"It was he (Mochuda) that had the famous congregation
consisting of seven hundred and ten persons; an angel
used to address every third man of them."
(Martyrology of Donegal).
In some respects the Life of Mochuda here presented is in sharp contrast
to the corresponding Life of Declan. The former document is in all
essentials a very sober historical narrative--accurate wherever we can
test it, credible and harmonious on the whole. Philologically, to be
sure, it is of little value,--certainly a much less valuable Life than
Declan's; historically, however (and question of the pre-Patrician
mission apart) it is immensely the more important document. On one
point do we feel inclined to quarrel with its author, scil.: that he
has not given us more specifically the motives underlying Mochuda's
expulsion from Rahen--one of the three worst counsels ever given in
Erin. Reading between his lines we spell, jealousy--'invidia
religiosorum.' Another jealousy too is suggested--the mutual distrust
of north and south which has been the canker-worm of Irish political
life for fifteen hundred years, making intelligible if not justifying
the indignation of a certain distinguished Irishman who wanted to know
the man's name, in order to curse its owner, who first divided Ireland
into two provinces.
Three different Lives of Mochuda are known to the present writer. Two of
them are contained in a MS. at Brussels (C/r. Bindon, p. 8, 13) and of
one of these there is a copy in a MS. of Dineen's in the Royal Irish
Academy (Stowe Collection, A. IV, I.) Dineen appears to have been a
Cork or Kerry man and to have worked under the patronage of the rather
noted Franciscan Father Francis Matthew (O'Mahony), who was put to death
at Cork by Inchiquin in 1644. The bald text of Dineen's "Life" was
published a few years since, without translation, in the 'Irish Rosary.'
The corresponding Brussels copy is in Michael O'Clery's familiar hand.
In it occurs the strange pagan-flavoured story of the British Monk
Constantine. O'Clery's copy was made in January, 1627, at the Friary of
Drouish from the Book of Tadhg O'Ceanan and it is immediately followed
by a tract entitled--"Do Macaib Ua Suanac." The bell of Mochuda, by the
way, which the saint rang against Blathmac, was called the 'glassan' of
Hui Suanaig in later times.
The "Life" here printed, which follows the Latin Life so closely that
one seems a late translation of the other, is as far as the editor is
aware, contained in a single MS. only. This is M. 23, 50, R.I.A., in
the handwriting of John Murphy, "na Raheenach." Murphy was a Co. Cork
schoolmaster, scribe, and poet, of whom a biographical sketch will be
found prefixed by Mr. R. A. Foley to a collection of Murphy's poems that
he has edited. The sobriquet, "na Raheenach," is really a kind of
tribal designation. The "Life" is very full but is in its present form
a comparatively late production; it was transcribed by Murphy between
1740 and 1750. It is much to be regretted that the scribe tells us
nothing of his original. Murphy, but the way, seems to have specialised
to some extent in saint's Lives and to have imbued his disciples with
something of the same taste. One of his pupils was Maurice O'Connor, a
scribe and shipwright of Cove, to whom we owe the Life of St. Ciaran of
Saighir printed in "Silva Gadelica." The reasons of choice for
publication here of the present Life are avowedly non-philological; the
motive for preference is that it is the longest of the three Lives and
for historical purposes the most important.
The Life presents considerable evidence of historical reliability; its
geography is detailed and correct; its references to contemporaries
of Mochuda are accurate on the whole and there are few inconsistencies
or none. Moreover it sheds some new light on that chronic
puzzle--organisation of the Celtic Church of Ireland. Mochuda, head of a
great monastery at Rahen, is likewise a kind of pluralist Parish Priest
with a parish in Kerry, administered in his name by deputed
ecclesiastics, and other parishes similarly administered in Kerrycurrihy,
Rostellan, West Muskerry, and Spike Island, Co. Cork. When a chief
parishioner lies seriously ill in distant Corca Duibhne, Mochuda himself
comes all the way from the centre of Ireland to administer the last rites
to the dying man, and so on.
The relations of the people to the Church and its ministers are in many
respects not at all easy to understand. Oblations, for instance, of
themselves and their territory, &c., by chieftains are frequent.
Oblations of monasteries are made in a similar way. Probably this
signifies no more than that the chief region or monastery put itself
under the saint's jurisdiction or rule or both. That there were other
churches too than the purely monastic appears from offerings to Mochuda
of already existing churches, v.g. from the Clanna Ruadhan in Decies,
&c.
Lismore, the most famous of Mochuda's foundations, became within a
century of the saint's death, one of the great monastic schools of Erin,
attracting to his halls, or rather to its boothies, students from all
Ireland and even--so it is claimed--from lands beyond the seas. King
Alfrid [Aldfrith] of Northumbria, for instance, is said to have partaken
of Lismore's hospitality, and certainly Cormac of Cashel, Malachy and
Celsus of Armagh and many others of the most distinguished of the Scots
partook thereof. The roll of Lismore's calendared saints would require,
did the matter fall within our immediate province, more than one page to
itself. Some interesting reference to Mochuda and his holy city occur
in the Life of one of his disciples, St. Colman Maic Luachain, edited
for the R.I.A. by Professor Kuno Meyer.
