Colgu, or Colgan, of Clonmacnoise, is the earliest Ferlegind who is noticed in our Annals. During the course of the ninth century the Ferlegind appears by name in the School of Armagh, and during the tenth and eleventh centuries we find reference made to these ‘Readers’ in several of our Irish monasteries. We may infer the nature of his office, not only from his name—the ‘reading-man’ or lecturer—but also from the position, which he appears to have held in the monastery. He is different from the abbot, and subject to him, but he appears superior to all the other teachers and officials, so that he may be described not only as chief professor, but also as the Rector of the Monastic School under the abbot. His position corresponded to that of the scholasticus in the early Continental schools. He arranged the programme of study, superintended the classes, kept the other officials, like the scribneoir and aeconomus, to their duties, and lectured himself in the most important subjects—especially in Scripture and theology. To be an accomplished ‘scribe,’ however, required very special gifts not merely of beautiful penmanship, but also a knowledge of the subject, which would prevent the writer from making grave mistakes in transcription, thus destroying the value of his manuscript. Hence we find the same person is frequently described as ‘scribe and bishop;’ and sometimes ‘scribe, abbot and bishop.’

Colgu has been called a saint, and justly; his piety seems to have been quite equal to his learning. The “Prayer of St. Colgu,” written by the saint in Latin, has been rendered into English from the copy in the ancient Book of Clonmacnoise, called Leabhar-na-h-Uidhre. It is a prayer, full of the deepest and most ardent devotion, in which the holy man implores, “With Thee, O holy Jesus,” the intercession of all the heavenly host and of all the saints, apostles, and martyrs, and bishops, and virgins of the Old and New Law, that, “Thou, O Holy Trinity, may take me this night under Thy protection and shelter, and defend me from the demons.... and from desires, from sins, from transgressions, from disobediences ... from the fire of hell and eternity ... and that God may light up in their souls meekness and charity, and gratitude and mercy, and forgiveness in their hearts, and in their thoughts, and in their souls, and in their minds, and in their bowels.”

Colgan also wrote another celebrated work in Irish, called Scuap Chrabhaigh, or the “Besom of Devotion,” which his namesake, the renowned Franciscan, also a lector in theology, pronounces to be a “book of most fervent prayers, after the manner of a litany; a book, moreover, of most ardent devotion and elevation of the soul to God.”[224] Some think that the “Besom of Devotion” referred to by Colgan, is only the Litany or Prayer of St. Colgan, under another name.

In spite of the devastations both of the Danes and native princes during the ninth century, learning still flourished at Clonmacnoise. That Suibhne, son of Maeluma, whose grave-stone may still be seen at Clonmacnoise, died in A.D. 891. His fame was great, not only in Ireland, but in England also. The Saxon Chronicle and the Annals of Cambria, as well as Florence of Worcester, all notice his death and describe him as the wisest and the greatest Doctor of the Scots or Irish, and the Annals of Ulster call him a “most excellent scribe.” Unfortunately we have none of his writings extant to confirm the judgment of his contemporaries.

Yet during this and the following century, which produced these great scholars, we read a shameful record of the burnings, pillage, and slaughter wrought both by native and foreigner in this peaceful home of sanctity and learning.

It was plundered or burned—generally both—on at least ten different occasions by the Danes. But the Irish themselves exceeded even that bloody record, and laid sacrilegious hands on these holy shrines and their inmates no less than fourteen or fifteen times. The Danes began this foul work; both Danes and Irish continued it at short intervals; the English of Athlone completed the job. Nothing more shameful, or so shameful, can be found in the annals of any even half-civilized country. There were many accidental fires that destroyed the monastic buildings during the first three hundred years of its existence, but no pillage, no slaughter is recorded during that period. The Danes set the bad example, and several of the native princes were not slow to follow it. The worst of them was Felim Mac Criffan (Fedhlimidh Mac Crimthann), King of Cashel. He plundered Clonmacnoise and its termon lands three times, at one of which, A.D. 833, he spoiled and pillaged up to the church doors, and butchered the monks like sheep—jugulatio is the word in the Annals. He did the same to Durrow and several other religious houses. He broke into the oratory of Kildare in A.D. 836, and took Forannan, the Primate of Armagh and his attendants prisoners, forcing the Primate to give a reluctant consent to his claim to be recognised as High King of all Erin. Ten years later he died after a stormy life, and the Annals of Ulster describe him as the best of the Scots—optimus Scotorum—a scribe and an anchorite! There is no foundation for Dr. Todd’s assertion that he was an ‘abbot and bishop,’[225] except a poetic reference to his bachall, which the poet mockingly says he left in the shrubbery,[226] and which was carried off by his rival, Niall Caille, King of the North. Neither is there any ground for O’Donovan’s assertion in the note that “he was Abbot and Bishop of Cashel in right of his crown of Munster.” There was neither an abbot nor bishop of Cashel at the time, nor for many years after; and although Cormac Mac Cullinan was certainly a bishop, he is not described as Bishop of Cashel either in our Annals or our Martyrologies.[227] The warlike Felim Mac Criffan retired to a hermitage a short time before his death to do penance for his many crimes; and he seems to have employed his leisure in copying MSS. Hence the Martyrology of Donegal commemorates him simply as an ‘anchorite’[228] who retired into solitude to bewail his sins, and as his penance seems to have been sincere, there was nothing to prevent him becoming a saint. The Chronicon Scotorum, whilst recording his death, as that of ‘a scribe and anchorite, and the best of the Scots,’ records a little before that Ciaran followed him to Munster after the last violation of his monastery, and gave him a thrust of his crozier, causing an internal wound, which, no doubt, hastened his death, and perhaps prompted him to do penance. The true date of his death is A.D. 847.

