CHAPTER XI.

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 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.

CHAPTER XII.

How well St. Ciaran chose the site of his monastic city in those turbulent and lawless days. It reposed in the bosom of a grassy lawn of fertile meadow land on the eastern bank of the Shannon, about ten miles south of Athlone. Just at this point the majestic river takes a wide semi-circular sweep first to the east and then to the south; presently it widens and deepens into calm repose under the shelter of that grassy ridge, which Ciaran chose as the site of his monastery. A vast expanse of bog lies beyond the river; and in the time of St. Ciaran the country all round about was an impassable morass to the east, south, and north of the verdant oasis on which he built his little church. So it became necessary to construct a causeway through the bog from the monastery somewhat on the line of the present road to Athlone. At this day the aspect of the place is very desolate and lonely. There is nothing to distract the attention of the stranger save the gray ruins, the sweep of the full-bosomed river stealing silently onwards like time in its flight, and vast flocks of plover and curlew that are now settled on the meadows, and a moment after are circling in flying clouds around us. The report of a gun had startled both them and us. It was like a voice in the regions of the dead.

MAP OF CLONMACNOISE OR THE SEVEN CHURCHES.

St. Ciaran, the founder of Clonmacnoise, is usually called Ciaran Mac In Tsair, that is, the Son of the Carpenter, and sometimes Ciaran the Younger, to distinguish him from St. Ciaran of Saigher, the patron of the diocese of Ossory. His father, Beoit, son of Olcan, though a carpenter by trade, came of high descent. His mother, Darerca, was a daughter of the race that gave its name to the county Kerry. Beoit lived at Larne, in Antrim, but being greatly harassed by the exactions of Ainmire, king of the district, he migrated to the province of Connaught, and settled at a place called Rath Crimthann, near Fuerty, in the county Roscommon. He was, it seems, unmarried at the time, and there took to himself a wife from the daughters of the Ciarraighe, who about the same time had migrated from Irluachair, in Kerry, and had settled along the western bank of the Suck in that very district.[208] They were a holy couple, and trained up a holy family, for they had no less than five sons and three daughters, who were great servants of God.

Ciaran was baptized by the deacon Justus at Fuerty (Fidharta), in the year A.D. 512, which we take to be the date of the saint’s birth.[209] He received his early education from the same holy man, and in his turn was not too proud to tend the herds of his tutor at Fuerty, especially during the absence of the holy deacon. We are told, too, that while tending the cattle he was also much given to study and prayer.

It is probable that young Ciaran went directly from home to the great School of Clonard, of which we have already spoken. While he was there, he gave himself up with great zeal to the study of holy Scripture under the direction of the wise and learned Finnian. He made the acquaintance, too, of nearly all the great and holy men who about this period lived in blessed brotherhood at Clonard, and were afterwards known as the Twelve Apostles of Erin. He was much beloved both by his master, who called him the “gentle youth,” and by his companions, whom he was ever anxious to oblige. Books were then very scarce, and on one occasion when St. Ninnidius of Lough Erne was vainly searching for a copy of the Gospels, Ciaran gave him his own copy, saying that we should do to others as we would have others do to us—the text which he was studying in St. Matthew at the moment.

Ciaran once made a present of corn to his master and the brotherhood, which sufficed for their wants during forty days—it was said, too, this blessed food given by Ciaran had virtue to heal the sick, who partook of it, and a portion of it was reserved for that purpose. Finnian in return blessed his generous and holy pupil, and foretold that his Church in the coming years would be fruitful “of nobility and wisdom;” that it would have much glory and much land; and that half Ireland would one day be subject to his rule. When the master was absent, Ciaran was deputed to take his place, which shows the high opinion then entertained by Finnian of his learning and holiness. One day Finnian saw in vision two golden moons in the firmament of Erin; one he said was Columcille, to illumine the North with the lustre of his virtues and high descent; the other was Ciaran, who would shine over central Erin, with the mild radiance of charity and meekness.