There are many indications in the present Life that, at one period, and
in the time of Carthach, the western boundary of Decies extended far
beyond the line at present recognised. Similar indications are furnished
by the martyrologies, &c.; for instance, the martyrology of Donegal
under November 28th records of "the three sons of Bochra" that "they are
of Archadh Raithin in Ui Mic Caille in Deisi Mumhan" and Ibid, p.
xxxvii, it is stated "i ccondae Corcaige ataid na Desi Muman." Not only
Imokilly but all Co. Cork, east of Queenstown [Cobh] and north to the
Blackwater, seems to have acknowledged Mochuda's jurisdiction. At
Rathbreasail accordingly (teste Keating, on the authority of the Book of
Cloneneigh) the Diocese of Lismore is made to extend to Cork,--probably
over the present baronies of Imokilly, Kinatallon, and Barrymore. That
part, at least, of Condons and Clangibbon was likewise included is
inferrible from the fact that, as late as the sixteenth century
visitations, Kilworth, founded by Colman Maic Luachain, ranked as a
parish in the diocese of Lismore. Further evidence pointing in the same
direction is furnished by Clondulane, &c., represented in the present
Life as within Carthach's jurisdiction.
The Rule of St. Carthach is one of the few ancient Irish so-called
monastic Rules surviving. It is in reality less a "rule," as the latter
is now understood, than a series of Christian and religious counsels
drawn up by a spiritual master for his disciples. It must not be
understood from this that each religious house did not have it formal
regulations. The latter however seem to have depended largely upon the
abbot's spirit, will or discretion. The existing "Rules" abound in
allusions to forgotten practices and customs and, to add to their
obscurity, their language is very difficult--sometimes, like the
language of the Brehon Laws, unintelligible. The rule ascribed to
Mochuda is certainly a document of great antiquity and may well have
emanated from the seventh century and from the author whose name it
bears. The tradition of Lismore and indeed of the Irish Church is
constant in attributing it to him. Copies of the Rule are found in
numerous MSS. but many of them are worthless owing to the incompetence
of the scribes to whom the difficult Irish of the text was
unintelligible. The text in the Leabhar Breac has been made the basis
of his edition of the Rule by Mac Eaglaise, a writer in the 'Irish
Ecclesiastical Record' (1910). Mac Eaglaise's edition, though it is not
all that could be desired, is far the most satisfactory which has yet
appeared. Previous editions of the Rule or part of it comprise one by
Dr. Reeves in his tract on the Culdees, one by Kuno Meyer in the 'Gaelic
Journal' (Vol. V.) and another in 'Archiv fuer C.L.' (3 Bund. 1905), and
another again in 'Eriu' (Vol. 2, p. 172), besides a free translation of
the whole rule by O'Curry in the 'I. R. Record' for 1864. The text of
the 'Record' edition of 1910 is from Leabhar Breac collated with other
MSS. The order in the various copies is not the same and some copies
contain material which is wanting in others. The "Rule" commences with
the Ten Commandments, then it enumerates the obligations respectively of
bishops, abbots, priests, monks, and culdees [anchorites]. Finally there
is a section on the order of meals and on the refectory and another on
the obligations of a king. The following excerpt on the duties of an
abbot ('I. E. Record' translation) will illustrate the style and spirit
of the Rule:
"Of the Abbot of a Church.
1.--If you be the head man of a Church noble is the power, better for you
that you be just who take the heirship of the king.
2.--If you are the head man of a Church noble is the obligation,
preservation of the rights of the Church from the small to the great.
3.--What Holy Church commands preach then with diligence; what you order
to each one do it yourself.
4.--As you love your own soul love the souls of all. Yours the
magnification of every good [and] banishment of every evil.
5.--Be not a candle under a bushel [Luke 11:33]. Your learning without a
cloud over it. Yours the healing of every host both strong and weak.
6.--Yours to judge each one according to grade and according to deed; he
will advise you at judgment before the king....
10.--Yours to rebuke the foolish, to punish the hosts, turning disorder
into order [restraint] of the stubborn, obstinate, wretched."
Reservation of the Coarbship of Mochuda at Lismore in favour of Kerrymen
is an extremely curious if not unique provision. How long it continued
in force we do not know. Probably it endured to the twelfth century and
possibly the rule was not of strict interpretation. Christian
O'Connarchy, who was bishop of Lismore in the twelfth century, is
regarded as a native of Decies, though the contrary is slightly
suggested by his final retirement to Kerry. The alleged prophecy
concerning Kerry men and the coarbship points to some rule, regulation
or law of Mochuda.