We cannot stay to record the many similar deeds of violence from which the sanctuary of Ciaran suffered during these lawless times. Even the religious communities themselves were infected with the evil spirit that prevailed around them. The monks sometimes took up arms, not merely to protect themselves against murderous aggression, which would be reasonable enough, but to wage war on their own account as well. It was a woful time for Inisfail. She was writhing in the grasp of the invader; and no sooner did that grasp begin to relax than her own false princes drew their aimless swords in fratricidal strife. Even the salt of the earth lost its savour—lay usurpers called themselves the Heirs of Patrick in Armagh, and the monks of St. Ciaran forgot to pray, and put their trust in sword and shield, like the lawless chieftains around them:—

“Sure it was a maddening prospect thus to see this storied land,
Like some wretched culprit, writhing in the strong avenger’s hand—
Kneeling, foaming, weeping, shrieking, woman-weak and woman-loud—
Better, better, Mother Erin! they had wrapped thee in thy shroud.”

IV.—Annalists of Clonmacnoise.

During the eleventh century Clonmacnoise produced several most distinguished scholars. This was the earliest era for prose chroniclers in Ireland. Hitherto the chronicles of the kingdom were written in verse, which greatly facilitated the work of the professional sheanachies. It was the safest way to preserve history in those turbulent days. The monastery might be burned, and the parchments all destroyed; but so long as the rhyming chronicler, or even one of his disciples survived, the historical poem committed to their faithful memory could not perish. Amongst these rhyming chroniclers there are several whose poems are still extant, although unpublished. Such, for instance, were Eochy O’Flinn and Kennett O’Hartigan, and in the eleventh century Gilla Caemhain, who died in A.D. 1072. But during that century a new race of prose chroniclers arose for the first time in Ireland. Of these the two most distinguished were Flann of Monasterboice, who died in A.D. 1056, and his illustrious contemporary Tighernach, the greatest glory of the School of Clonmacnoise.

Of the personal history of Tighernach we unfortunately know little. He belonged to the Sil Muiredhaigh of Magh Aei—the royal race of Connaught—of which the O’Conors were the chiefs. His family name was O’Braoin,[229] and we are merely told that he was Erenach of Clonmacnoise, and elsewhere, that he was Comarb of Ciaran and Coman of Roscommon. Like St. Ciaran himself, he was a native of the co. Roscommon, which bordered on Clonmacnoise; and he was doubtless educated in that monastery. His death is recorded under date of A.D. 1088, in all our Annals; and he is described as a Saoi or Chief Doctor, in Wisdom, Learning, and Oratory. His bones repose in the holy clay of Clonmacnoise, but the exact place is not known.

Tighernach truly was one of the greatest Doctors of the Gael. His Annals are yet extant, and prove him to have been a man of great and various learning. Unfortunately we have no perfect copy of his Annals. There are many gaps in the entries, and the original text has been greatly defaced by the errors of ignorant copyists. Dr. O’Conor’s edition in the Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores is by no means faultless, and the book is so rare and expensive, that although Tighernach is much talked about he is very little read.

Both Flann of the Monastery and Tighernach have done much to fix the true chronology of Irish historical events. They were men of wide culture, and were familiar with the great Ecclesiastical historians—Eusebius, Jerome, Orosius, Africanus—and followed their example in giving a sketch of universal history in the opening pages of their Annals. They were acquainted not merely with the chronology of the Bible, like several of their predecessors, but also with the history and chronology of Greece and Rome and the great Eastern Empires. The special value of their work is that for the first time in our history they synchronize the leading facts in Irish history with the great events of the general history of antiquity. They were perfectly well acquainted with the use of the Olympian Era, the Era from the Building of the City, and the Christian Era, and were thus enabled to fix the true dates of the reigns of our early monarchs. This was no easy task; for hitherto there were confused lists of Kings often handed down by memory with the length of their reigns; but there was, so to speak, no definite starting point. Tighernach himself, who was a man of highly critical mind, saw this difficulty, and made the famous statement that before the reign of Cimbaeth and the founding of Emania all the historical monuments of the Scots were uncertain. It is strange indeed that he dates our authentic history from the reign of a mere provincial king. The real reason, however, seems to be that from Cimbaeth forward, he found in the poems of Eochaidh O’Flinn definite lists of the Ulster Kings, and of the High Kings also, which enabled him to trace their genealogy, and fix the dates. But he could find no such accurate lists of the earlier kings, and hence he pronounces the bardic histories of the earlier period to be uncertain.

Tighernach was probably the first Irish historian who used the common era—that of the Incarnation. But in the earlier entries he dates from the Creation, giving also the Lunar Epact, and the Day of the Week for the Kalends of January. There are certainly some errors in these dates; but they have arisen probably from the ignorance of the transcribers. The Annals written by himself came down to the date of his death in A.D. 1088; and the scribe continued them to A.D. 1178. Various subsequent additions were made by different writers down to A.D. 1407, where the entire chronicle ends.

These Annals undoubtedly furnish the earliest and most authentic record that we possess of our national history. Their author was a man of judgment, learning, and candour. Hence the statements of Tighernach, supported as they are by collateral evidence in very many cases, may always be accepted as authentic history. It is very probable the work was left in an unfinished state; and this is all the more to be regretted, because he had materials at hand, very many of which have since unfortunately perished. The Irish of Tighernach is considered very pure, like that of Cormac Mac Cullinan, for it was the classic era of the Gaedhlic language. The Annals, however, are too often half-Latin, half-Gaedhlic, although the writer could have done the work much better by adopting either language exclusively.

To Clonmacnoise we also owe the Chronicon Scotorum, which has been very ably edited by the late lamented W. M. Hennessy, and is published in the Rolls Series. The text is mainly taken from a transcript made by the celebrated Duald M‘Firbis, and now preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. O’Curry thought it was a compilation made by M‘Firbis[230] from different sources, but in this opinion that eminent scholar was mistaken. The work produced by M‘Firbis is a mere copy of the original work, which was undoubtedly composed and preserved at Clonmacnoise. This is quite evident, as Hennessy remarks, from an entry made under date of the year A.D. 718 by M‘Firbis himself. “A front of two leaves of the old book out of which I copy this is wanting, and I leave what is before me of this page for them. I am Dubhaltach Firbisigh.”