At length the time came for Ciaran to leave Clonard. Both masters and scholars were sorry to part with the gentle youth. Finnian even offered to resign the master’s chair in his favour; but Ciaran wisely declined the great honour, for he was too young and inexperienced for that office. Columcille was then at Clonard about the year A.D. 537 or 538, and was greatly attached to Ciaran; he composed regretful stanzas at his departure, and afterwards followed him all the way to Aran:—

“The noble youth that goeth westward,
And leaves us mourning here—
Ah! gentle, loving, tender-hearted
Is Ciaran Mac In Tsair.”

We have in a previous chapter referred to Ciaran’s sojourn in Aran with St. Enda. On his departure from the blessed isles Ciaran told the venerable Enda that he saw in a vision a large fruitful tree planted in the midst of Erin, and its boughs sheltered all the land. Its fair fruit was borne over land and sea, and all the birds of the air came and eat thereof. “That tree is thyself,” said Enda; “all Erin shall be filled with thy name, and sheltered by the grace that will be in thee, and many men from all parts will be fed by thy prayers and thy fastings. Go, then, in God’s name, and found thy Church on the Shannon’s banks in the centre of the island.”

After leaving Aran, Ciaran paid a short visit to St. Senan of Scattery Island, in the Lower Shannon, and was much edified by the example and conversation of that holy man. He then went north in obedience to the word of Enda and at first founded a church at a place called Isell Ciaran, where he remained only a short time. He then founded another oratory on Inis Ainghin, now called Hare Island, in Lough Ree, a beautifully wooded islet about two miles north of Athlone, where a ruined church may still be seen that was built on the site of Ciaran’s more ancient oratory.

It was an admirable site for a monastery; far enough from the shore for security, but near enough for convenience, and situated just at the point where the wide and beautiful lake contracts its waters into the stately stream that flows beneath the historic arches of the bridge at Athlone.

For three years and three months only Ciaran remained at Hare Island. This would fix his arrival there in A.D. 540 if, as we shall see, he died in A.D. 544 at the age of thirty-three years. Going further south by the bank of the river to a place that would be nearer to the centre of the island, he stopped at the spot then called Ard Mantain, which in his opinion was too fertile and too beautiful to be chosen as the abode of fasting saints. “We might,” he said, “have here much of the world’s riches, but the souls going to heaven from it would be few.” So he journeyed on still further to the south through what was then a desolate expanse of fens and brakes, until he came to Ard Tiprait, the Height of the Spring. “Here,” he said to his companions, “let us remain, for many souls will ascend to heaven from this spot.”[210] It was on the 10th of the Kalends of February that Ciaran took up his abode at Clonmacnoise with eight companions; and it was on the 10th of the Moon, and a Saturday. This is very specific information, and evidently authentic. It shows that the writer of Ciaran’s life knew what he was saying, and was not afraid of being contradicted. These dates prove that the foundation of Clonmacnoise took place on Saturday, the 23rd of January, in the year A.D. 544.[211] It was finished on the 9th of May following; and the same ancient and accurate life tells us the circumstances of this most remarkable event—the founding of the greatest school and the greatest monastery in Ireland.

