VIII. IRISH SCHOOLS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY…

VIII. IRISH SCHOOLS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY

THE MONASTIC SCHOOL OF ST. ENDA OF ARAN.

"You'll see the homes of holy men Far west upon the shoreless main-- In sheltered vale, on cloudy Ben, Where saints still pray, and scribes still pen The sacred page, despising gain." --M'Gee: Iona to Ireland.

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

If we accept the authority of the Catalogue of the Three Orders of Irish Saints, those of the fifth century were mainly missionaries; those of the sixth century were cenobites; and the Third Order were for the most part anchorites, or Culdees as they afterwards came to be called. To a certain extent this is true. The Church of the sixth century partook very much of the monastic character; as Skene says, "There was episcopacy in the Church, but it was not diocesan episcopacy."[150] We should be inclined to accept this statement, if the learned writer had inserted one word, and said that it was not always diocesan episcopacy. In Iona, and doubtless in other great monasteries also, there was generally a resident prelate, subject in jurisdiction to the presbyter-abbot; but Venerable Bede says expressly[151] that it was an unusual arrangement--inusitato ordine--and his authority settles the question; it was unusual even in the Celtic Churches.

There is no doubt that monastic influence predominated in the Irish Church of the sixth century, and that the head of the monastery was not always, though he certainly was very frequently, a bishop. This arose partly from the ardour of the Celtic character in its efforts to reach perfection, partly from the unsettled state of the country, and to some extent from the influence and example of the great Columba himself. It was by accident he was not consecrated a bishop, and his successors would not pretend to be greater than their holy founder. But the system at least produced one excellent effect--it was under God the means of establishing those wonderful monastic schools so famed in every Christian land.

It is certain, as we have seen, that there were in Ireland from the very first conversion of the people both monks and nuns, and therefore monasteries also. But the founders of these religious houses could give very little time to regulate their constitution and government, much less to undertake the management of such institutions themselves. St. Patrick and his fellow labourers were 'the founders of churches' rather than of monasteries--their work was to preach, to ordain, to baptize. It was the next generation of monks that undertook to found monasteries properly so called; men who themselves were trained in religious houses elsewhere, and thus becoming acquainted with religious life and discipline were fitted to found similar institutions at home. The earliest of these monasteries properly so called date from the beginning of the sixth century; and perhaps the two most celebrated fathers of Irish monastic life, in this sense of the word, were St. Enda of Aran, and St. Finnian of Clonard. We shall first speak of St. Enda.

Aran, under St. Enda, may be called the novitiate of the Irish saints of the Second Order, as Clonard may be considered their college; and hence we shall trace as carefully as we can the history of these two famous foundations of sanctity and learning, to which the ancient Church of Ireland owed so much.

St. Enda, or Endeus, was of royal blood--one of "the sons of the Kings of the Scots," who embraced the monastic state even during the lifetime of St. Patrick himself. His father, Conall Derg, was king of Oriel--a wide territory extending from Lough Erne to the sea at Dundalk, and nearly conterminous with the modern diocese of Clogher. His mother was Evin (Aebhfhinn) grand-daughter of Ronan, king of the Ards of Down. He had a sister called Fanchea, a devout maiden, who is said by some to have received the veil from the hands of St. Patrick, and to whom her brother owed his conversion to the religious life. The young prince succeeded his father as chieftain of the men of Oriel, and although high-minded and pure-hearted, he took a chieftain's share in the wild work of mutual pillage and slaughter to which these Irish chieftains were always too much prone. His pious sister had founded a convent of nuns at a place called Ross Oirthir, which is in all probability identical with the old church and cemetery of Rossory, in the parish of the same name by the shores of the River Erne, on its left bank near Enniskillen, and not far from the famous Franciscan Abbey of Lisgoole. The old church has disappeared with the progress of modern 'improvements;' but the home of the dead is still untouched. Here St. Fanchea had her oratory and nunnery, when it happened that her brother led the clansmen past the convent to attack their enemies. Shortly after a wild song of joy told the terrified maidens that they were returning home triumphant, having conquered their foes and slain the leader.

The young prince stopped to see his sister at the convent gate, but she forbade him to approach, stained as he was, with the blood of his fellow creatures. Enda said it was his duty to defend his people and conquer their enemies--"I have not killed any man," he said, "nor yet have I ever sinned with women"--and then it seems he asked his sister to allow him to take to be his wife one of the young ladies under her care who was remarkable for her beauty. Fanchea knew she was powerless to resist, if her warrior brother persisted in his purpose. So she bade him stay where he was, and going into the convent called the maiden before her, and said, "My sister, a choice is given you to-day--wouldst thou love the Spouse whom I love, or rather a carnal spouse?" "I will always love thy Spouse," said the maiden. Then Fanchea brought her to an inner chamber, and bade her lie down on the bed. She did so, and soon after fell quietly asleep in the Lord. Then Fanchea put a veil on the face of the dead, and bringing in her brother, she said, taking the veil suddenly off, "Come and see her whom thou lovest." He started at the sight, but not thinking her dead, he only said--"She is awfully pale and ghastly." "It is the paleness of death," said his sister; "and so shall you soon be if you repent not your sins." The young man retired conscience-stricken, and Fanchea so used the auspicious moment to remind him of the torments of hell and the joys of heaven, that he at once resolved to renounce his principality and become a monk.

Enda now gave striking proof of the sincerity of his conversion. The convent and oratory of his sister Fanchea were still unprotected by a rampart of any kind; and what had just taken place clearly showed the want of some enclosure in those turbulent days. Enda resolved to accomplish the work with his own hands, and doubtless with the aid of some of his tribesmen. He dug a deep fosse and raised a large 'mur' or rampart of earth all round the sacred enclosure, so that in future one or two faithful attendants could defend the narrow entrance of the fort against sudden attack. It is interesting to know that a portion of this earthen rampart raised by Enda himself is still to be seen on the western side of the rath levelled low by time, but still some thirteen yards in thickness and several feet in height.

From Rossory Enda went to Killany, in the co. Louth, and there within the bounds of his own principality he set about the construction of a monastery for himself and such religious men as might join him in the service of God. Here also he directed the workmen in the construction of the buildings, and it seems that his sister, too, had a second religious house not far distant, where she appears to have spent a portion of her time. A party of freebooters once passed by laden with booty where Enda and his men were working. The tribesmen seized their weapons to attack the marauders, and Enda himself caught up one of the poles sunk in the soil for a rampart to join in the fray. Just then his sister, who happened to be present, told him to put his hand to his head and remember whose soldier he was. Enda did so, and feeling the tonsure that he wore, he remembered that he was the soldier of Christ, and cast aside at once both his weapon and the spirit of strife that was excited within him. So his sister Fanchea was, as it were, his good angel, and he was always obedient to her instructions.

Enda, however, was still only a novice in the religious life, and, therefore, not well qualified to be a guide for others. So his sister said to him, "Go thou to Britain, to the monastery of Rosnat, and there become the humble disciple of Mancenus, the head of that monastery."[152] This monastery of Rosnat is by some writers placed in the valley of Rosina, in Wales, where a certain St. Manchen is said to have founded a religious house. We are inclined to agree with Skene that it was rather the celebrated monastery known as Candida Casa, or Whithern, founded by St. Ninian at the extremity of the peninsula of Galloway. This religious house was also known as the Magnum Monasterium, and sometimes as the monastery of Rosnat. It was dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, and hence it is sometimes called the House of Martin. We are here on firm ground, for we have the express testimony of Bede that Ninian, or Ninias, "had been regularly instructed in Rome in the faith and the mysteries of the truth," that his episcopal see was named after St. Martin, that it was in the province of Bernicia, and that there Ninian had built a stately church, generally called Candida Casa, or the White House, because it was built of stone, which was not usual amongst the Britons.[153] This is a most important statement of Bede, for, as we shall see, very many of the founders of the earliest and the greatest of our Irish monasteries were trained at Whithern, and the founder of Whithern himself was trained at Rome in the faith and mysteries of religion, thus directly connecting the fathers of Irish monasticism with the discipline and dogma of Rome.

It is said that St. Ninian, on his return from Rome, called to see the great St. Martin, and that he received from the latter masons to build him a church, as the Britons were not then skilled in stone-work. Ninian was actually building Candida Casa in A.D. 397, when he heard of the death of St. Martin; and, accordingly, when the building was finished he dedicated it to his deceased friend and patron, the great founder of monasticism in Gaul. This fixes the date of its foundation with sufficient accuracy. Candida Casa became, under St. Ninian and his successors, during the fifth century, a great seminary of sanctity and learning, and undoubtedly was one of the chief sources from which Irish monasticism was derived.

Usher quotes an ancient Irish life of St. Ninian,[154] in which it is stated that in his old age, Ninian, who is there said to have been an Irishman, deserted Candida Casa at the earnest request of his mother and of other relations also, and founded a monastery in a beautiful spot called Cluain Conor, where he died several years afterwards. Bede, however, distinctly says that his remains are in Candida Casa. St. Cairnech, to whom we have already referred as one of the co-operators of St. Patrick in the reform of the Brehon Laws, appears to have been a successor of Ninian at Candida Casa, for, in his Life, it is described as the monastery of Cairnech. Afterwards, it is said, he came to Erin, and singularly enough, is described as "the first Bishop of the Clan Niall, the first martyr, and the first monk of Erin, and the first Brehon (that is Christian Brehon), of the men of Erin also."[155] Cairnech was thus, even during the life of St. Patrick, a connecting link between Candida Casa and the North of Ireland; and hence we find that in subsequent years several of our earliest saints repaired to that great seminary to be trained in learning and the discipline of the monastic life. Amongst these may be mentioned Tighernac of Clones and Eugenius of Ardstraw. The former in his Life is said to have been trained in the monastery of Rosnat, which by another name is called Alba (the White), under the guidance and discipline of Monennius; and in the Life of the latter, the same "wise and holy man, Nennio, who is also named Mancennus, of the Monastery of Rosnat," is stated to have been the master both of Tighernach and Eugenius; and it is added that with his blessing and advice, after some years spent there, they set sail for Ireland.