The entries in this Chronicle of the Scots are very brief and condensed; but contain scraps of most valuable information not to be found in other authorities. They are particularly valuable in all that refers to Clonmacnoise as well as to its neighbouring territories and monastic houses. In the MS. of the Royal Irish Academy there is prefixed a note written in Gaedhlic, which attributes the composition of the Chronicle to Gilla-Christ O’Maeileoin—that is O’Malone—abbot of Clonmacnoise, who flourished in the twelfth century. This is highly probable. O’Malone was a very distinguished scholar of Clonmacnoise, and was present at the Synod of Uisneach held in the year A.D. 1111, of which Synod this Chronicle alone gives original and detailed information. The writer takes care to add that Gillachrist Ua Maeileoin, abbot of Cluain, with the congregation of Ciaran were present at the Synod. The death of this learned abbot is noticed at A.D. 1123, where he is described as “the fountain of knowledge and charity, the head of the prosperity and affluence of Erin.” In its present form the Chronicle has been continued by another hand down to the year A.D. 1150. It is, therefore, a later, but hardly less important Chronicle, than that of Tighernach himself.

The Four Masters had before them when compiling their own immortal work a book which they call the Annals of Clonmacnoise, coming down to the year A.D. 1227. It has been conjectured that the Four Masters in that statement refer to the Chronicon Scotorum, which they do not mention under that name, and which doubtless must have come into their hands. But the Chronicon Scotorum, although it might properly be called the Annals of Clonmacnoise, as having been compiled in that monastery, does not in its present form come down beyond the year A.D. 1150. Neither can the work referred to by the Four Masters be the Book of Clonmacnoise, translated by MacGeoghegan in A.D. 1627, for that work comes down to A.D. 1407, and, moreover, does not contain important passages, which we know were in the work used by the Four Masters. Our own opinion is that the Book of Clonmacnoise, and the Annals of Clonmacnoise, to which the Four Masters frequently refer, are identical with the Chronicon Scotorum, and that the work in their time did come down to A.D. 1227, but the folios containing the years from A.D. 1050 to that date have perished from mere careless use, if not from accident.

V.—The Leabhar-na-h-Uidhre.

Another celebrated work, undoubtedly composed at Clonmacnoise, is the Leabhar-na-h-Uidhre, now in the Royal Irish Academy. A great part of the work has unfortunately perished, so that the 138 folio pages still remaining can only be regarded as a fragment. The history of the book is very strange. The author, or rather compiler, was Maelmuire—that is, Servant of Mary—a grandson of the celebrated Conn-na-mBocht, or Conn of the Poor. Conn himself was a holy and learned man, but seems to have never taken Orders. He was greatly esteemed at Clonmacnoise; and founded an hospital or refuge for poor laymen, of which he himself seems to have been the head. He had at least two sons, one called Gellananaeve, arch-priest of Clonmacnoise, and another called Ceileachair, probably the father of this Maelmuire. Both were distinguished scholars and writers, whose books Conal MacGeoghegan quotes as sources for his own Annals of Clonmacnoise. Conn’s grandson Maelmuire, must have been a very distinguished scholar, and was also in all probability a lay brother of the community of Clonmacnoise. The Annals of the Four Masters record the tragic end of the industrious scribe. In A.D. 1106 he was slain by a party of robbers in the midst of the great stone church of Clonmacnoise. His work was written therefore during the last years of the eleventh, and the beginning of the twelfth century; and with the exception of the Book of Armagh is, so far as it goes, the oldest transcript now existing of our great historical works.

From Clonmacnoise the Book was carried, we know not when or by whom, all the way to Donegal. About the year A.D. 1340 it was given to O’Connor Sligo, so an entry in the Book itself informs us, as a ransom for O’Donnell’s chief historian, who had been taken prisoner by Cathal Oge O’Conor. Donnell O’Conor, a chieftain of the same race, ordered his own historian, Sigraidh O’Cuirnin, to make an entry of the name of the author, who composed “this beautiful book,” and he made that entry a week before Good Friday in the year A.D. 1345. It seems that even then the opening pages were lost, and it is to Donnell O’Conor we owe our knowledge of the writer, small as it is. The book remained in Sligo, where it was highly prized, for about 130 years, when the fortune of war brought it back again to Donegal. In A.D. 1470, Hugh Roe O’Donnell took the Castle of Sligo from the O’Conors; and amongst other trophies carried off this book again to Donegal, as the Four Masters proudly record under date of that year. How it came to the Royal Irish Academy we are not informed, but it is quite evident that the work was just as highly prized in Sligo and in Donegal, as it is in the Academy; and what is more to the purpose, the O’Clerys and O’Cuirnins knew much better how to interpret its contents than any of the members of that learned body.

The contents of the fragment are of a very varied character, partly biblical, partly historical, partly old romantic tales. One of the most important documents contained in the Leabhar-na-h-Uidhre is the ancient elegy on Columcille, composed by another bard, the celebrated Dallan Forgaill so early as the end of the sixth century. This poem is undoubtedly genuine. The language is so ancient that even the great scholars of Clonmacnoise in the eleventh century found it necessary to write an interlinear gloss in order to render it intelligible to ordinary readers at that early date.

VI.—Dicuil the Geographer.

In connection with the School of Clonmacnoise an account of Dicuil, the celebrated Geographer, as he is called, will not be deemed out of place. For there is very good reason to believe that he was trained at Clonmacnoise; and if not trained there, he was certainly a pupil of some of the Columbian Schools, of which we shall treat in our next chapter. A sketch of his history and his writings, therefore, is most appropriate in this place.