When Ciaran was planting the first post to mark out the site of the Cathair of Clonmacnoise, Diarmaid Mac Cearbhaill, who happened to be present with a few of his companions, helped the saint with his own hands to fix the post in the earth. “Though your companions to-day are few,” said Ciaran, “to-morrow thou shalt be High King of Erin.” This prophecy, like many others, helped to fulfil itself. One of Diarmaid’s companions, Maelmor,[212] his foster brother, overheard the saint’s word; and knowing that he was a man of God, he resolved to help in carrying it out. King Tuathal Maelgarbh, great grandson of Niall the Great, had set a price on Diarmaid’s head, or rather on his heart, if brought to him in person; so Diarmaid was forced to hide himself and live in the deserts and bogs around Clonmacnoise. There he met the saint, and not only aided him to build his monastery, as stated above, but in reverence to the saint he placed his own hand beneath that of Ciaran in fixing the first pole. Now, Maelmor hearing the prediction, with Diarmaid’s reluctant consent, took his fleet black horse, and a whelp’s heart besprinkled with blood on the point of his spear, and rode post haste to a place called Greallach Eillte in Meath, where the king with his nobles happened to be at the time. Seeing the stranger riding post to the king with the bloody heart on his spear, all made way for him, for they, like the king himself, thought it was the heart of Diarmaid, which he was going to present to the king. But instead of Diarmaid’s heart, Maelmor gave the monarch a fatal thrust with his spear, which killed him on the spot. Maelmor was immediately set upon by the royal guards and hewn to pieces. But his purpose was achieved—Diarmaid MacCearbhaill was the nearest heir to the throne, and was immediately proclaimed king without opposition. During his reign he was, as might be expected, a great patron and benefactor of Clonmacnoise, and although there is good reason to believe that he still kept Druids[213] and soothsayers in his palace, he gave that monastery large grants of land, and subjected to its authority no less than one hundred of the small churches in its neighbourhood. Such was the origin of the Diocese of Clonmacnoise, which after many vicissitudes is now united to that of Ardagh.[214]

St. Ciaran lived only four months after founding his monastery and little church—the Eclais Beg—on the banks of the Shannon. The same accurate writer of his life states with great precision that his death came upon him in the thirty-third year of his age, on the fifth of the Ides (the 9th) of September, on a Saturday, the fifteenth day of the moon. These data mark the year A.D. 544 (not 549), as the year of the saint’s death. It was also the year in which King Diarmaid ascended the throne, and which brought with it a great plague that proved fatal to many of the saints of Erin, as well as to Ciaran himself.

The death of Ciaran was very touching. “Take me out a little,” he said, “from the cell into the open air.” Then looking up to the blue sky, he said—“Narrow indeed is the way which leads to heaven.” “Not for you, father, will it be narrow,” said one of his monks who was standing nigh. “It is not said in the Gospel that it will be easy for me or for any one,” said Ciaran; “even the blessed Paul and David were afraid.” He would not allow the stone pillow to be removed in order to give more ease to his head. He had kept it during life, and he would rest on it in death—“Blessed are they,” he observed, “who persevere unto the end.” The brethren now saw God’s angels hovering in the air around them awaiting the moment of Ciaran’s departure. He grew weaker, so they brought him in again to Eclais Beg. It was fitting he should die there; it was the scene of his prayers and tears. The skin on which he used to sleep in his little cell was stretched on the ground, and he was laid upon it. The end was now at hand. He gave his last blessing to the brethren, and asked them to close the church, and leave him alone with his soul’s friend, St. Kevin of Glendaloch, whom he had known and loved at Clonard. Kevin blessed holy water according to the Church’s rite, and sprinkled the little oratory, and the couch of the dying saint. Then he gave Ciaran the holy Communion and blessed him once more ere he died. Ciaran loved the holy Kevin much; God had sent him to his bedside at the prayer of Ciaran himself—and as a pledge of his love the dying saint gave to Kevin his bell—the symbol in those days of monastic rule—and bidding him a tender farewell, he gave up his pure and gentle soul to God.

He was, indeed, a wonderful man—that St. Ciaran. He died very young; it was at the sacred age of thirty-three, as all our Annals tell. In four months—from February to May—he built his convent; for four months more he ruled his community; and then he was called to his reward; yet that community grew to be the greatest and most learned of all the land.

All our martyrologies assign the festival of St. Ciaran to the 9th of September; and the day has been celebrated from that hour to the present. St. Ængus says that it is a solemnity that “fills territories and impels fast-going ships” on sea and river—hurrying to celebrate the glorious festival of Ciaran of Cluain.