Here we have the same Nennio, or Mo-nennius, called also Mancennus, to whom Enda is directed to go by his sister, and become his humble disciple. Rosnat was then and long after the great seminary of the early Northern Saints, before regular monasteries were founded at home; and hence Enda, a Northern Prince of Oriel, whose mother came from the Ards of Down, would naturally cross the narrow sea to the same great school which his countrymen frequented. In the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, Manchan the Master is said to have accompanied the apostle to Tyrawley, when the chiefs and people of that district were converted about the year A.D. 449. Colgan says,[156] "that this Manchan the Master was the same person who elsewhere is called Mancennus of the Monastery of Rosnat, and that he received the name of Master from his great learning, especially in Theology and Sacred Scripture." The only point at issue seems to be whether Rosnat, the "Great Monastery," was in Galloway or Glen Rosyn[157] in Wales.

It is difficult to fix the period when Enda went to study under the Master at Rosnat. It was probably about the year A.D. 475, for he was still a young man, and as he died very old, about A.D. 540, we may assume that he was born about A.D. 450, and would thus go to Britain between A.D. 470 and 480.

From Rosnat, Enda, like Ninian and several other saints at the time, is said to have gone to Rome, and even to have founded somewhere in Italy a monastery called Laetinum or Latinum. But his sister, Fanchea, who loved him dearly, courageously followed him thither, and induced him to make her a promise that he would return home within a year; and this promise he fulfilled. He landed at Drogheda, which was probably at the time a portion of his father's kingdom of Oriel, and there he founded some churches after his return.

But Oriel was not to be the place of his resurrection. He longed for solitude--to be away from the world, and to be alone with God--and he found it. One of his sisters, called Darenia, was married to Ængus (son of Nadfraich) the King of Munster, whom St. Patrick had baptized; and Enda, hearing that certain wild and lonely islands in the western sea belonged to the territory of the King of Munster, resolved to ask his brother-in-law to give him a grant of these islands that he might there establish his monastery, and live in solitude and security--for the times were lawless, and even God's servants were not always respected. Ængus tried to dissuade Enda from his project, telling him that the islands were inhabited by a race of infidels from Corcomroe, who hated God and His saints, and that his life would not be safe amongst them. Moreover, he offered him a fertile tract in the Golden Vale in which to found a monastery, if Enda so willed it. But he still persisted in his project, and Ængus then made a grant of the Aran Islands to him, and to any religious brethren who might accompany him thither. This must have taken place before the year A.D. 484, which is the date commonly assigned for the death of Ængus Mac Nadfraich.

Aran Mor, the largest and most westerly of the three Islands of Aran, is called in Irish Aran-na-naomh--Aran of the Saints, for it is the holiest spot on Irish soil. In days past it was the chosen home of the Saints of God where they loved to live, and where they longed to die. One hundred and twenty seven saints sleep in the little grave-yard around Killeany Church; and we are told elsewhere that it will never be known until the Day of Judgment, the countless host of saints, whose relics are mingled with the sacred soil of Aran. We propose, therefore, to give a fuller account of the Aran Islands, both in the present and the past, than might, perhaps, be expected from the scope of this work. The islands are filled with both Pagan and Christian antiquities; the inhabitants are a singularly amiable and interesting people; and the physical features of the islands are very bold and striking. We shall say something of them all.

II.--THE ISLES OF ARAN.

These Isles of Aran, with which the name of Enda is so intimately associated, stretch across the entrance to Galway Bay, forming a natural breakwater against the wild Atlantic billows. They are three in number--Aran Mor, Inismaan or Middle Island, and Inishere, or the Eastern Island, but frequently also called the Southern Island. A glance at the map will show that the islands trend to the north-west, opposing a straight wall of lofty cliffs to the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Geologically the islands are a continuation of the limestone formation of the Burren mountains--"a gray and bluish-gray splintery limestone," containing in some places quarries of marble, which even in the time of Roderick O'Flaherty, some two hundred years ago, were worked for tomb-stones, chimney-pieces, and high crosses. The same author says the soil was paved with stone; in some places nothing is to be seen but the naked rock, cropping up everywhere with wide openings between the joints, "where cattle frequently break their legs."

The surface falls to the north-east, and this lower shore line of Aran Mor is broken into two bays, which afford shelter from the prevailing winds. But on the south-west, or seaward line, the islands offer an almost unbroken wall of rock to the long swell of the ocean, rising in some places sheer from the sea to a height of nearly three hundred feet, and hidden beneath the waters to a depth of from twenty to thirty fathoms. Here and there the harder rock stands out in bold precipitous headlands, or completely isolated cliffs; while at other points the sea eats its way through caverns, where the waves roll in with hollow, thundering sound into the bowels of the rocks; and the compressed air within forcing its way upward forms 'puffing holes,' through which the spray is shot high in luminous columns into the air.

Aran Mor is about nine miles long and two at its greatest breadth; it is separated by Gregory Sound[158] from the Middle Island, which is rudely elliptical, and about eight miles in circumference. This latter island is separated from Inishere by a narrower passage, about one mile wide, called the "Foul Sound,"[159] which deserves the name, for it is a rather dangerous passage, containing a hidden shoal with only six feet of water over it. Gregory Sound is wider and deeper, being quite navigable from shore to shore. The tides blocked by the island barriers rush with great force through these narrow channels, rendering the navigation very difficult and dangerous. The passage between the north-western extremity of Aran Mor and Golam Head in Connemara is called the North Sound--in Irish Bealach Locha Lurgain. It is about eight miles across. The passage between Inishere and the co. Clare--the more usual one for sea-going ships--is called the South Sound, and is about five miles broad at its narrowest point. There is a lighthouse near a place called Finnis Rock[160] at the south-eastern extremity of Inishere, which marks the limit of a very dangerous shoal, that stretches out from the island into the Sound. This rock, says O'Flaherty, was remarkable for 'ship-wracks.'

Aran Mor contains 7,635 acres, with a population of nearly 2,000, the greater part of whom, in 1901, could neither read nor write. It has three considerable villages--Killeany on the east; Kilmurry in the middle; and Oonagh towards the north-western extremity of the island.

On the northern slopes of the island there is a sweet, juicy herbage, on which sheep and cattle thrive very well. The grasses are intermingled with various medicinal herbs, such as the wild garlic, which is said to give a delicate flavour to butter, and the rineen, or fairy flax, which is believed to have wonderful curative properties. R. O'Flaherty declares that in his own time "beef, veal, and mutton are better and earlier in season here than anywhere else." He could hardly say so now with truth; but there is no doubt that the veal and mutton are well flavoured. On the shore, in his time, "were samphire in plenty, ring root, and sea-holly, or sea cabbage." The samphire is there still--the crithmum maritimum, or cranagh. It is said to have been used for preserves, and when boiled is frequently eaten by the poorer classes.

The crops consist of patches of oats, rye, and potatoes--the latter is an uncertain crop, whose failure causes great hardships to the islanders. Kelp-making and fishing are the two staple industries of the place. The kelp, or burned sea-weed, is used in the manufacture of iodine, and pays very fairly in dry seasons.

All kinds of fish abound near the islands--cod, ling, haddock, turbot, gurnet, mackerel, glassin, bream, and herring; besides there are lobsters, crabs, and cockles; but the appliances for fishing are of a very primitive description, and the boats are unable to stand severe weather. Many coarse seals are shot on the rocks, and sun-fish used to be speared in April and May from which a considerable quantity of oil was extracted.

All manner of sea-birds frequent the cliffs:--plovers, gannets, pigeons, ducks, and anciently hawks in considerable numbers. Some of these birds, says O'Flaherty, "never fly but over the sea, and are therefore used to be eaten on fasting days, to catch which people go down with ropes tied about them into the caves of the clifts by night, and with a candlelight kill abundance of them." "Here, too," he adds, "are Cornish choughs with red legs and bills."

There are several small wells, many of them holy wells, but in very dry weather the supply of water is exhausted, and the cattle must be removed, or water carried from the mainland. Fuel is very scarce, and now, as well as two hundred years ago, they have to burn cow-dung dried in the sun, when they cannot get turf from Connemara.

Inismaan contains 2,252 acres--less than one-third the area of the Great Island--of an equally churlish soil and rugged surface, yet sustaining a population of about 430 persons. Inis-Airther or Eastern Island, though much the smallest in area, had, in 1901, about 490 inhabitants. The entire population of the three islands then amounted to 3,050, of whom 56 belonged to the Protestant Church. Of the entire population 504 could read and write, while 143 could read only. The Irish language is almost universally spoken by the islanders, who are very conservative of their traditions, and are especially remarkable for their attachment to their native island--they are happy nowhere else. In person they are a tall and handsome race, frank and courteous in their demeanour, with a free and graceful carriage, for their limbs are very lithe and active. They wear shoes of untanned leather, which contribute to this free and easy movement, enabling them to spring from rock to rock with the agility of goats. They are moreover full of faith and piety, considerate and obliging to strangers, strictly honest, truth-telling, and certainly not greedy of gain, as we can affirm from personal experience. They are remarkably industrious--bold fishermen in those wild seas, and on shore are ready to carry on their backs the soil necessary to cover the arid rock, and enable them to cultivate their patches of potatoes. In a wet season they have an excellent crop on these limestone platforms, so lightly covered with clay; but in seasons of drought the parched roots can find no nourishment, and the potato crop is a failure. The consequences are sometimes deplorable; the poor people are half starved--sea fish, when they can catch any, and sea-weed when they cannot, being then their principal nourishment. Such were the islands of Aran when Enda first landed on those stormy shores, and such they are to this day.

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

These islands contain, perhaps, the earliest existing remains of pagan architecture in Western Europe. In every part of the three islands one meets with some monument of a great pre-historic people, whose works even in their ruins will outlive the monuments of later and more civilized peoples. We can only refer to them very briefly, but they are too interesting to be passed over altogether in silence. Those who wish for fuller information would do well to consult Lord Dunraven's admirable Notes on Irish Architecture.[161]

In each of the three islands are found ancient forts or duns, which are traditionally attributed to the Firbolg or Belgic race. After their overthrow by the Tuatha de Danaans in the great battles of North and South Moytury, it is said that the survivors fled for refuge to the remotest shores and islands of the western coast, and there built on almost inaccessible sites those wondrous forts, whose ruins are still to be seen on the islands and sea-washed promontories from Tory Island to Valentia.

It is said that many of this subjugated and exiled race returned from their wanderings about the first century before the Christian era; that they were kindly received by Meave and Aillil, then rulers of the western province; and that they received from them a grant of Connemara, the Isles of Aran, and other uncultivated districts, in which they strongly entrenched themselves against any possibility of future attack.