Dicuil’s treatise, De Mensura Orbis Terrarum, is one of the most interesting monuments of ancient Irish scholarship, and furnishes most conclusive proof that the culture of our writers and the learning of our schools in the ninth century were superior to almost anything yet exhibited in Western Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. This work has been published in Paris, but it is now very rare, and hence we purpose giving a fuller account of its contents than might otherwise be deemed necessary. It is not to the credit of Irish learning in the present day that no attempt has been made even by any of our learned Societies to print this treatise in Ireland. It is to French scholarship we are indebted for editing and annotating Dicuil’s treatise.[231]

Unfortunately we know nothing whatsoever of the personal history of Dicuil except what can be gathered from a few incidental references which he makes to himself in this treatise; but these, though very brief, are clear and definite. He tells us first of all that his name was Dicuil, and that he finished his task in the spring of the year A.D. 825. Like most of his countrymen at that time, he was fond of poetry, and gives us this information in a neat poem, written in Latin hexameters at the end of the MS., to which we shall refer again. He also implies in his opening statement, or prologue, that he had already written an Epistola de questionibus decem Artis Grammaticae, which was probably intended to be copied and circulated amongst the Irish monastic schools of the time, but of which we know nothing more. He tells us that a certain Suibneus (Suibhne), or Sweeney, was his master to whom under God he owed whatever knowledge he possessed. His native country was Ireland, which he describes in affectionate language as “nostra Hibernia,”—our own Ireland—in opposition to the foreign countries of which he had been speaking. Elsewhere he calls it in accordance with the usage of the time nostra Scottia. He also adds when referring to the islands in the north and north-west of Scotland, that he had dwelt in some of them, he had visited others, more of them he had merely seen, and some of them he had only read of.

This is really all the information we have about Dicuil, and from data so meagre, it is very difficult to identify Dicuil the Geographer, amongst the many Irish monks who bore that name.

By a careful examination, however, of these and some other facts to which he refers, we can conjecture with some probability where and by whom he was educated.

When speaking of Iceland Dicuil refers to information communicated to him thirty years before by certain Irish clerics, who had spent some months in that island. This brings us back to A.D. 795, so that when Dicuil wrote in A.D. 825, he must have been a man considerably advanced in years. We may infer, too, that his master, Suibhne, to whom he owed so much, flourished as a teacher at a still earlier period than A.D. 795. There were several abbots who bore that name between A.D. 750 and A.D. 850; but it appears to us that the master of Dicuil must have been either Suibhne, Abbot of Iona, who died in A.D. 772, or Suibhne, son of Cuana, Abbot of Clonmacnoise, who died in A.D. 816. If Dicuil were, suppose, seventy-five when he wrote his book, he must have been born in A.D. 750. He would then be about sixteen years of age when Suibhne, Vice-Abbot of Iona, came over to his native Ireland in A.D. 766, where he remained some time. Suppose that Dicuil returned with him as a novice in that year, he could have been six years under the instruction of Suibhne before that abbot’s death in A.D. 772. It is likely that Dicuil remained in Iona for several years after the death of his beloved master. It was, doubtless, during these years that he visited the Scottish islands, and dwelt with some of the communities whom St. Columba had established there. On this point his own statement is clear and explicit.

The founder of Iona, Columcille, with his kinsmen, originally came from Donegal, and the monastery seems to have been principally recruited at all times by members of the Cenel-conal race. Amongst the saints who were called Dicuil, or Diucholl, were two who were venerated in Donegal; one the son of Neman, whose memory was venerated at Kilmacrenan on December 25th; the other was Dicuil of Inishowen, whose feast-day is December 18th. The latter is described as a hermit; and it may be that our geographer, after his return from Iona, retired to a life of solitude in Inishowen, and there, towards the close of his life, composed this treatise, of which the most valuable portion is that containing the reminiscences of his early life in the Scottish islands.

The chief difficulty against this hypothesis, that Suibhne, Dicuil’s master, was the Abbot of Iona who died in A.D. 772, is the great age at which, in that case, the pupil must have written his book, in A.D. 825. The monks of those days, however, were often intellectually and physically vigorous at the age of eighty, and even of ninety years.

The other hypothesis certainly fits in better with the dates; so we must assume that Dicuil was trained at the great College of Clonmacnoise, which at this period was certainly the most celebrated school in Ireland, if not in Europe. Suibhne, we are told, was abbot for two years before his death, in A.D. 816; but had been, no doubt, for many years previously, a fer-legind, or professor in Clonmacnoise. It was nothing new for the younger monks to travel to other religious houses in pursuit of knowledge and sanctity; and in this way Dicuil, like so many of his countrymen, would visit Iona and the Scottish islands.

The treatise De Mensura Orbis Terrarum is very valuable as affording evidence of the varied classical culture that existed in our Irish monastic schools at this period. In the prologue the author tells us that he derived his information mainly from two sources; first, from the Report of the Commissioners whom the divine Emperor Theodosius had sent to survey the provinces of the Roman Empire; and secondly, from the excellent work of Plinius Secundus—that is, the Natural History which is so well known to scholars. Dicuil complains that the manuscripts of the Report in his possession were very faulty; but still, being of more recent date than Pliny’s work, he values it more highly. He adds that he leaves vacant places in his own manuscript for the numbers, in order to be able to fill them in afterwards when he can verify or correct them by collating his own with other manuscripts of the Report. He also quotes numerous passages from other writers, who, we are afraid, are not very familiar to the classical scholars of our own times. The first of these works is that of Caius Julius Solinus, known as the Polyhistor. Of his personal history we know as little as we do of Dicuil himself. He flourished about the middle of the third century, and appears to have borrowed his matter, and sometimes even his language, from Pliny’s Natural History. The contents of this work of Solinus may be inferred from the title of an English translation, published in A.D. 1587: “The Excellent and Pleasant Work of Julius Solinus, Polyhistor, containing the Noble Actions of Humaine Creatures, the Secretes and Providence of Nature, the Description of Countries, the Manners of the People, &c., &c. Translated out of the Latin by Arthur Golding, Gent.” Another work, equally unknown to the present generation, but frequently quoted by Dicuil, is the Periegesis of Priscian. It is a metrical translation into Latin hexameters of a Greek work bearing the same title, which was originally composed by Dionysius, surnamed from that fact Periegetes, or the “Traveller,” in Goldsmith’s sense. He appears to have flourished in the second half of the third century of the Christian era.