Anyone who visits Clonmacnoise on the 9th of September will see the “territory” of the saint still filled with pilgrims, and the ‘ships’ laden with crowds of men and women crossing the Shannon to visit his holy shrine. St. Cummian of Clonfert in his Paschal Epistle, of which we have already spoken, ranks Ciaran, and most justly, amongst the “early Fathers of the Irish Church.”[215] Alcuin, who studied at Clonmacnoise, calls him the glory of the Irish nation.[216] “The three worst counsels that were ever accomplished in Erin,” says the gloss on Ængus, “by the advice of saints, were the shortening of Ciaran’s life, the exile of Columcille, and the expulsion of Mochuda from Rahan.” The ‘saints,’ it seems, were jealous because Diarmaid had conferred so many favours on Ciaran—so they prayed to God to take him out of the world before any harm came of it, and lo! it was done. A more thoughtful man, however, would say, not without reason, that these three counsels were great blessings for Ireland and for Scotland too. It was well that Ciaran was called away so soon to heaven before jealousy or rivalry made enemies for Clonmacnoise; it was well, surely, that Molaise of Innismurray sent Columba to Scotland to preach the Gospel; and it was well, too, that Mochuda left Rahan; for it was only to found a greater and more magnificent monastery at Lismore. So Providence always out of seeming evil brings forth good.

There was hardly time for Ciaran himself to do any literary work at Clonmacnoise—he built the house and blessed it; and was then summoned to his Father’s House in heaven. There is, however, an old Gaelic poem widely celebrated, which is attributed to Ciaran. It begins with the words “An rim, an ri, an richid rain,” and seems to have been a fruitless prayer that God would spare his life to do greater works for His glory. God thought, however, he had done enough, and called him home. He was, say the ancients, like to John the Apostle in his life and habits—pure, and young, and loving, soaring up to God on the wings of the eagle.

Like most of the Apostles of the early Irish Church, Ciaran led an extremely ascetic life. He never passed a day without manual labour for the benefit of the brethren. He was never idle. He slept on the naked clay; he had a stone for his pillow; he never wore a soft garment next his skin. He was, as we know, above all, humble, gentle and chaste; he never, it is said, told a lie and never looked on the face of a woman. He never drank ale or milk, except diluted one-third with water. He never ate any bread except one-third sand was mixed with it. He was thus a man of humility, abstinence, and prayer, and therefore God blessed the work of his hand, and exalted him both during his life and after his death. There was no saint more beloved by his own contemporaries—by Enda, and Kevin, and Finnian, and Columcille. They all loved him dearly whilst he was with them; and their hearts were sore at his departure. And to this day, at least by the Shannon’s shore, there is no saint whose name is held in more affectionate remembrance than the founder of Clonmacnoise.

The Eclais Beg, in which St. Ciaran died, became not unnaturally a sacred spot. It was the very centre of the holiness of Clonmacnoise. He left several relics, which the piety of his children deemed most holy, and not without cause. The Imda Chiarain, or cow-skin couch,[217] on which he died was deemed a most precious relic, and cured the sick who were allowed to stretch their feeble frames over it. His holy body was buried in the Eclais Beg, or Tempull Chiaran, and his grave is still venerated by the faithful, although the site is rather doubtful. The “Cemetery of noble Cluain” was deemed as sacred a burial place as any in Rome itself; and the noblest families in all the land built mortuary chapels within the sacred enclosure. There were saints interred in its cemetery, it was said, “whose prayers would make even hell a heaven.” The sound of its bell was holy, and frightened away the demons. The shadow of its round tower sanctified the soil that it fell upon. Ciaran brought to heaven by his prayers, during their life or after their death, the souls of all those who were buried in that holy ground. Or, as it is quaintly put in the Registry of Clonmacnoise—“What souls harboured in the bodies buried under that dust may never be adjudged to damnation—wherefore those of the same (royal) blood have divided the churchyard amongst themselves by the consent of Kyran, and of his holy clerks.”

This is not the imagining of later writers, for the venerable Adamnan tells us that when after the Synod of Drumceat (A.D. 585) St. Columcille came to visit Clonmacnoise, he took a portion of the same holy clay to bring it home; but threw it into the sea at Coryvreckan to still the raging waves, which thereupon became quite calm.