Not without cause did they take these precautionary measures, for it is recorded that Conall Cearnach, and other heroes of Ulster, sought to dislodge them from their desolate homes on those remotest shores. It is highly probable that it was at this period the Firbolgic tribes sought to protect themselves by raising those wondrous stone forts that still excite the admiration of every traveller. Such is the Bardic narrative, and it furnishes a more satisfactory explanation of those ancient stone fortresses along the western coast than any other that has yet been devised.

According to another tradition it was not the heroes of the North, but the Dalcais of Thomond, who sought to expel the wanderers from their island homes: and then the Clann Umoir built in self-defence those marvellous fortresses whose remains still excite our admiration, as a further protection against their foes.

There are remains of seven forts in the three islands--the first is Dun Ængusa, the Fort of Ængus.

This fort gets its name from Ængus, one of the sons of Hua Môr, a famous chieftain in our pre-Christian history. It is situated at the very edge of the highest portion of the sea-wall on the southern shore of the Great Isle of Aran. Nothing finer can be imagined either for strength or grandeur than the site of this fort. At this point the cliff rises from the waves 300 feet in perpendicular height. To the north and west stretches out the ultimate ocean; on the south the bold promontories of Clare go out to meet the advancing waves; and further on can be discerned in the dim distance Cuchullin's Leap (now called Loop Head), and Brandon Mountain in Kerry, faintly traceable against the sky. All around there is the naked limestone rock, and scarcely discernible from the rock are the giant walls that once formed the last refuge of the ancient Belgic race in Ireland.

The plan of Dun Ængus can be much better understood since the recent restoration effected by the Board of Works. This wonderful fort occupies an angle of the cliff, and in outline is semi-elliptical, with the diameter resting on the edge of the cliff, which itself formed a natural and impregnable wall on the sea side. The fort consists of a triple line of defence, and thus included a triple area rudely concentric. The wall of the inmost area is eighteen feet high, and about eight feet thick. It was built without cement of any kind; but really consists of two separate walls built close together of stones moderate in size, but carefully laid in horizontal positions. This inner wall surrounds a bare rocky floor, now covered with green turf, 142 feet along the cliff's edge, and about 150 feet in depth from the cliff to the furthest extremity.

This inner wall had an entrance some 3 feet 4 ins. wide, and quite perfect when visited by John O'Donovan in 1839; but its lintel has since been thrown down, and the margins broken. It has, however, been lately restored by the Board of Works. The middle wall is at a considerable distance from the inner enclosure, in some places more than 200 feet, but on the north-western corner, where it approaches close to the cliff, it is not more than 22 feet from the inner wall. Outside of this second wall there is a very extraordinary cheveaux de-frize, consisting of large sharp stones set upright, so sharp and so closely set that even to this day it is impossible for man or beast to make their way through them, even with the greatest caution, without cut shins, if nothing worse should happen. We have ourselves tried the experiment, and we did not escape scathless. Nothing more efficacious to break the ranks of an advancing foe, whether horse or foot, could possibly have been devised.

Beyond this cheveaux-de-frize there are the remains of a third wall, which enclosed a very considerable space, and terminates, like the other two, on the very edge of the stupendous cliffs.

This fort of Dun Ængus, with its triple walls, and its chevaux-de-frize, defending it all round to the edge of the cliff, was a fortress so formidable that even still a hundred resolute men could hold it against an army, at least so long as artillery was not employed to dislodge them.

Dun Conchobhair, or Conor's Fort, on the Middle Island is a still more astonishing structure, if we have regard to the time when it was built. Tradition ascribes the building of this noble fort to Conor, another son of Hua Môr, and brother of Ængus. It is larger, and better built than the Fort of Ængus, and is finely situated in the centre of the island at its highest point about 250 feet above the sea. The innermost enclosure measures 227 feet in length by 115 feet in breadth, and is oval in form. The wall had two faces and a central core; it has besides a considerable batter, and varies in different parts to from five to eight feet in width. On the east side there was a triple wall nearly eighteen feet in breadth, and twenty feet high. Its summit seems to have been approached by a flight of lateral steps in the wall, of which the traces still remain.

In this, as well as in some of the other forts, are the remains of cloghauns, or small cells, of beehive shape, built of stone, which were evidently the habitations of the defenders of the fortress. This fact is highly important, because it goes to show, that the beehive cell of the early saints within the caiseal or sacred enclosure was not a new idea, but simply the practice, which the saints had themselves seen in those pagan forts, where stone abounded.

There is another fort called Mothar Dun, on the Middle Island, which is both in size and outline merely a reproduction of Dun Oonacht, to which we shall presently refer. Its largest diameter is 103 feet, and its smallest 93 feet. It was so situated on the slope of the hill, that the summit of the rocky cliff overlooks the area of the fort.

Dubh Cathair, the Black Fort, is in the townland of Killeany, on Aran Mor. It was situated on an isolated promontory rising high above the sea, and separated from the mainland by a wall and fosse about 220 feet in length. The fort takes its name from the black colour of the stones with which it was built.

Dun Oonacht is also on Aran Mor, at its northern extremity, and commands a magnificent view of the coast line and mountains of Connemara. In shape it is nearly circular, with a diameter of 94 feet, and is built of large stones, laid horizontally, but not in courses. The fort wall was very much broken; it has, we believe, been repaired since our visit, but it is still quite 15 feet high on the southern side. There are no traces of a chevaux-de-frize, as at Dun Ængus, and at the Black Fort. Dun Oghil is also in Aran Mor, and crowns the summit of the highest hill on the island. It has two concentric enclosures, the inner of which is an oval 75 by 91 feet. The name meant the Fort of the Yew Wood.

There was another large fort on the Southern Island, but even tradition has forgotten its name. There are also other remains of a similar character in these islands, especially on Aran Mor, but even their names have vanished from the tenacious memory of the islanders. At least one of these ancient forts, the Dun of Muirbheach Mil, was utilized in Christian times as a monastic enclosure, within which the oratory and the cells of the monks were constructed. It is not unlikely that all the stone caiseals on the shores and islands of the West, were similarly of pagan origin, but were utilized by the monks to protect their own religious buildings.

It is quite evident to any one, who surveys these ruins on Aran Mor, that the islands were in ancient times the stronghold of a warrior race, who preferred the freedom of these barren crags to serfdom in the more fertile lands of the interior. They were men of might, who loved their freedom dearly and resolved to defend it to the last extremity. They could not have subsisted on the naked rocks around them, and were most likely toilers on the sea, if not freebooters as well, who seized with strong hand whatever they could grasp by land or water; and then fled for shelter to their insular fortresses, where they might laugh to scorn any force sent to punish them. Yet they must have been men of bold hearts, burning with an unconquerable love of liberty, to build their eyries on the topmost cliffs of those storm swept islands. So we thought, as we sat, on the lofty cliff of Dun Ængus, three hundred feet above the boiling sea, surrounded by the grand old walls, which their hands had reared at least 2,000 years ago. And if the spirits of the dead can ever revisit the haunts they loved during life, we can well fancy how the ghosts of the vanished sea-kings would still revel on those lone heights, when the storm swept in from the west, and the scream of the sea birds was mingled on some wild night with the roar of the white-breasted billows.

It is strange that history furnishes us with no account of the final extinction of these bold warriors. Were they swept into the sea by the advancing hosts of the Milesian tribes? or were they the "infidels from Corcomroe," who dwelt in the islands when Enda first dared to set his foot on their godless shores? We cannot tell; we only know that Enda changed these pagan isles into islands of the blest, that side by side with the pagan ruins of sea-kings are the churches and cells of himself and his followers, which taken together, make the Isles of Aran the most holy and most interesting spot within the wide bounds of Britain's insular empire.

IV.--CHRISTIAN ARAN OF ST. ENDA.

Tradition tells us that Enda came first across the North Sound from Garomna Island on the coast of Connemara, and landed in the little bay under the village of Killeany, to which he has given his name. He came over too in a stone boat, which floated lightly on the tide. It is there still; we saw it ourselves on the sea shore. "Where is it," I said to my guide. "Yonder on the shore near the boat," he replied, and keeping my eyes fixed on the boat, which was before us, and towards which we directed our steps in the gloom as to a land-mark, I did not perceive until quite close that the 'boat' was in reality a large rock, so like a boat in shape that a stranger could not tell the difference at any distance in the fading light! This spot, in Enda's Life, is called Leamhchoill, but according to O'Flaherty it is more properly called Ocuill, and it is nigh, he says, to the great Curragh Stone, in which Enda sailed over the sea to the island.

Corban, the chief of the 'Gentiles,' who dwelt on the islands, was at first hostile to Enda, and plotted against his life. But frightened by the prodigies which he witnessed, and convinced that Enda was indeed a man of God, he appears to have quietly given up the Great Island to the saint and withdrawn with his people, who consented to become Christians, either to the neighbouring islands or to the mainland.

Enda founded his first monastery at Killeany, close to the present village of the same name, and the fame of his austere sanctity soon spread throughout all Erin, and attracted religious men from all parts of the country. Amongst the first who came to visit Enda's island sanctuary was the celebrated St. Brendan, the Navigator as he is called, who was then revolving in his mind his great projects of discovering the Promised Land beyond the western main. He came to consult Enda and seek his blessing for the prosperous execution of his daring purpose.

"Hearing how blessed Enda lived apart, Amid the sacred caves of Aran-Mor, And how beneath his eye spread like a chart, Lay all the isles of that remotest shore; And how he had collected in his mind All that was known to man of the Old Sea, I left the Hill of Miracles behind, And sailed from out the shallow sandy Lea.

"When I proclaimed the project that I nursed, How 'twas for this that I his blessing sought, An irrepressible cry of joy outburst From his pure lips, that blessed me for the thought. He said that he too had in visions strayed Over the untracked ocean's billowy foam; Bid me have hope, that God would give me aid, And bring me safe back to my native home." --D. F. McCarthy.