Such are the principal authorities whom Dicuil follows; and as he knew nothing of foreign countries himself, he cites his authorities textually for the benefit of his own countrymen. It is surely a singular and interesting fact that we should find an Irish monk, in the beginning of the ninth century, collating and criticising various manuscripts of those writers either in some Irish monastic school at home, or in the equally Irish school of Iona, though surrounded by Scottish waters and in view of the Scottish hills.

For us, however, the information which Dicuil gives us of his own knowledge, or gathered from his own countrymen, is far more valuable; and to this we would especially invite the reader’s attention.

In the sixth chapter, when speaking of the Nile, he says

—and thence continued their voyage by canal to the entrance of the Red Sea.

This Irish pilgrimage to Jerusalem is worthy of notice, for many of our critics where they find mention of such pilgrimages to Rome and to Jerusalem in the Lives of our early Saints, seem to regard it as an exaggeration, if not a kind of pious fraud. But here we have the testimony of one in every way worthy of credit, who himself spoke to such pilgrims after their return from the Holy Land.

Then their testimony is peculiarly valuable in reference to a vexed geographical question regarding the existence of a navigable canal in those days from the Nile to the Red Sea. A canal called the “River of Ptolemy” and afterwards “The River of Trajan,” was certainly cut from the Pelusiac branch of the Nile to the Red Sea at Arisnoe. It was certainly open for commerce in the time of Trajan, but during the decline of the Roman empire became partially filled with sand. Trajan, it seems, however, when re-opening the canal connected it with the Nile at a point higher up the river than the old route, opposite Memphis, near Babylon, in order that the fresh water might flow through the canal and help to keep it open. Under the Arabians this canal of Trajan was re-opened, but geographers have asserted that it became choked shortly afterwards and remained so ever since. The testimony of the Irish pilgrims quoted by Dicuil is the only satisfactory evidence that we now possess to prove that this canal was open at the end of the eighth century for the purposes of commerce and navigation.[233]

The pilgrims also give some interesting information with reference to the Pyramids, which they call the “Barns of Joseph.” “The pilgrims,” he says, “saw them from the river rising like mountains four in one place and three in another.” Then they landed to view these wonders close at hand and coming to one of the three greater pyramids, they saw eight men and one woman and a great lion stretched dead beside it. The lion had attacked them, and the men in turn had attacked the lion with their spears, with the result that all perished in the mutual slaughter, for the place was a desert and there was no one at hand to help then. From top to bottom the pyramids were all built of stone, square at the base, but rounded towards the summit, and tapering to a point. The aforesaid brother Fidelis measured one of them, and found that the square face was 400 feet in length. Going thence by the canal to the Red Sea, they found the passage across to the eastern shore at the Road of Moses to be only a short distance. The brother who had measured the base of the pyramid wished to examine the exact point where Moses had entered the Red Sea, in order to try if he could find any traces of the Chariots of Pharaoh, or the wheel tracks; but the sailors were in a hurry and would not allow him to go on this excursion. The breadth of the sea at this point appeared to him to be about six miles. Then they sailed up this narrow bay which once kept the murmuring Israelites from returning to Egypt.

This is a very interesting and manifestly authentic narrative. Another interesting chapter is that in which Dicuil describes Iceland and the Faroe Islands. “It is now thirty years,” he says, “since certain clerics, who remained in that island (Ultima Thule) from the 1st of February to the 1st of August, told me that not only at the Summer solstice, (as Solinus said), but also for several days about the solstice, the setting sun at eventide merely hid himself, as it were, for a little behind a hill, so that there was no darkness even for a moment, and whatever a man wished to do, if it were only to pick vermin off his shirt—vol pediculos de camisia abstrahere—he could do as it were in the light of the sun, and if he were on a mountain of any height, he could doubtless see the sun all through.” This way of putting it is certainly more graphic than elegant, but it is at the same time strictly accurate, and shows that the Irish monks had really spent the summer in Iceland. For the arctic circle just touches the extreme north of Iceland, and therefore in any part of that country the sun would even at the solstice set for a short time, but it would be only, as it were, going behind a hill to reappear in an hour or in half an hour. So that by the aid of refraction and twilight a man would always have light enough to perform even those delicate operations to which Dicuil refers.

He then observes with much acuteness that at the middle point of this brief twilight it is midnight at the equator, or middle of the earth; and in like manner he infers that about the Winter solstice there must be daylight for a very short time in Thule, when it is noonday at the equator. These observations show a keen observant mind, and would lead us to infer that Dicuil, like his countryman Virgilius, who flourished a little earlier, had been taught the sphericity of the earth in the schools of his native country. He says also in this same chapter, what is certainly true, that those writers are greatly mistaken who describe the Icelandic Sea as always frozen, and who say that there is a perpetual day from Spring to Autumn, and perpetual night from Autumn to Spring. For the Irish monks sailed thither, he says, through an open sea in a month of great natural cold, and whilst they were there enjoyed alternate day and night except about the Summer solstice, as already explained. But one day’s sail further north brought them to the frozen sea.