II.—The Ruined Churches at Clonmacnoise.

The existing ruins at Clonmacnoise, though now so much dilapidated, are highly interesting, both from the historical and artistic point of view. They belong to different periods, the date of which can be easily ascertained, and thus furnish many authentic specimens of the Irish Romanesque.

Of St. Ciaran’s original church or oratory—the Eclais Beg—not a trace now remains. The grave of the saint is pointed out close by the southern wall of the ruin called Tempull Ciaran, which is in the very centre of the church-yard, and in all probability was built on the site of Ciaran’s original oratory.

The following are the principal ruined churches still to be seen at Clonmacnoise:—

(1.) There is the Daimhlaig, or Great Stone-Church, called also M‘Dermott’s Church, and sometimes the Cathedral. We know for certain that it was built in A.D. 909 by Flann, King of Ireland, and by Colman, abbot of Clonmacnoise and Clonard at that time. The beautiful stone cross which was erected to commemorate the building of the church itself is still standing before the great western doorway, and tells its own story. In two of the compartments of the sculptured shaft a prayer is asked of every one who passes for the souls’ rest of the founders of the church. In one it is:—OR DO FLAVND MAC MAELSECHLAIND—“A prayer for Fland, son of Maelsechlaind.” In the other it is:—COLMAN DORROINI IN CROISSA AR IN RI FLAND—that is, “Colman made this cross for King Fland.” The inscriptions are partly effaced, but not so as to obliterate the words completely. Taken in connection with the entry in the Annals of Clonmacnoise, A.D. 901 (recte 908), they are highly interesting. “King Flann and Colman Connellagh this year founded the church in Clonmacnoise called the Church of the Kings.” Colman outlived King Flann, who died in A.D. 916, by eight years, and no doubt this cross, as Petrie points out, was erected for the two-fold purpose of commemorating the foundation of the church, and of marking the sepulchre of King Flann, its pious founder. The sculptures on the west side of the shaft represent St. Ciaran and King Diarmaid in the act of planting the first pole of the Eclais Beg; the opposite side represents in high relief several events in the life of our Saviour, as recorded in Holy Scripture. Hence this great cross came to be called the Cross of the Scriptures—Cros na Screaptra. It is fifteen feet in height; and is a most interesting specimen of Celtic art in sculpture at that early and unpropitious period. This, the Cathedral Church, afterwards came to be called M‘Dermott’s Church, because, as the Registry of Clonmacnoise informs us, “Tomaltach M‘Dermott, chief of Moylurg, repaired or rebuilt the Great Church upon his own costs; and it was for the cemetery of the Clanmaolruany that he did so.” This Tomaltach Mac Dermott, the King of Moylurg, “a most formidable and triumphant man against his enemies, and a man of the greatest bounty and alms-giving,” died in the year A.D. 1336,[218] which sufficiently fixes the period of the restoration of the Great Church. There is an inscription over the northern doorway in Latin, which tells that “Odo, Dean of Clonmacnoise, caused it to be made,” probably in the fifteenth century.

(2.) On the western boundary of the church-yard is the ruined chancel of the church called Tempull Finnian, which probably dates back to the ninth century, and was built on the site of a more ancient oratory dedicated to St. Finnian of Clonard, if not actually built by that saint. He was, as we have seen, the ‘tutor’ of Ciaran, and loved him much; so that doubtless he came to visit his former disciple at Clonmacnoise. Close at hand on the river’s bank is Finnian’s Well; and tradition still points out the grave in which he is said to be buried. The chancel arch of this church in three orders is highly ornamented, and is considered an excellent specimen of the Celtic Romanesque. The round tower, which adjoins this church, appears to be coeval with the building; and doubtless both were erected during the Danish wars. It is only 56 feet high, but it is 49 feet in circumference. The material is a fine sandstone, probably carried thither on the river, for there is none in the neighbourhood. Lord Dunraven considered it to be the most interesting monument at Clonmacnoise, and Petrie describes it as wholly built of ashlar masonry with a fine sandstone laid in horizontal courses. Its conical roof is built in a peculiar herring-bone ashlar, such as is not found elsewhere in Ireland.