Thither too came Finnian of Clonard, himself the "Tutor of the Saints of Erin," to drink in heavenly wisdom from the lips of the blessed Enda; for Enda seems to have been the senior of all these saints of the Second Order, and he was loved and reverenced by them all as a father. Clonard was a great College; but Aran of St. Enda was the greatest sanctuary and nursery of holiness throughout all the land of Erin. Thither came, even from the farthest North, another venerable sage, Finnian of Moville, one of the teachers of the great Columcille. And thither too came Columcille himself, a scion of the royal race of Niall the Great, the ardent high-souled prince of Tirconnell, who had not yet quite schooled his fiery spirit to the patient endurance of injustice or insult. And therefore he came in his currach with the scholar's belt and book-satchel to learn divine wisdom in this remote school of the sea. Here he took his turn at grinding the corn, and herding the sheep; he studied the Scriptures and learned from Enda's lips the virtues of a true monk, as practised by the saints and fathers of the desert, and as daily exhibited in the godly life and conversation of the blessed Enda himself, and of the holy companions who shared his studies and his labours.

Most reluctantly he left the sacred isle, and we know from a poem which he has left how dearly he loved Aran, and how bitterly he sorrowed in his soul when "the Son of God" called him away from that beloved island to other scenes and other labours.

"Farewell to Aran Isle; farewell! I steer for Hy--my heart is sore; The breakers burst, the billows swell, Twixt Aran Isle and Alba's shore."[162]

He calls it Aran, "Sun of all the West," another Pilgrims' Rome, under whose pure earth he would as soon be buried, as nigh to the graves of St. Peter and St. Paul.

With Columcille at Aran was also the mild-eyed Ciaran, 'the Carpenter's son,' and the best beloved of all the disciples of Enda. And when Ciaran, too, was called away by God to found his own great monastery in the green meadows by the Shannon's side, we are told that Enda and his monks came with him down to the sea shore, whilst their eyes were moist and their hearts were sorrow-laden. Then the young and gentle Ciaran, whose own career was destined to be so bright and so brief, knelt down on the white sand and begged his holy father's blessing, while the tears streamed down his cheeks. It was too much for the holy old man to bear; in the pathetic language of the Scripture he lifted up his voice and wept aloud--"Oh! my brethren," he said, "why should I not weep? this day our island has lost its choicest flower and the strength of religious observance." So Ciaran got his Abbot's blessing, and entering his currach, sailed away for the mainland; but he often turned his streaming eyes to look back on Aran, the home of his heart, and on the little cells where his brethren dwelt, and the oratory of his beloved father, Enda, and the billowy cliffs of the holy island now fast fading from his view.

There is hardly a single one of the great saints of the Second Order who did not spend some time in Aran. It was, as we have said, the novitiate of their religious life. St. Jarlath of Tuam, nearly as old as Enda himself, St. Carthach the Elder of Lismore, the two St. Kevins of Glendalough--two brothers, St. Mac Creiche of Corcomroe, St. Lonan Kerr, St. Nechan, St. Guigneus, St. Papeus, St. Libeus, brother of St. Enda himself, all were there.

There is no other part of Ireland so interesting as these Aran Islands, not only from their past history, but from the great number of Christian remains that are still to be found on their shores. No where else do we find so many and so various specimens of early Christian architecture--churches, cloghauns, duirteachs, crosses, and cashels. To these monuments, however interesting in themselves, we can make but very brief reference.

Enda divided Aran Mor into two parts; one-half he assigned to his own monastery of Killeany; the other or western half he assigned to such of his disciples as chose to erect permanent religious houses in the island. This, however, seems to have been a later arrangement, for at first it is said that he had 150 disciples under his own care; but when the establishment grew to be thus large in numbers, he divided the whole island into ten parts--each having its own religious house, and its own superior, while he himself retained a general superintendence over them all. The existing remains prove conclusively that there must have been several distinct establishments on the island, for we find separate groups of ruins at Killeany, at Killronan, at Kilmurvey, and further west at "The Seven Churches." The islanders still retain many vivid and interesting traditions of the saints and their churches. Fortunately, too, we have other aids also to confirm these traditions, and identify the founders or patrons of the existing ruins.

The life of Enda and his monks was simple and austere. The day was divided into periods for prayer, labour, and sacred study. Each community had its own church and its village of stone cells in which they slept either on the bare ground or on a bundle of straw covered with a rug, but always in the clothes worn by day. They assembled for their devotions in the church or oratory of the saint, under whose immediate care they were placed; they took their frugal meals in a common refectory, and cooked their food in a common kitchen--for they had no fires in the stone cells however cold--if cold could be felt by these hearts so glowing with the love of God. They invariably carried out the monastic rule of procuring their own food by labour. Some fished around the islands; others cultivated patches of oats or barley in sheltered spots between the rocks. Others ground it with the quern, like Ciaran, or kneaded the meal into bread, and baked it for the use of the brethren. They could have no fruit on these islands, nor wine or mead, nor flesh meat, except perhaps a little for the sick. Sometimes on the great festivals, or when guests of distinction came to the island, one of their tiny sheep was killed, and then the brethren were allowed to share, if they chose, in the good cheer provided for the visitors. Enda himself never tasted flesh meat, and we have reason to believe that many of his monks followed the saint's example. Yet their lives were full of sunny hope and true happiness. That desert island was a paradise for those children of God; its arid rocks were to them as a garden of delights; the sunlight on its summer seas was a bright picture of heavenly joys; and the roar of its wintry billows reminded them of the power and of the wrath of God. So they passed their blameless lives living only for God, and waiting not in fear, but in hope, for the happy hour when their Heavenly Father would call them home. Their bodies were laid to rest beside the walls of the little churches--their graves may still be seen stretched side by side, and who can doubt that their sinless souls went up to God in heaven?

V.--ANCIENT CHURCHES IN ARAN.

Colgan has fortunately preserved for us a description of the old churches of Aran, written about the year A.D. 1645, by the learned and accomplished Malachy O'Queely, Archbishop of Tuam. It is very doubtful if O'Queely's list, even in his own time, was quite accurate; with its help, however, and such information as we were able to collect from the traditions of the people, as well as from other sources, we shall give as full a list of the existing remains as we can at present obtain.

In the townland of Killeany, O'Queely enumerates the following churches:--(1) Killeany itself, that is, Kill-Enda, pronounced Killeany--for Enda is pronounced Enna by the islanders. It was the parish church, he tells us, and gave its name to the village, which is close at hand. (2) There is the oratory of St. Enda, a much smaller building, close to the sea shore, in which the saint himself was buried. It is called Teglach-Enda, which probably means the tumulus, or grave-mound of Enda. (3) There was another church called Tempull Mic Longa, doubtless founded by the saint, whose name it bears, but of whom nothing further is known. O'Queely says it was near the parish church, but the place cannot at present be identified with certainty. (4) Tempull Mic Canonn, of which, says O'Queely, nothing more is known. (5) Another church called Tempull Benain, which gives rise to a very interesting question as to whether it was dedicated to St. Benignus or founded by that saint. St. Benignus, the elder, was dead before St. Enda first arrived in Aran; so it is more likely this church was founded by 'Benen, brother of Cethech,' who was also a disciple of St. Patrick. This Tempull Benain is one of the most interesting ruins in the island, and is a very beautiful example of our primitive stone oratories. (6) Another church was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, as was indeed usually the case in our great monastic enclosures. (7) Then there was another church called Mainister Connachtach--the Connaughtman's monastery--which O'Queely holds to have been distinct from (8) Kill-na-manach, the latter being founded by, or dedicated to, St. Caradoc--a British 'monk,' who is probably the same as the celebrated St. Cadoc, the founder of Llancarvan in Wales.

Thus we have in the single townland of Killeany no less than seven or eight churches and oratories, grouped together around the oratories of St. Enda and of St. Benignus. It is remarkable that these two alone now survive--perhaps because the islanders would not allow the vandals, who carried off the stones of the other churches, and of the round tower, to build 'Cromwell's Fort,' to touch these two more ancient and more holy oratories. There was also a Franciscan monastery on the sea shore, and it may be some of the stones were carried off for its construction also.

The oratory of St. Enda, called Telagh-Enda, is of course the most interesting of all these ruins. It is still wonderfully well preserved, and, although some repairs took place at different times, there is no doubt that the greater part of the original building still remains. The grave-yard in which 127 saints are buried surrounds the church. The grave of the founder himself, according to O'Flaherty, was a few paces to the north-west from the door of the church. The holy spot is sometimes quite covered with the drifting sand; at other times Enda's grave, and the leac or flag covering it, can be pointed out by any of the islanders. There were other primitive churches founded by Enda which still bear his name both in Clare and Galway; and we find that even in Meath, Limerick, and Queen's County, there are parishes, as there were once, no doubt, old churches, dedicated to his name. Killeany of Arran, however, was the most celebrated of them all--there he lived for more than sixty years, 'in his prison of hard narrow stone,' and there he sleeps beside the sea, surrounded by the loved ones whom he taught and sanctified.

Of the group now called by the natives the 'Seven Churches,' O'Queely mentions only two--the parish church known as Tempull Brecain, and another church close at hand which, he says, is commonly called Tempull a Phuill. It is highly probable that there were other churches also around Tempull Brecain, although it is now quite impossible to ascertain either the patrons or founders. Dr. Petrie, however, whose opinion is entitled to the greatest weight, thinks that the other buildings, whose remains are still to be seen at the "Seven Churches" in Aran Mor, were monastic buildings annexed to the churches. Tempull Brecain was certainly the central building of this group, and was of considerable size, the nave measuring 32 feet by 18, and the chancel 20 feet by 18-1/2 in breadth. The latter in its present state seems to be the work of a later period, although portions of the original wall still remain. The masonry in the earlier parts is more coarse and irregular, and is apparently coeval with that of Kill-Enda. There is in the north wall a very peculiar angular-headed window, which seems to have belonged to the primitive structure, and is characteristic of our most ancient churches. The western door has disappeared; but a chancel-arch of exquisite workmanship has been inserted in the eastern gable. It is so beautifully built, and so Roman in its style, that Dr. Petrie came to the conclusion that it must have been executed by foreign workmen. In the interior of the west wall of the nave is an inscribed stone having in uncial letters the words OR AR II CANOIN--"A prayer for the two canons"--but who they were is quite unknown. It will be recollected that there was at Killeany, according to O'Queely's list, a church called "Tempull Mic Canonn," perhaps the son of one of those here commemorated.

