." "Hoc ipsum MS. credi
posset authographum Dorbbenei," says Van der Meer, a learned monk,
"subscriptio enim illa in rubro vix ab alio descriptore addita fuisset;
characteres quoque antiquitatem sapiunt sæculi octavi."
[30] He died in 704, and Dorbene the scribe in 713. It is necessary
to be thus particular, even at the risk of being tedious, to correct
the unlearned assertions of people who can write that in treating of
the "lives of St. Patrick and St. Columba, one's faith is tried to the
uttermost, leading not a few to deny the very existence of the two
missionaries" ("Irish Druids and Religions," Borwick, p. 304); or the
biassed dicta of men like Ledwich who says that all Irish MSS. "savour
of modern forgery."
[31] "Post hæc verba de illo descendens monticellulo, et ad
monasterium revertens, sedebat in tugurio Psalterium scribens; et ad
ilium tricesimi tertii psalmi versiculum perveniens ubi scribitur,
Inquirentes autem Dominum non deficient omni bono, Hic, ait, in fine
cessandum est paginæ; quæ vero sequuntur Baitheneus scribat. Sancto
convenienter congruit decessori novissimus versiculus quem scripserat,
cui numquam bona deficient æterna: succesori vero sequens patri,
spiritalium doctori filiorum, Venite filii, audite me, timorem Domini
docebo vos, congruenter convenit; qui, sicut decessor commendavit, non
solo ei docendo sed etiam scribendo successit."
[32] It is still shown at the east end of the Cathedral in Iona,
surrounded by an iron cage to keep off tourists.
[33] "The saint had previously attended at the _vespertinalis Dominicæ
noctis missa_, an office equivalent to the nocturnal vigil, and now at
the turn of midnight the bell rings for matins, which were celebrated
according to ancient custom a little before daybreak."--_Reeves_. The
early bells were struck like gongs, not rung, hence the modern Irish
for "ring the bell" is _bain an clog_, "strike the bell."
[34] This scene took place, as Dr. Reeves has shown, "just after
midnight between Saturday the 8th and Sunday the 9th of June, in the
year 597."
[35] It is to be hoped that it may soon see the light as one of the
volumes whose publication is contemplated by the new Irish Texts
Society. The copy of it used by Colgan is now back in the Franciscans'
Library in Dublin, a beautiful vellum written for Niall óg O'Neill.
[36] P. 50 of a little volume called "Lays and Lyrics of the Pan-Celtic
Society," long out of print, by P. O'C. MacLaughlin.
[37] Evidently alluding to the passage in her Irish life which says,
"Her type among created things is as the Dove among birds, the vine
among trees, and the sun above stars." There is a Latin distich on this
grave in Downpatrick which I have seen somewhere,
_In burgo Duno tumulo tumulantur in uno_
_Brigida Patricius atque Columba pius._