This tower is commonly called M‘Carthy’s Tower; and the church is frequently called M‘Carthy’s Church, from a mistaken notion that it was built by Finneen M‘Carthy of Desmond in the beginning of the thirteenth century. M‘Carthy certainly gave some land to the community of Clonmacnoise to secure their prayers, and what he valued even more, a burial-place in its holy soil for his own royal race. Tempull Finnian was assigned to him for the purpose; and it was doubtless repaired by M‘Carthy; but it was built long before any of his name was known at Clonmacnoise.

(3.) The O’Conors, Kings of Connaught, also gave a grant of many townlands to secure a mortuary chapel at Clonmacnoise. It was known as Tempull Conor, and was founded by Cathal, King of Connaught, who died A.D. 1010; he was son of that Conor (Conchobhar) who gave his name to their royal race.

(4.) Another kingly family of Connaught—the O’Kellys of Hy-Many—built themselves a sepulchral chapel within the sacred enclosure, which they paid for with many a broad acre. It was founded by Conor O’Kelly of Moenmoy, in the year A.D. 1167, as the Four Masters inform us. He was a great chief, famed for his royal bounty, and ruled over Hy-Many for forty years.

(5.) King Diarmaid, who helped St. Ciaran to fix the first stake enclosing the sacred boundary of Clonmacnoise, belonged to the southern Hy-Niall race. It is no wonder, therefore, that his royal descendants had their chapel there. It was called Tempull Righ—the King’s Church—and sometimes Tempull Ua Maelshechlainn, from the family name, which the southern Hy-Niall afterwards assumed. It stands south-east of the cathedral, and measures 40 feet in length by 17 feet in breadth.

(6.) The beautiful round tower at the north-western corner of the cemetery is commonly called O’Rorke’s Tower, because, as the Registry of Clonmacnoise tells us, it was built by Fergal O’Rorke, King of Connaught, towards the middle of the tenth century. This prince, for his soul’s sake, and as the price of his family sepulchre, undertook to keep all the churches in repair during his own life; and he also built the causeway still in part existing from the Yew Tree to the Lough. The portion of the tower built by O’Rorke’s men in the tenth century is of fine-jointed ashlar masonry; but the upper portion, executed two centuries later in A.D. 1135, is of ruder and very inferior workmanship.[219] At that date lightning struck the tower, overthrowing its roof and twenty feet of wall. The coarser masonry represents the restoration then effected by Turlogh O’Conor and O’Malone, Abbot of Clonmacnoise. This tower is now sixty-two feet high, and fifty-six feet in circumference. There were other chapels and sepulchral oratories at Clonmacnoise, which have now completely disappeared, and to which it is unnecessary for us to make further reference. The nunnery whose foundations have only recently been brought to light, was about 1,000 paces to the east of the monastery.

On the western border beyond the cemetery are the ruins of a very striking Norman Keep, commonly called De Lacy’s Castle. It was built, however, in A.D. 1214, not by De Lacy, who was then dead, but by John de Gray,[220] Bishop of Norwich, an able and vigorous justiciary, who built this strong keep to protect the monastery and defend the passes of the Shannon against the turbulent Connaught men. Like all the Norman work of that period in Ireland, it is as solid and massive as if it were built of solid rock, not by man but by nature.

The churchyard has many inscribed tombstones, which are fully described by Petrie and by Miss Stokes in her interesting work on Christian Inscriptions. These were the tombstones placed over the graves of the abbots of Clonmacnoise, for the humble brothers of the monastery were interred beneath ‘noteless burial stones.’ The most striking feature exhibited in these monuments is their wonderful variety of design and the delicacy of execution.