The tomb of the founder, St. Brecan, was discovered about forty years ago, says Petrie, when a grave was being opened to receive the remains of a priest who, at his death, expressed a wish to be buried in that grave. On the flagstone was a cross within a circle with the words (S)CI BRECANI, which Petrie translates "for the Head (Capiti) of Brecan." It is obvious, however, that the first word is an abbreviation for 'Sancti,' and that the meaning is--"(the stone) of holy Brecan," which was doubtless placed over the saint by his beloved disciples. On the same occasion another stone was discovered within the grave with the simple legend in the rudest Irish characters ✢ OR AR BRAN N'ALITHER--a prayer for Bran the pilgrim. This seems an abbreviation of Brecan, and points to the identity of the pilgrim of Aran with the founder of Ardbraccan in Meath. He was of the Dalcassian race in Munster, and is said to have been great-grand-son of Eochaidh Balldearg, Prince of Thomond, who was baptized by St. Patrick. He came to Aran, which had belonged to his relatives, during the lifetime of Enda, who divided the island, as it seems, between their respective followers. An amusing story is told by the islanders of this division. It was agreed that the two saints should commence Mass at the same hour, and then, after Mass, set out with their followers to meet each other. The point of meeting was to be the boundary. Now Brecan took advantage of Enda, and began Mass before him, so that he was able to gain the start first. When Enda reached the high ground he saw that the other saint had not dealt fairly with him; and, praying to God, "he fastened him and his monks, your reverence, near the sea at Kilmurvey, so that he could not stir an inch until the blessed Enda came leisurely up to him, and fixed the line of division at that spot."

In the church-yard of St. Brecan's Church are five graves covered with flags lying side by side, but only recently exposed to view. On one of the headstones is the following curious inscription engraved by Petrie (who did not see the graves), and still distinctly visible and legible,

VII||RO ======= MA ||NI

around the arms of the cross. The Septem Romani, or Seven Romans, here commemorated, doubtless, sleep together in these five graves, for two of the graves are much larger than the others, and are supposed to contain two bodies each.

At first sight it might appear strange to have 'seven Romans' buried together in this far off island; but it must be borne in mind that Gauls, or Britons, who enjoyed the Imperial citizenship in the fifth century would be called 'Romans,' and we know from the Lives of our early Saints, and from the Calendar of Ængus, that many Britons, Franks and 'Romans' of the provinces came to Ireland in the time of St. Patrick, as well as in the following century, when the Anglo-Saxons drove them out of England, as the Franks had driven these 'Romans' out of Gaul. It is a touching sight to see their graves side by side in this remote Isle of the West--those citizens of Imperial Rome forced to seek an asylum in this quiet home of sanctity and learning, which was beyond the limits even of their world-wide empire. Their simple headstone has outlived the Forum and the Colosseum; it is still standing on the spot where it was placed by pious hands thirteen hundred years ago. Even now the islanders point to it with veneration as the resting-place of pilgrim saints, but who they were, or whence they came, they have no notion whatsoever.

There are many other interesting monuments at the "Seven Churches," which we cannot now describe in detail, such as sculptured stones and crosses with the characteristic Celtic ornamentation of the most elaborate style, including on one stone a rude figure of the Crucifixion. There are also the ruins of a curious building called the "Church of the Hollow," of mediæval date, which was probably the oratory and cell of one of the enclosed saints, who flourished in Ireland during the ninth and tenth centuries. There was also an ancient baptistry supplied by a perennial fountain from the living rock--one of the few in Aran--which points to the early custom of baptism by immersion, as then practised in Ireland.

The group of ruins at Kilmurvey was situated within one of those ancient caiseals probably of pagan origin, but utilized by the monks for the protection of their own ecclesiastical buildings. The ancient dun of Muirbheach Mil--a stout Firbolgic warrior of Aran--was thus utilized by Colman Mac Duagh, and then the place changed its name, and came to be called Kilmurvey, as if the savage old pagan had changed his nature, and having become a monk had founded the church within his stronghold. It was, however, founded, not by him, but by St. Colman Mac Duagh, from whom the Diocese of Kilmacduagh takes its name. There is another church close at hand known as Tempull Bog-na-Naomh--the Little Church of the Saints. It was a small oratory without nave or chancel, 15-1/2 feet long by 9-1/2 feet in breadth.

The Great Church, however, founded by St. Colman, was a very beautiful building, and was regarded by Lord Dunraven as the most interesting in Aran Mor. The nave was 18 feet 8 inches long, by 14-1/2 feet broad; the chancel was 15 feet 4 inches in length by 11 feet 2 inches in breadth. The lintel of the western door is a single granite block, borne by a glacier from the mountains of Connemara, 5 feet in length by 2-1/2 feet in depth.

Around the churches were discovered the remains of several cloghauns, or beehive cells, and a great number of ornamental brass pins, used to fasten the mantles of the ancient warriors. As these were found within the cells it would go to prove that they were originally built and tenanted by the warriors of Muirbheach Mil, that the monks of St. Colman simply took possession of the deserted stronghold with its cells, and then built their churches within its walls. The pins were of various forms and sizes, and of tasteful workmanship. No coins were discovered, which would go to show that these pins did not belong to Danish warriors, and the monks certainly never used such articles. Inscribed stones were also found in the neighbourhood of these churches, but they have all unfortunately disappeared. This ancient church is near the residence of Mr. Johnstone, and some of the stones were probably used in building the house or garden walls. As St. Colman flourished about the year A.D. 620, this group of buildings must be regarded as of nearly 100 years later date than the oratories of St. Benen and St. Enda.

One of the most beautiful and interesting of the old churches in Aran Mor is that which is called in Irish, Tempull-na-Cheathair-Aluinn, the Church of the Four Beauties; that is, according to O'Queely, of St. Fursey, St. Brendan of Birr, St. Conall, and St. Berchan. It is, says Petrie, a small but beautiful edifice of cut stone, and was lighted by three small round-headed windows, so placed as to illuminate the altar, two being in the side wall, and one in the east gable over the altar. In Petrie's time this broken window was over-arched with ivy, woodbine, and thorny brambles. The late restorations by the Board of Works have removed these tangled growths, and revealed the little church in something of its primitive beauty. The simple stone altar is still standing at which the four beautiful saints officiated, and a small chamber, 6 feet long by 3 feet 10 inches in breadth, can still be seen within the wall on the west side. It may have been used as a sacristy, or, perhaps, as the dwelling-place of a recluse. There are cloghauns close at hand, which were, doubtless, the cells of the four saints. Most interesting of all are the four graves lately revealed, stretched side by side, within a small enclosure under the wall of the church. It is truly a touching sight, which few can see unmoved, when they think of the simple and holy lives of these four beautiful saints; how they lived and loved together; how calmly and how sweetly they rest under the shadow of those holy walls, where they worshipped God; and how tenderly their memory is still cherished by islanders after a lapse of more than twelve hundred years. Close at hand is the holy well, whose crystal waters were their only drink; and near it a large cloghaun about 20 feet in length, which seems to have been the refectory, where they took their frugal meals together.

O'Queely's conjecture as to their identity is highly improbable, for the four saints whom he names could not have lived together, and certainly were not buried together in Aran Mor; whereas everything connected with the Four Beauties would seem to show that they lived together around this little church, and are buried without doubt in the four graves, that are still to be seen side by side within their own enclosure. Such, too, is the continuous living tradition of the islanders. There was, doubtless, another group of churches at Kilronan, but all traces of them have disappeared. About a mile north-west of Kilronan are the ruins of Monasterkieran; close at hand is St. Kieran's Well, and the little harbour itself is still known as St. Kieran's Bay; which show that the gentle saint of Clonmacnoise founded a monastery in the holy island before he finally left its rugged shores.

It will be seen that Aran Mor is pre-eminently a holy island, and well deserves its name, Aran of the Saints. It had four distinct groups of churches, the ruins of most of which are still visible, and from every point of view it is well worthy of a visit. In ancient times the holy island was a favourite place of pilgrimage, where the saints loved to live and die, for its soil was deemed to be holy ground. And it should still be a place of pilgrimage for every Irishman, who loves the ancient glories of his native land. He will during his visit see many things to instruct and edify him, and teach him to love the ruins of holy Ireland 'with a love far brought from out the storied past,' but elevated and purified by the contemplation of holiness and self-denial.

There are numerous and interesting ruins of a similar character, both pagan and Christian on the Middle and on the Eastern Island also. We cannot, however, describe them at present; let us hope that we have said enough to awaken a more general interest in those ancient sanctuaries. The history of the Holy Islands of the West is yet to be written, and it will be a story full of sacred and romantic interest.

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IX. THE SCHOOL OF ST. FINNIAN OF CLONARD

"I would the great world grew like thee, Who grewest not alone in power And knowledge, but by year and hour In reverence and in charity." --Tennyson.

I.--PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS.

We have said that as Aran was the novitiate, so Clonard was the great college of the Irish Saints of the Second Order. Before, however, we proceed to give an account of this great seminary and its founder, it will be useful to give a short sketch of the Christian Schools up to that period.

Of Christian Schools, in the modern sense of the word, there were none, and there could be none, during the first three centuries of the Church's history. She had then to struggle for a bare existence against the most powerful enemies; neither her worship nor her schools would be sanctioned, or even tolerated by the Roman Empire. Yet it was even then essential to train the clergy in sacred learning, and to instruct the people in the saving truths of faith. But, as a rule, this was done privately and unostentatiously in the catacombs; in the houses of the bishops when they had any fixed residence; and very frequently in the private grounds or private houses of wealthy and influential Christians.

The first Christian School, really worthy of the name, so far as we can judge, was established at Alexandria about the year A.D. 180. It became famous as a catechetical school, or school of dogma, and was conducted by several illustrious men--Pantaenus, Origen, Dionysius, and others--whose learning was celebrated throughout the whole Church, and whose lectures and writings exercised a very wide and enduring influence on their own, as well as on later generations. But this was rather a school of theology than of general literature, and designed more for adult inquirers, both male and female, than for the systematic instruction of the young. Similar schools were afterwards founded at Antioch, at Caesarea, at Edessa, and subsequently at Nisibis in Armenia.

Even during the centuries when those schools of dogma were most flourishing, young Christians found it necessary to frequent the schools of the pagans for the purpose of obtaining a professional or general education. The masters were pagan; the books were the ancient classics of Greek and Rome; and the majority of the pupils in most cases belonged to the old pagan religion. But it was a case of absolute necessity, as St. Jerome says; and they should either forfeit the culture, or face the danger. The most celebrated of those schools was at Athens, and there we find together under a pagan professor of Rhetoric, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzen and Julian, afterwards the Apostate, on the same benches with sons of pagan senators and scoffing rhetors.