Dicuil’s reference to Iceland is interesting from another point of view. In almost all our books of popular instruction, and even in many standard works on geography, it is stated that the Danes, or Norwegians, “discovered” Iceland about the year A.D. 860, and shortly afterward colonized it during the reign of Harold Harfager. But Dicuil clearly shows that it was well known to Irish monks at least more than half a century before Dane or Norwegian ever set foot on the island, as is now generally admitted by scholars who are familiar with Icelandic literature and history.

The following interesting passage which shows the roving spirit that animated some of the Irish monks at that period is contained in the third section of the same seventh chapter. “There are several other islands in the ocean to the north of Britain, which can be reached in a voyage of two days and two nights with a favourable breeze. A certain trustworthy monk (religiosus) told me that he reached one of them by sailing for two summer days and one night in a vessel with two benches of rowers (duorum navicula transtrorum). Some of these islands are very small and separated by narrow straits. In these islands for almost a hundred years there dwelt hermits, who sailed there from our own Ireland (nostra Scottia). But now they are once more deserted, as they were from the beginning, on account of the ravages of the Norman pirates. They are, however, still full of sheep, and of various kinds of sea birds. We have never found these islands mentioned by any author.”

It is quite evident that Dicuil here refers to the Faroe Islands, which are about 250 miles north of the Scottish coast. A glance at the map will show that they are rather small, and separated from each other by very narrow channels, and in this respect differing from the Shetland Islands, to which this description could not therefore apply. Besides, the Shetlands are only 50 miles from the Orkneys, and about 100 from the mainland; hence they could easily be reached in a single day by an open boat sailing before a favourable wind; whereas the islands occupied by the Irish hermits could only be reached after a voyage of two days and a night, even in the most favourable circumstances. The word “nostra Scottia” of course refers to Ireland; for up to the time that Dicuil wrote, that word had never been applied to North Britain. Skene, himself a learned Scot, has shown by numerous citations from ancient authors that beyond all doubt the name “Scottia” was applied to Ireland, and to Ireland alone, prior to the tenth century.[234] Up to that time the name of Scotland was Alban or Albania.

The love of the ancient Irish monks for island solitudes is one of the most remarkable features in their character. There is hardly an island round our coasts, which does not contain the remains of some ancient oratory or monastic cells. But they did not always remain in sight of land. Inspired partly with the hope of finding a “desert” in the ocean, partly, no doubt, also with a love of adventure and a vague hope of discovering the “Land of Promise,” they sailed out into the Atlantic in their currachs in search of these lonely islands. Every one has heard of the seven years’ voyage of St. Brendan in the western ocean. St. Ailbe of Emly had resolved to find out the island of Thule, which the Roman geographers placed somewhere in the northern sea. He was, however, prevented from going himself, but “he sent twenty men into exile over the sea in his stead.”[235] St. Cormac the Navigator, made three voyages in the pathless ocean seeking some desert island where he might devote himself to an eremitic life. It is highly probable he went as far north as Iceland; for Adamnan tells us that he sailed northwards for fourteen days, until he was frightened by the sight of the monsters of the deep, when he returned home touching on his way at the Orkney islands.

When the Norwegians first discovered Iceland in A.D. 860, they found Irish books, and bells, and pilgrims’ staffs, or croziers, which were left there by men who professed the Christian religion and whom the Norwegians called “papas” or “fathers.” Dicuil, however, gives us the earliest authentic testimony that Iceland and the Faroe Isles had been discovered and occupied by Irish monks long before the Danes or Norwegians discovered these islands. Of Ireland itself, Dicuil unfortunately gives us no information. He was writing for his own countrymen, and he assumed that they knew as much about Ireland—“our own Ireland”—as he did. The only observation he makes in reference to Ireland is that there were islands round the coast, and that some were small, and others very small. But he takes one quotation from Solinus, who says that—

Dicuil, however, good Irishman as he was, does not quote two other statements which Solinus made about the pre-Christian Scots—for he wrote before the time of St. Patrick—first, that the Irish recognised no difference between right and wrong at all; and, secondly, that they fed their children from the point of the sword—a rather inconvenient kind of spoon we should think. In fact the Romans of those days knew as little, and wrote as confidently, about Ireland as most Englishmen do at present, and that is saying a good deal.

There is one incidental reference in Dicuil—chapter V., section ii.—which is of the highest importance, because it settles the question as to the nationality of the celebrated Irish poet, Sedulius, the author of the hymns Crudelis Herodes and A solis ortus Cardine, in the Roman Breviary. Dicuil quoting twelve lines of poetry from the Report of the Commissioners of Theodosius, observes, that the first foot of the seventh and eighth of these hexameter lines is an amphimacrus. Here are the lines:—

“Cōnfĭcī ter quinis aperit cum fastibus annum.
Sūpplĭcēs hoc famuli, dum scribit, pingit et alter.”

“At the same time,” says Dicuil, “I do not think it was from ignorance of prosody these lines were so written, for the writers had the authority of other poets in their favour, and especially of Virgil, whom in similar cases our own Sedulius imitated, and he, in his heroic stanzas, rarely uses feet different from those of Virgil and the classical poets.” “Noster Sedulius,” here applied to the great religious poet by his own countryman, in the ninth century, settles the question of his Irish birth. The reader will observe also, what a keen critic Dicuil was of Latin poetry, and will probably come to the conclusion that they knew Prosody better in the Irish schools of the ninth than they do in those of the nineteenth century.

In the closing stanzas of his own short poem on the classic mountains, Dicuil implies that he finished his work in the Spring of A.D. 825, when night gives grateful rest to the wearied oxen who had covered the seed-wheat in the dusty soil.

“Post octingentos viginti quinque peractos
Summi annos Domini terrae, aethrae, carceris atri,
Semine triticeo sub ruris pulvere tecto
Nocte bobus requies largitur fine laboris.”

CHAPTER XIII.