One of the most interesting of the tombstones is that placed over “Suibine, son of Mailae Humai,” who, in the Chronicon Scotorum, is described as an anchorite and choice scribe, and whose death is marked at the year A.D. 890 or 891. He is beyond doubt the person who, as we shall see hereafter, is described by Florence of Worcester as the “most learned Doctor of the Scots”—Doctor Scotorum peritissimus—truly a high eulogy of Suibine, whose name is inscribed on this stone, and whose dust lies beneath it.

There is another stone on which is incised a cross of very peculiar form with the simple legend Blaimac, who, as we learn from the same Chronicon Scotorum, was princeps, or ruling Abbot of Clonmacnoise, and died in A.D. 896.

There were no less than one hundred and forty of these inscribed stones at Clonmacnoise, when it was first visited by Petrie in early life. Many of them have since disappeared, but a few new ones have been discovered during more recent excavations, so that the place is still a perfect treasury of the monuments of our ancient art. There is an ancient Gaedhlic poem in the Burgundian Library at Brussels which gives an account of the kings and warriors who are buried in “the city of Ciaran, the prayerful, the pious and the wise.”[221] A somewhat similar poem, written by Conaing Buidhe O’Mulconry, is in Trinity College, and has been translated by the late Mr. Hennessy.[222] The second stanza tells how Turlough O’Conor and his ill-starred son, Roderick, the last King of Ireland, sleep on either side of the high altar in Temple Mor, which the Four Masters identify with Temple-Ciaran. The independence of Erin sleeps with them in their tomb.

III.—The Scholars of Clonmacnoise.

There was one feature in the government of the monastery of Clonmacnoise which served to make it more than any other school in Ireland a kind of national seminary—it belonged to no tribe. Its monks and its scholars came from all parts of the country; and its abbots were chosen not from any family, or from any tribe, but from all the provinces without distinction. Its founder was a Connaughtman of half-northern and half-southern extraction. His successor, St. Oena, was from the territory of Laeghis (Leix) in Leinster. The third abbot, MacNisse, was of the Ultonians; and the fourth, Alithir, who died in A.D. 599, was a Munsterman. This wise policy tended to develop a generous and large-minded spirit in the community, which must have been productive of the happiest effects.

The influence of Clonmacnoise as a great school was first displayed during the discussions on the Easter question. The Columbian houses in the north of Ireland, following the example of the mother house at Hy, adhered to the ancient method of fixing the date of Easter. On the other hand the religious houses of the south and south-eastern parts of Ireland, in obedience to the directions of Pope Honorious, convoked a Synod at Magh Lene in King’s County to discuss this most important question. Magh Lene was near Durrow, and not far from Clonmacnoise; but Durrow was Columbian, and its abbot remained away. Cummian, however, expressly tells us that Ciaran’s successor was present at that great assembly and sanctioned its decrees. Though belonging to the northern half—for Clonmacnoise was in the ancient Meath—the abbot had learning and courage enough to see that the Irish practice was opposed to that of the universal Church, and ought to be given up in favour of the Roman discipline.