Christians might not be teachers in such schools, for they would have to explain the mythology, and observe the festivals, and in other respects honour the gods of Greece and Rome. But Christians were sometimes allowed to attend the lectures of distinguished teachers, guarding themselves against the dangers that might arise from the influence of the teachers, of their companions, and of the pagan authors. It is true, indeed, the more rigid Christians denounced the whole system as not only dangerous, but essentially wrong and immoral. They preferred to do without this mental culture, rather than obtain it at so much peril to their own souls. They censured even the study of the pagan authors under the guidance of Christian teachers. The false maxims of their philosophers would make some impression, they alleged, on the retentive and plastic minds of the young; the stories of the loves of their gods and goddesses would sully the purity of innocent hearts; and the coarseness of the thoughts could not be effectually screened by eloquence of language and mere beauty of literary form. The study of the Sacred Scriptures ought to be enough for all true Christians, whose sole aim should be to purify the heart and elevate their thoughts to God and heavenly things.

Fortunately these strict principles were not generally followed in practice. Most of the Greek and Latin Fathers not only studied the classics, but availed themselves of the lectures of the most celebrated professors of their own time, whether Christian or pagan; and so they were enabled to meet their opponents on equal terms--to refute the philosophers by philosophy, and the rhetoricians by rhetoric, to point out the turpitude of the gods of Greece and Rome, and to contrast in glowing language of the most fervid and lofty eloquence, the nobility of Christian doctrine, and the purity of Christian morals with the false ethics and unclean practices of the pagan religion.

In the fifth century, however, of the Christian era a change gradually took place. With the decline of paganism the great schools in the various cities of the empire began to decay, and were finally closed during the reign of Justinian. Meanwhile episcopal schools for the education of the clergy were further developed and enlarged. St. Augustine at Hippo, St. Ambrose at Milan, St. Eusebius at Arles, had founded establishments of this kind, and the fame of those great and learned prelates soon attracted large numbers of pupils to their episcopal seminaries. The Churches of Africa eagerly sought for pupils of St. Augustine's school to fill the vacancies occurring in their sees, and many other pupils from the more celebrated of these seminaries were raised to the highest dignities in the Church.

But with the spread of monasteries in the West during the fourth and fifth centuries a new and vigorous impulse was given not only to all branches of sacred learning, but indirectly to profane literature also. Sacred reading and sacred study was deemed an essential portion of monastic work. Legere, orare, laborare--study, prayer, and labour--was the daily work of the monk; and if it was not always the task of the individual it certainly was of the community. Of course the sacred volume was the primary object of their study; but almost all branches of human learning are aids to the study and right understanding of Scripture, and were cultivated for that purpose.

Then again, monasticism was, as we have seen, intended to be self-sufficing. It was a world of its own, a city of God, producing for itself all that is needed in the physical and moral order. So the monks found it necessary to cultivate the ornamental as well as the useful arts of life. They delved and sowed and reaped; but they also built their churches, and decorated their altars, and wrote their books, and sang in choir, and computed their festivals, and healed the sick. There must be amongst them physicians, astronomers, geometers, and musicians, as well as moralists, preachers, scribes, and illuminators. Every branch of human knowledge was useful, if not necessary, for a great monastery, and they all came to be cultivated in the great monastic schools.

One of the earliest and most celebrated of these schools in the West was that founded by the illustrious John Cassian near Marseilles, between the years A.D. 415-420. No man was better qualified than Cassian to introduce the monasticism of Egypt into Europe. He spent the earlier years of his life at a monastery in Bethlehem, then he retired to the Thebaid for seven years, conversing with the Fathers of the Desert, whilst closely observing their religious exercises, and the daily routine of their lives. Afterwards he visited Constantinople, Rome, and even the far distant Churches of Mesopotamia. At length about A.D. 415 he settled down in the neighbourhood of Marseilles, then as in Cicero's time famous for intellectual pursuits, and there founded the celebrated monastery of St. Victor, which was the nursery of many of the greatest prelates of the fifth century. He gave himself up with all zeal to the propagation of monasticism in the West; and with this view wrote twelve books of Monastic Institutes, in which he deals at great length with the nature of the monastic life, its aids, and its hindrances. In the twenty-four books of his 'Conferences'--Collationes--he deals with the eremitical life as he saw it in Egypt, and purports to give the discourses of the Egyptian Fathers, whom he had himself seen and heard. These works have been always highly prized in the Church, although the author in one or two of his 'Conferences' is supposed to have touched too closely on the errors of Semi-Pelagianism.

The most celebrated disciple of John Cassian was St. Honoratus of Arles, the founder of the famous monastery of Lerins. There he put in practice the divine maxims of Cassian, and changed that barren island, which he found covered with brushwood and filled with serpents, into a garden of Eden, where man once more walked in innocence with God; and bounteous nature rewarded the incessant labour of the monks with fruits of choicest flavour and flowers of richest hues. He was taken away much against his will from his beloved island and made Bishop of Arles; but he survived only two years, dying in the year A.D. 429, just at the time that St. Patrick, his disciple, was preparing to come to Ireland. A similar monastery and monastic school was about the same time, and under the same influence, founded by St. Germanus at Auxerre, as we have already seen, when speaking of St. Patrick's training for the Irish mission.

It is in these cradles of western monasticism that we must try to find the true character of the monasticism, as well as of the discipline and ritual, which St. Patrick introduced into Ireland. If, as the Tripartite asserts, St. Patrick spent some thirty years in France and Italy, and the islands of the Tyrrhene Sea, preparing for the work for which Providence destined him in Ireland, he had ample time to visit all their celebrated monasteries, and doubtless spent some of these years not only at Marmoutier of St. Martin, and with St. German at Auxerre, but also with Cassian at St. Victor's, and with Honoratus in Lerins, and probably also at Arles. The Tripartite states distinctly that first of all he resolved to go to Rome, the citadel and mistress of Christian faith and doctrine, in order that he might draw from these fountains of true wisdom and orthodox doctrine; that he went to France and even beyond the Alps to the southern region of Italy where he found Germanus, then a most famous bishop, with whom he read, like another Paul at the feet of Gamaliel, the ecclesiastical canons, serving God in labour, in fasting, in chastity, in compunction, and in love of God and his neighbour. The same writer adds that he went to St. Martin's of Tours to receive tonsure, and that he studied at Arles--or what he calls insula Aralanensis--which he seems to confound with the city of St. Germanus.

We are also told that when he was in the Tyrrhene Sea[163] he met three other Patricks, which is not at all unlikely, for Patrick was a common name, and the great monastery of Lerins had attracted strangers from every part of the Christian world, who had established themselves in some of the neighbouring islets. These three Patricks lived together in a rocky cave between the cliff and the sea, and our Patrick wished to live with them in the solitary service of God. But it was only for a time, for God had destined him for another and loftier purpose. It is quite evident, however, that Patrick was trained under the greatest masters of the spiritual life, and in the greatest monastic schools of the Western Church. These considerations will also serve to explain why the Irish Church of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries was so monastic in its character and tendencies, why the religious houses rather than the cathedrals were the centres of its spiritual life, and also why its greatest schools were in the halls of the cloister, and its greatest scholars wore the frontal tonsure and the monk's cowl.

Yet St. Patrick did not himself establish monasteries or monastic schools in Ireland. His work was to preach, to baptize, to ordain, to found churches. Monasteries are the outcome of an existing Church. The nation must become Christian before the Church could in any wide sense become monastic. It was always so, even in the time of the Apostles. They did not found monasteries or monastic schools, or colleges of any kind. They had other and more urgent work on hand. It was only after Christianity took hold of men's minds that the nobler and more grateful hearts amongst them sought to realize the Gospel ideal of Christian perfection.

Even in the time of St. Patrick, however, there were monks and nuns in Ireland, as we have already seen. He himself expressly declares it. "The sons of the Scots," he says, "and the daughters of the princes became monks and virgins of Christ." And he tells a touching story of an Irish maiden of noble birth and of great beauty--pulcherrima--whom he himself baptized: "A few days afterwards the maiden came to me and told me that she got an intimation from God to become a virgin of Christ, and thus become nigh to God. Thanks be to Him--on the sixth day after, she perfectly and ardently embraced that vocation; and so do all the virgins of Christ, even against the will of their parents, from whom they patiently endure reproaches."[164]

With such ardour did the noble sons and daughters of the Scottic race advance in the paths of perfection. And therefore Patrick loved them so dearly that he would not leave them, as he tells us, even to pay a visit to his own country and his own friends. He sowed the seed, and after ages reaped the crop. The great monasteries and monastic schools of the sixth century, though not founded by him, were the outcome of that spirit of faith and love which he had planted so deeply, especially in the hearts of the young.

II.--ST. FINNIAN OF CLONARD.

St. Finnian of Clonard is set down first in the Catalogue of the Saints of the Second Order; and his School of Clonard was certainly the most celebrated, if not the earliest, of the great schools of the sixth century. It was the nursery of so many learned and holy men that its founder came to be known as the "Tutor of the Saints of Erin." Twelve of his most distinguished disciples were called the "Twelve Apostles of Erin," because, after St. Patrick, they were recognised as the Fathers and Founders of the Irish Church; and the monasteries and schools which they established became, in their turn, the greatest centres of piety and learning throughout the entire island.

It must not, however, be supposed that all these holy men were themselves younger than Finnian of Clonard, or remained for a very long period at his monastic school. It sometimes happened that the disciple was quite as old, if not older than the master; for it was by no means unusual at this period for holy men to visit the monasteries of younger men who had become remarkable for sanctity and learning, and, placing themselves under their spiritual guidance, take rank in their humility as disciples of their juniors. Lanigan, keen and learned as he was, allows himself sometimes to be led into error by forgetting this custom, which is more than once explicitly referred to in the lives of those saints themselves.

Clonard--in Irish Cluain Eraird, and sometimes Cluain Iraird, that is, Erard's meadow--was very favourably situated for a great national college. Although within the territory of Meath, it was situated on the Boyne close to the Esker Riada, which formed the ancient and famous boundary between the northern and southern half of Ireland. It was thus a kind of neutral territory, open to the North and South alike; and both North and South availed themselves of its advantages.