His adventurous career has a strange dramatic interest of its own. He was fortunate too in finding a biographer, who has written his Life in a spirit of loving sympathy; and in our own times the biographer has found an editor to publish and illustrate his work with great learning and complete impartiality.[236]

Columba was a typical Celt, and seems to have been endowed by nature with all the virtues and many of the failings of the Celtic race. He was generous, warm-hearted, imaginative; he hated injustice and oppression; he was capable of the tenderest friendship, passionately fond of his native land, and filled with enthusiastic zeal for the propagation of the Gospel. Yet he had his faults. He was fiery and impetuous, impatient of contradiction, and too easily prone to anger and revenge. But this is his glory that with God’s help he conquered his faults; and therefore it is we love him because he is so human, so like ourselves in all things. It gives us greater confidence in the struggle, when we have a patron saint who can have compassion on our infirmities because he was tried like us in all things; and, if we are to believe the story of his life, not altogether without sin. It is well too that he should be for us an example of perfect penance; even as he schooled himself in patient endurance, and all other noble virtues.

We, however, have to deal with Columba mainly as a scholar, a teacher, and a writer—the founder of many schools, the patron of learning, the protector and the idol of all the Bards of Erin. It is perhaps best in sketching the literary history of St. Columba to make separate reference to each of the great schools which he established, and at the same time to give an account of those events which brought him into connection with the various scenes in which he played so striking a part. We shall therefore begin with the School of Derry, which was the first he founded in his own native territory. First of all, however, it is necessary to know something of his own early history.

St. Columba was born at Gartan, in the barony of Kilmacrenan, co. Donegal, on the 7th of December, in the year A.D. 521.[237] It is a very wild but beautiful district, surrounded by dark rugged mountains, which cast their shadows over a beautiful sheet of water stretched at their base, sometimes called Lough Veagh, but more properly Lough Gartan. His father, Felim (Fedhlimidh) was prince of the surrounding district, and a scion of the royal race of Niall the Great, or Niall of the Nine Hostages, and his mother was Eithne, the daughter of a Leinster Chief, who came of the equally royal line of Cathaeir Mor, a famous High King of Erin in the second century of the Christian era. Most justly, therefore, does his biographer, Adamnan, say that Columba was sprung from noble parentage, for he was, through Conal Gulban, the great-grandson of Niall the Great. The reigning king at his birth, Muircertach (Murtogh) Mac Erca, was his uncle, of the half blood; and he himself might one day be qualified not only to rule over the Cenel-Conal, but even to be elected High King of all Ireland.[238]

There is no trace at present of any royal rath or ancient fort at Gartan, so far as we could ascertain. The land around is naked and barren, and the cabins of the cottagers are even poorer and blacker than may be seen elsewhere in Donegal. About a quarter of a mile from the place of the saint’s birth, there is an old ruined church and church-yard; but although certainly ancient, the church does not appear to have been coeval with Columba himself. It was probably founded some years after his death, when the place began to obtain some celebrity as the birth-place of so great a saint.

But the flag, on which he was born, is pointed out to every visitor; and there can hardly be any doubt that the tradition fixing the spot is continuous and trustworthy. It is worn quite bare by the hands and feet of pious pilgrims; and what is stranger still, the poor emigrants, who are about to quit Donegal for ever, come and sleep on that flag the night before their departure from Derry. Columba himself was an exile, and they fondly hope that sleeping on the spot where he was born will help them to bear with lighter heart the heavy burden of the exile’s sorrows.

Shortly after his birth the child was brought from Gartan to Tulach Dubhglaisse to be baptized by an old priest named Cruithnechan, who dwelt there. It is now called Temple-Douglas, and the old church and church-yard beside the dark stream is still there about mid-way between Gartan and Letterkenny. There is a parish called Kilcronaghan in the Co. Derry, which is supposed to take its name from the ‘illustrious priest,’ who had the privilege of baptizing Columcille, and who was also his tutor and foster-father.

The boy, however, seems to have spent the years of his early youth mostly at Kil-mac-nenain—now corrupted into Kilmacrenan—which was in all probability, even at that early period, a place of note in Tir-connell. In after times it became celebrated as the place where the O’Donnells were inaugurated as princes of Tir-connell. It is about three miles north of Temple-Douglas, and about the same distance to the north-east of Gartan. The place is supposed to have got its name from the ‘Son of Enan,’ whose mother was Columba’s sister.

We need not specially refer to the visions and prophecies concerning Columba, which are given in his various Lives. The authentic facts of his history are quite as strange and marvellous as any one can desire—in fact his whole life was a miracle of grace. From the fact that the ‘illustrious priest,’ who baptized Columba, is also described by Adamnan as his fosterer—pueri nutritor—we may fairly infer that he was trained by that holy man in the rudiments of learning, both in his native tongue and in the Latin language. It illustrates what was quite a common custom in days when schools were few and far between. The boy designed for the Church was placed under the care of the priest or bishop, and was thus trained in virtue and learning from his earliest years under the eyes of one whose duty and interest it was to watch over him with the most zealous care.

We know little, however, of Columba’s history until he came from Kilmacrenan to the more famous School of St. Finnian at Moville, near the head of Strangford Lough. We have already given an account of the seminary founded there by that great saint. At Moville Columba was ordained a deacon; and here also, according to one account, his baptismal name of Crimthann was changed by his young companions into that other name the “Dove of the Church”—Columcille—by which he is best known to history. Dr. Reeves, however, seems to think that he was called Colum at his baptism, and that cille was merely added by his companions because he so loved to haunt the church, when they would have him play. We learn from Adamnan that whilst he was at Moville, the young saint devoted his attention chiefly to the study of Sacred Scripture, of which Finnian was a most distinguished professor. We have the sober testimony of the same Adamnan that whilst the saint was a deacon at Moville no wine could be found on a certain festival day for the “Sacrificial Mystery.” Whilst the ministers at the altar were complaining of the want of the wine, the deacon took a cruet to the well, as it was his duty to procure and taste the water for the Holy Sacrifice. Knowing that the wine was wanting, he invoked our Lord Jesus Christ, and lo! the water in his hands was changed into wine, as it once was at Cana of Galilee; and he brought it to Bishop Finnian for the Sacrifice, who gave thanks to God on account of this wondrous miracle.