It is from this time forward that Clonmacnoise begins to rank as the first of our Irish Schools. It was already largely endowed by the kings of Meath and Hy-Many, to both of whom, so to speak, it belonged, for the river was the only boundary. These possessions were constantly growing larger. In A.D. 648 or 649, Diarmaid, King of Meath, crossed the Shannon to fight Guaire, King of Connaught, and his Munster allies. Diarmaid on his way to battle stopped at Clonmacnoise, and begged the congregation of Ciaran to pray to God that he would return safe home “through the merits of their guarantee.” Then the King, full of courage, continued his march, and fought the great battle of Carn Conaile, near Gort, in which he was completely victorious. On his return he granted the territory of Tuaim-n-Eirc, now Lemanaghan, in King’s County, with all its sub-divisions, as an altar sod, i.e., church land, to God and St. Ciaran for ever, so that no king of Meath might take so much as a ‘drink of water from its well without paying for it.’ For this grant King Diarmaid also secured the right of sepulchre at Clonmacnoise, and was himself buried there. What is stranger still, his rival, Guaire, towards the close of his life came to do penance at Clonmacnoise; and he, too, the Generous and Hospitable, was buried there in A.D. 663, and no doubt did not forget the monks when he was dying. Just at this time the plague wrought great havoc amongst the saints and students of Clonmacnoise. Two or three abbots died in rapid succession, and doubtless the family of the monastery suffered severely, for the frightened students fled far away. In A.D. 719 the monastery was burned. Most of the buildings up to this time were probably of wood, for it was not easy to procure stone at Clonmacnoise. But the schools were soon again at work. In A.D. 724 we hear of the death of Mac Concumba, a learned scribe of this monastery. His duty was to multiply copies of valuable works, and record in the annals of the monastery from year to year entries of all those noteworthy events which happened throughout the kingdom. It was these scribes who prepared the materials afterwards so admirably compiled by Tighernach and his associates. Another ‘choice scribe’ died in A.D. 768; and we are told that the monastery was burned again in A.D. 751, and a third time in A.D. 773—on both occasions probably by accident.

At this time Clonmacnoise was at the height of its literary glory. The Danes had not yet arrived on the coasts of Ireland. Great scholars flourished there, the fame of whose learning attracted students from many lands. Fortunately here we are not left to vague conjecture; we have definite historical proofs both native and foreign. In the very year the Danes first landed at Rathlin—in A.D. 794 or 795—we find recorded the death of Colgan (or Colgu or Colcu), a professor of Clonmacnoise, who was probably the teacher of the greatest scholar of that age. He was a Munster-man by birth, but seems to have lived and died at Clonmacnoise. His fame was very great amongst his contemporaries, who called him Colgu the Wise. He was lecturer in Theology, and seems also to have been Rector of the Monastic College. That he was a diligent student of St. Paul’s Epistles we may infer from a story told in his life. One day returning from his class hall with his leathern book-satchel on his shoulder, he sat down to rest at the place called Mointireanir. As he sat a stranger came up and began to converse in the kindest and most affable way with the professor, and even ventured to give him counsel and instruction. Nay, more, he took up the book-satchel, and carried it on his own shoulders, letting the tired master walk on by his side. The kind stranger turned out to be the Apostle Paul himself. On another occasion when public disputation was being held at the college, it seems certain scholars were objecting vigorously to Colgu’s views, when St. Paul once more appeared as a learned stranger, and was invited to take part in the discussion. The unknown scholar accepted the invitation, and reasoned so convincingly that in a very short time he clearly showed to the satisfaction of all present that Colgu’s view of the question at issue was the correct one.

The celebrated Alcuin was the most distinguished scholar of his own time in Europe. There is fortunately a letter of his still preserved, which shows quite clearly that he was a student of Clonmacnoise, and a pupil of Colgu, and which also exhibits the affectionate veneration that he retained through life for his Alma Mater at Clonmacnoise. It is addressed to “Colgu, Professor (lectorem) in Ireland—the blessed Master and Pious Father of Albinus,”[223] the more usual name given to Alcuin in France, by Charlemagne and his courtiers. The writer complains that for some time past he was not deemed worthy to receive any of those letters ‘so precious in my sight from your Fatherhood,’ but he daily feels the benefit of his absent Father’s prayers. He adds that he sends by the same messenger an alms of fifty sicles of silver from the bounty of King Charles, and fifty more from his own resources for the brotherhood. He also sends a quantity of (olive) oil which it was then very difficult to procure in Ireland, and asks that it may be distributed amongst the Bishops in God’s honour for sacramental purposes. This shows the thoughtful piety of Alcuin, who doubtless noticed, when he was a student of Clonmacnoise, the difficulty of procuring pure olive oil for the holy Chrism and Extreme Unction. This letter breathes the most beautiful spirit of piety, and shows the affectionate gratitude of Alcuin for the home and the teachers of his youth.