Its founder, St. Finnian, was by birth a Leinster man. His father, Finloch, was descended from Ailill Telduib, of the Clanna Rory, hence his own patronymic, Ui Telduib. His mother's name, according to all the authorities, was Talech, and she belonged to the family of a Leinster chieftain. He was born at Myshall, in the Barony of Forth, county Carlow. The date of his birth cannot be ascertained; but if we are to accept the statements in his life, it cannot have been later than A.D. 470. When the child was born, his parents sent him to be baptized by the holy Bishop Fortchern, in the church of Roscur--Roscurensem ecclesiam. This Bishop Fortchern was son of Fedlimidh, and grandson of King Laeghaire. He was converted by Loman of Trim,[165] shortly after the year A.D. 432, the date of St. Patrick's arrival, and being a skilful artisan in metal work, he made chalices and patens for the use of the new churches founded by St. Patrick. At the earnest entreaty of St. Loman, he consented to become Bishop of Trim after that saint's death, but he retained, it is said, that onerous office only for three days. After his resignation, he retired into Leinster, where many churches are said to have been founded by him in a district up to that time only partially evangelized. The Church of Killoughternan, parish of Slyguff, in the ancient Ui Drona, still bears his name; it is a corruption of Cill Fortchern. The town of Tullow, in the county Carlow, was anciently called Tullagh Fortchern,[166] and it is said that the saint had a school there, in which young Finnian studied for many years.

When the women were carrying the child to be baptized by Fortchern at Roscur, it chanced that the holy priest Abban met them, and inquired whither they were going. They replied that they were carrying the child to be baptized by Fortchern. Thereupon Abban, moved by a divine inspiration, took the child and baptized him, giving him the name of Finluch, or Finloch, because he was baptized at the place where two streams meeting formed a pool of clean water. But the name Finnian was afterwards given to him as a more appropriate one--retaining the first, but omitting the second part of the compound. A cross afterwards marked the spot where the saint was baptized, and it was called the Cross of Finnian.

When the child grew up he was placed under the care of St. Fortchern, most probably at Tullow, and remained, it is said, under his care until he reached the age of thirty years. We thus see that St. Finnian was brought under British influence from his boyhood, for the mother of Fortchern was of British birth, and it was probably at the suggestion of his holy teacher that Finnian resolved to visit the saints of Wales, and perfect his education in the schools of that country. On his way, however, he stopped to visit a holy elder named Coemhan, who dwelt in the Island of Dairinis, in Wexford Harbour, and there he remained some time in the further pursuit of knowledge. Then taking voyage with some merchants, who were going to Britain, he set sail from Wexford, and arrived at Kilmuine, since called St. David's, in South Wales.[167]

Here he had the good fortune to meet three celebrated saints, who seem to have exercised great influence over the mind of Finnian, and through him over the destinies of the Irish Church--St. David, St. Gildas, and St. Cathmael, or Cadoc, or Docus. As Finnian was trained, at least to some extent, by these holy men, and as they are all more or less intimately connected in many other respects also with the early monastic Church of Ireland, it is well to know something about their history.

Dubricius (A.D. 421-522), Bishop of Landaff, who was a contemporary of St. Patrick, and was consecrated by St. Germanus of Auxerre, perhaps at the time of his second visit to Wales, A.D. 449, or some years later, is exhibited in the doubtful chronicles of this early period as the first Archbishop of South Wales, and the great father of monasticism in Wales. His monastery at Llancarvan was the nursery of those great saints, whose names are still familiar both in Ireland and in Wales. Dubricius himself was, it is said, a grandson of that Brychan, who has given his name to Brecknockshire, and who was by birth an Irish chieftain, though settled in Wales. It is certain that the Irish monks, like Finnian, found a warm welcome in Llancarvan, both during the life of Dubricius, as well as after his death; and in that celebrated college were trained many Irish saints, who afterwards carried its learning and its discipline to their native land.

St. David, Archbishop of Menevia, is the most striking figure amongst the Cambro-British saints, and his memory is still venerated by all true Welshmen of every religious sect. Ricemarch, his successor in the See of St. David's towards the close of the tenth century, has written his life, which was afterwards dressed up in more elegant language by the celebrated Gerald Barry. St. David was born about the middle of the fifth century, and lived, it seems, till the middle of the sixth. His father was Sanctus or Xantus, Prince of Ceretica, and his mother was Nonna, a religious, forcibly carried off by this rude prince, who was captivated by her beauty. The child was born at Old Menevia, near the place where he afterwards founded his cathedral city at the extremity of that bare and bold promontory which overlooks St. George's Channel. St. Ailbe of Emly just then happened to arrive by divine guidance at Menevia, and he baptized the child. The young David was at first a pupil of St. Iltutus, and afterwards of Paulinus, who were both, it seems, disciples of St. Germanus of Auxerre.

In course of time David founded a great college of his own at a place called by Gerald Barry, 'Vallis Rosina,' which may mean either the 'Marshy Valley,' or the 'Valley of Roses,' for rhos is a swamp, and rhosyn means a rose.[168] It was, we are told, to this seminary that Finnian came on his first arrival in Wales. St. David afterwards became so celebrated that he succeeded Dubricius as Archbishop of Caerleon-upon-Usk; but with the permission of King Arthur, who was his near relative, he changed the seat of his Episcopal Chair from the City of the Legions to Menevia, which was at once his birthplace and monastic home, during what he doubtless regarded as the happiest and holiest years of his life.

It is said that Finnian also met Cathmael, as well as David and Gildas, at the city of Killmuine in Britain. Killmuine of the Irish Lives is the exact equivalent of the Latin Ecclesia Menevensis, called in Welsh Mynyw or Miniu. The old monastic buildings still surround the cathedral, but are now much dilapidated. Gerald Barry, himself a Welshman, describes in his odd incisive way, "this remote angle overlooking the Irish Sea, as a stony, barren, and unfruitful soil, neither clothed with woods, nor diversified by streams, nor adorned with meadows, but exposed to perpetual storms and whirlwinds--the storms of nature and the storms of war."[169]

Cathmael is commonly identified with Cadoc or Docus, one of the most celebrated fathers of the Welsh Church. It is said there were two saints who bore that name; if so, Finnian's tutor must have been Cadoc the Elder. His mother was Gladys, the daughter or grand-daughter of the Irish chieftain, Brychan, who gave his name to Brecknock--so Cadoc "who has made a deep impression on the Celtic race," was not only of Irish blood, but was baptized, and trained up from his youth for many years, by an Irish anchorite named Meuthi, whose cell was in the neighbourhood of his father's castle. Afterwards he went to Givent in Monmouthshire, where he studied under another Irish master, St. Tathai. There he made great progress in learning and holiness--especially in the knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures, so that he was called Cadoc or Cattwy, the Wise. He was under Dubricius the founder and chief professor of the celebrated College of Llancarvan, near Cowbridge in Glamorgan. This became the most famous centre both of secular and sacred learning in Wales. A great number of young Irishmen crowded its lecture rooms, who afterwards became very famous in their own country, so that if Cadoc received much from Irishmen himself, he gave them even more in return. There can be no doubt that, as we shall see further on, he visited Ireland afterwards, and spent some time with those who were once his own pupils in Wales.

The influence exercised over the Celtic Church in Ireland by David, Gildas, and Cadoc may be estimated from the fact already referred to, that they are said to have given a Mass to the Second Order of the Irish Saints. This would seem to imply that these saints, most of whom spent some time in Wales, adopted the liturgy of the Welsh Church, which may have in some respects differed from the older liturgy established by St. Patrick. Finnian was the great means of diffusing the learning and practices of Llancarvan in Ireland. He taught at Clonard, what he had himself learned or seen at St. David's and at Llancarvan; and thus became the means of diffusing the monasticism of the Welsh Church through most of Erin, especially in its southern parts.

The Life of Finnian given in the Salamanca MS. records many miracles which he performed in Wales. By his prayers and his great faith in God he dried a lake to get a site for a monastery; he caused mountains to overwhelm the invading Saxons; he drove away the serpents, wasps, and birds that afflicted the religious men in the island called Echin, whom he visited in order to derive consolation from their life and doctrine. It is evident, however, from the narrative that he spent most of the thirty years of his sojourn in Britain under the spiritual guidance of Cathmael, and most probably in his great school at Llancarvan. The years being expressed in the manuscript Lives of the Saints by Roman numerals, are always liable to error--the addition of an X will make thirty out of twenty, and a double XX added by the fault of the copyist would make thirty out of ten. It is, however, stated expressly that Finnian having completed the XXXth year of his pilgrimage returned to his native country with Biteus and Genocus and some other religious men of the Britains, who followed the saint on account of the great holiness of his life and conservation. By God's help they landed at Magh Itha in the south of Wexford,[170] at a port called Dubglais, whence they proceeded to visit his ancient preceptor, the holy Coemhan, who still dwelt in Dairinis. There was a Dairinis or Oak island in the Blackwater, which was known as Dairinis Molana; but the island here referred to is "Dairinis of Coemhan," as it is called in the Four Masters, A.D. 820. It was in Wexford Harbour; and, as we have already seen, Finnian when going to Wales spent some time with Coemhan in that island, so it is only natural that he should return to the scenes of his early years. From Dairinis Finnian went to visit Muiredach Melbrugh, King of Hy Kinselagh at that time, and sought permission to build a church in his territory. The king received Finnian with all honour and reverence, and sent him effective aid in building a church at a place called Achadh Abhail, now Aghold, a parish church in the barony of Shillelagh, county of Wicklow.

Leaving some of his monks to continue his work at Aghold, he went himself into the neighbouring district of Hy Bairrche, and spent seven years teaching and preaching at a place called Maonaigh in the saint's Life. It takes its name from the Hy Maonaigh, an influential tribe who possessed that territory, some of whom having migrated to the North settled near the river Erne and gave their name to the co. Monaghan. The are now known as Mooneys.[171]

As we are told that Finnian, during his residence in this neighbourhood, sometimes preached before St. Brigid and her nuns, his sojourn there must be fixed before the death of that saint, A.D. 523 or 525. In his great love for holy poverty the saint refused to accept even from St. Brigid a gold ring which she presented to him as a token of her esteem.

Going still further north he founded another church at a place called Esker Brenain, which in the Irish fashion he fenced in with a circular mound and trench, dug with his own hands. One day he found beside his church a poor boy, who had been carried off as a captive by some robbers, and was abandoned by them near the church. Finnian took charge of the poor child, and finding him a youth of good parts, diligently instructed him both in virtue and learning, gave him the tonsure, and made him it seems, his assistant, either there or at Clonard. After the departure of Finnian he became his master's successor in Esker Brenain.

Then an angel appeared to Finnian and told him that he was to seek elsewhere the place of his resurrection. Finnian promptly obeyed, and rising up, under the guidance of the angel, he came to the place called Cluain Eraird.

III.--THE SCHOOL OF CLONARD.

St. Finnian seems to have founded his school at Clonard about the year A.D. 520, when he himself was in all probability not less than forty-five years of age. The place was previously a wilderness inhabited by wild beasts, which seem to have made their lairs in the dense shrubberies that covered the marshy banks of the Boyne and Kinnegad rivers. We are told expressly in Finnian's Life, that a huge wild boar, which had frequented the spot where the saint resolved to remain, abandoned the place for ever. The saint threw himself on his knees in prayer, crying out in the words of the Psalmist--"This shall be my resting-place for ever; here will I dwell for I have chosen it." So he built his hut in Erard's Meadow, where the wild boar had previously kept his lair.

An Irish school and monastery of the sixth century was, as we have seen, very different from the monastic establishments of modern times. Finnian began alone without, it seems, a single disciple. He built his little cell of wattles and clay, for stones are scarce at Clonard, and with such help as he could procure he also built his church quite near his cell, and in all probability of similar materials. We know, indeed, that afterwards there was a daimhlaig or large stone church at Clonard--for we are told that it was burnt down in A.D. 1045 no less than three times in one week, which is to be understood, however, of the furniture and the perishable materials of the roof. This stone church, however, was not built until the place had become famous by the life and labours of the saint. When the little church was built, he fenced around both the cell and the church with a deep trench or fosse which formed the monastic enclosure, and, heedless of the world, began to live for God alone in labour and watching, fasting and perpetual prayer. We are told that he slept on the bare ground, that he had a chain around his naked body which sank into his flesh, and that he wore the same old clothes until they fell to pieces from his back.

His ordinary food was a little bread with herbs and salt and water.[172] On festival days he allowed himself some fish, or whey and porridge; but flesh meat he never tasted. It was not difficult to procure these luxuries; and what time he could spare from labour he devoted to prayer and sacred study, especially to the study of the Sacred Scriptures, for deep knowledge of which he became pre-eminently remarkable.

The fame of a life so austere and self-denying very soon spread abroad, and great numbers came to visit him. He performed many wondrous miracles; and, moreover, gave his visitors such heavenly instruction as showed that he was a man not only of great holiness but of great learning. He had all the science of the saints, for he had been in the great monastic schools of Britain; some said he had been to Tours,[173] others added that he had gone all the way to Rome--and these statements have come down even to our time, but unsupported by any satisfactory evidence. Then a great crowd of scholars began to gather round him; they were of all ages and came from all parts. Abbots left their own monasteries; even great bishops, some of them older than Finnian himself, left their cathedrals to profit by his bright example, and learn the lessons of divine wisdom that fell from his lips. To Clonard came all the men who were afterwards famous as "The Twelve Apostles of Erin." Thither came the venerable Ciaran of Saigher, a companion of St. Patrick, to bow his hoary head in reverence to the wisdom of the younger sage; and that other Ciaran, the Son of the Carpenter, who in after years founded the famous monastic school of Clonmacnoise in the fair meadows by the Shannon's shore. Thither, too, came Brendan of Birr, "the prophet," as he was called, and his still more famous namesake, Brendan of Clonfert, St. Ita's foster son, the daring navigator, who first tried to cross the Atlantic to preach the Gospel, and revealed to Europe the mysteries of the far off Western Isles. There, too, was young Columba, who learned at the feet of Finnian those lessons of wisdom and discipline that he carried with him to Iona, which in its turn became for many centuries a torch to irradiate the spiritual gloom of Picts, and Scots, and Saxons. And there was that other Columba of Tir-da-glass, and Mobhi-Clairenach of Glasnevin, and Rodan, the founder of Lorrha near Lough Derg, and Lasserian, the son of Nadfraech, and Canice of Aghaboe, and Senanus from Inniscathy, and Ninnidh the Pious from the far off shores of Lough Erne. It is said, too, that St. Enda of the Aran Islands and Sinellus of Cleenish, and many other distinguished saints spent some time at Clonard, but they are not, like those mentioned above, reckoned amongst "the Twelve Apostles of Erin."

We are told in the office of St. Finnian that he had no less than 3,000 scholars under his instruction, and that, too, not meaning those merely who were there at different times, but that there were so many as 3,000 together in his school. It might seem at first sight that this was a rather extravagant number, and that it would be impossible to find suitable accommodation for so many persons in this wild spot. We must remember, however, not to judge things according to modern notions. There were no school buildings necessary in our sense,--no libraries, lecture halls, or museums.

The instruction was altogether oral. There were no books except a few manuscripts, and they were very highly prized. The instruction was generally given in the open air, and no more suitable place could be selected for the purpose than the green fields around the moat of Clonard. If the preceptor took his stand on its summit, or seated his pupils around its slopes, he could be conveniently heard, not only by hundreds, but even by thousands. They were easily accommodated, too, with food and lodging. They built their own little huts through the meadows, where several of them sometimes lived together like soldiers in a tent. They sowed their own grain; they ground their own corn with the quern, or hand-mill; they fished in the neighbouring rivers, and had room within the termon lands to graze cattle to give them milk in abundance. When supplies ran short they put wallets on their backs and went out on their turn to seek for the necessaries of life, and were never refused abundant supplies by the people. They wore little clothing, had no books to buy, and generally, but not always, received their education gratuitously.[174]

The routine of daily life in St. Finnian's monastic school we can easily 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.

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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.

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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.

"No wild bird rising from the wave, no omen from the land or sea, Oh Blessed Trinity, shall shake my fixed trust in thee. No name to God, or demon given, no synonym of sin or shame, Shall make me cease to supplicate the Archangel Michael's name, That he, by God the leader led, may meet my soul that awful day When from this body and this life it trembling takes its way. Lest the demoniac power of him, who is at once the foot of pride And prince of darkness, force it then from the true path aside. May Michael the Archangel turn that hour which else were dark and sad To one, when angels will rejoice and all the just be glad. Him I beseech that he avert from me the fiend's malignant face, And lead me to the realm of rest in God's own dwelling place. May holy Michael day and night, he knowing well my need, be nigh, To place me in the fellowship of the good saints on high; May holy Michael, an approved assistant when all else may fail, Plead for me, sinner that I am, in thought and act so frail, May holy Michael in his strength my parting soul from harm defend, Till circled by the myriad saints in heaven its flight doth end; For me may holy Gabriel pray--for me may holy Raphael plead-- For me may all the angelic choirs for ever intercede. May the great King's eternal halls receive me freed from stain and sin, That I the joys of Paradise may share with Christ therein. Glory for aye be given to God--for aye to Father and to Son-- For aye unto the Holy Ghost with them in council one.

V. "May the most holy St. Michael The prince of angels defend us, Whom to conduct our souls heavenward God from the highest doth send us."

The School of Moville during the subsequent centuries of disaster not only maintained its existence but produced one of the most distinguished of the mediæval historians, the celebrated Marianus Scotus, the chronicler, to be carefully distinguished from his namesake and contemporary, Marianus Scotus, a poet, theologian and commentator of Sacred Scripture, to whom we hope to refer on another occasion.

II.--MARIANUS SCOTUS.

Marianus Scotus, the Chronicler, was born, as he himself tells us, in the year A.D. 1028; but we know nothing of his family, or the place of his birth. Marianus is the smooth, latinized form of Maelbridge, the servant of St. Brigid, a favourite pre-nomen in ancient Ireland. He tells us, too, in his chronicle, that when he had on one occasion committed a slight fault, his preceptor Tighernagh Boirceach reminded him, how the abbot of Iniscaltra, an island in Lough Derg, had expelled a holy man from the Island and commanded him to leave Ireland for giving a little food to the brethren without permission. This shows that Tighernach Boirceach, Abbot of Moville for several years before his death in A.D. 1061, must have been the spiritual guide who reprimanded Marianus for his fault; whence we infer that Marianus spent his youth in the School of Moville. In A.D. 1056 he tells us--"I, Marianus, left my native country this year, having become a pilgrim for the kingdom of God." He came to Cologne and there entered the Monastery of St. Martin, at that time ruled by Irish abbots and containing a community of Irish monks. Two years later he went to Fulda, and "all unworthy as I am, I Marianus, was ordained priest with Sigfrid, Abbot of Fulda, nigh to the body of the blessed Martyr Kilian of Wurtzburg"--his countryman who had been like himself a pilgrim and died for Christ in a foreign land. There he became a recluse, shut up in his little cell for ten long years, given wholly to prayer, penance, and study. Every day during these ten years he offered the Holy Sacrifice over the tomb of his countryman, Anmchaidh, the same who was driven from Inniscaltra as a penance for his fault, and who died in A.D. 1043 in the odour of sanctity. From Fulda in A.D. 1069, he, the "wretched Marianus," was, as he tells us, transferred by order of the Abbot of Fulda and the Bishop of Mayence to that city, and there again, as he tells us in his sweet humility, he became once more a hermit for his sins. His learning, especially in history and chronology, was very extensive, and so by order of his superiors he wrote a Chronicle in Three Books, which is one of the most valuable memorials of mediæval learning that have come down to our times. The first two books are mainly devoted to questions of chronology in which the writer exhibits vast learning and great ingenuity. He labours especially to refute the commonly assigned date of our Saviour's birth as fixed by the Dionysian computation, which he affirms is twenty-two years behind the proper date. For this, though he is not followed by modern chronologists, he certainly won the applause of his mediæval contemporaries. Unfortunately these two books have not yet been published; but the "Third Book" has been published by the learned Waitz in the fifth volume of Pertz's Historical Monuments of Germany. It has been since republished in Migne's Latin Patrology, volume 147, where it can be more readily consulted by Irish scholars. The work extends from the birth of Christ to the year A.D. 1081; the following year A.D. 1082 the writer ended a life full of good works, glorious for God, and for his country. He sleeps, like many another Irish saint, far away from the green hills of Ireland; but he sleeps well with kindred dust in the monastery of St. Martin of Mayence, and posterity has honoured, with the name of "the Blessed," Marianus Scotus, the latest glory of the School of Moville.

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