It is not certain whether it was at this period or later on that Columba made that furtive copy of Finnian’s Gospel, which subsequently begot so much trouble, and appears to have been the main cause of the bloody battle of Cuil-dreimhne in Carberry, co. Sligo. We have referred to this incident before, and we may have to refer to it again, when we come to explain the causes of Columba’s departure from Erin.

From Moville Columba, still a deacon, went southward to the plains of Leinster, and placed himself under the instruction of an aged bard called Gemman. The young deacon had a soul for music; and he greatly loved the Bards, who sang of the brave deeds of warrior kings and ancient heroes. He wished, also, to perfect himself in his own native tongue, and to become a pupil in the School of the Bards was the recognised way to study the language and literature of Erin, such as it was at that time. But he was also learning ‘divine wisdom’ in Leinster at the same time, probably at the School of St. Finnian of Clonard, which was on the borders of Meath and Leinster.

There a very striking incident took place, which is in itself evidence of the lawless character of the times, and the necessity of the presence of some moral power with a divine sanction to hold that savagery in check. It happened one day that whilst Gemman, the Bard, was sitting in the open field reading his book, he saw a young girl flying to him for protection from the attacks of a ruffian, who pursued her closely as she fled. Gemman called to his disciple Columba who was close at hand, and both of them sought to protect the maiden from the violence of her assailant. But he, heedless of the reverence due both to the deacon and the bard, pierced the maiden with his lance, even as she sought shelter in vain behind their cloaks. She fell dead at their feet, but Columba, divinely inspired, cried out that her soul would fly to heaven, and the murderer’s soul would fly as quickly to hell. No sooner was the word spoken, than the wretch fell dead before them, and the name of God and of Columba was greatly magnified through all the neighbouring country.

We have already spoken of the great College of Clonard founded by St. Finnian, who is quite distinct from his namesake of Moville. We have seen that Columba was there, and was recognised as one of the Twelve Apostles of Erin, who were trained up together at that great seminary in all sacred learning. He was about twenty-two years of age at this period, for he was not yet ordained a priest, so that we may fix the period of his sojourn at Clonard about the year A.D. 543. The immediate purpose of Columba’s studies at Clonard was to prepare himself for the priesthood. There he was trained by the most celebrated master of Erin in all the virtue and learning necessary for that holy state. He built his little cell close to the church, and when he was not engaged in study, or attending his lectures, he was nearly always to be found before the altar in prayer. Though of the royal blood of Tara’s kings, he was humble, and took his turn at the quern, or hand-mill, grinding the corn that was necessary for himself and his companions. Their chief food was bread and water, or a little milk, when it could be had. No doubt from time to time they might succeed in catching some fish in the River Boyne, which flows through the meadows around Clonard. It was a simple life, but a happy and a heavenly one, when the youthful Apostles of Erin wandered together by the banks of that historic stream, or gathered round their venerable master to hear his lectures, as he sat on the old moat of Clonard, or to listen to his burning words in his little church, when he exhorted them to the love of God and the contempt of all worldly things for God’s sake.

It was the custom in those days for the students to visit the various saints of Erin, who were celebrated for holiness and learning; and so we find that Columba, when he had finished his studies under Finnian of Clonard, directed his steps to the school of another great master of the spiritual life, St. Mobhi Clarainech of Glasnevin. Before his departure, however, from Clonard, according to one account, the saint was ordained a priest,[239] not by Finnian, for he does not appear to have been bishop, but by Etchen of Clonfad, which is situated a little west of Clonard, and who doubtless exercised at that time the episcopal jurisdiction, which was afterwards exercised by the prelates of Clonard. It is said that it was Finnian’s purpose to have Columba ordained a bishop on this occasion, but through some mistake on the part of Bishop Etchen, he was only ordained a priest. Deeming it providential, Columba in his humility would never afterwards consent to be raised to the episcopal dignity.[240]

The students’ cells at Glasnevin were situated on one side of the River Tolka, and Mobhi’s church was on the other, at or near the spot where the Protestant church now stands. The light-footed youngsters of those days, however, found no difficulty in crossing the rapid and shallow stream at ordinary times. But when the river was swollen with heavy rains, it was no easy task to breast the flood; yet such was Columba’s zeal in the service of God that on one such occasion, to his master’s admiration and surprise, he crossed the angry torrent, that he might be present as usual at the exercises in the church. “May God be praised,” said Columba, when he had crossed safely over, “and deliver us from these perils in future.” It is said that his prayer was heard; and that all the cells, with their occupants, were suddenly transferred to the other side of the stream, and remained there ever after.

It was doubtless during his leisure hours, while under Mobhi’s care at Glasnevin, that Columba used to ramble out to the Hill of Howth, and sitting on the brow of its lofty cliffs, gaze in pensive mood over the wide spreading sea, and contemplate, with a poet’s eye, all the stern grandeur of that iron-bound coast. He fed his soul on the glorious vision, and in after years, when surrounded by the sterile rocks of Iona, his sad thoughts often turned to those scenes of his youth, and found expression in words that cannot fail to touch a sympathetic chord in every heart.

“Delightful to be on Benn-Edar
Before crossing o’er the white sea,
(To see) the dashing of the waves against its brow,
The bareness of its shore, and its border.

Delightful to be (once more) on Benn-Edar
After crossing the white-bosomed sea;
To row one’s little coracle,
Ochone! on its swift-waved shore.

Ah, rapid the speed of my coracle;
And its stern turned on Derry;
I grieve at my errand o’er the noble sea,
Travelling to Alba of the ravens.

My foot in my sweet little coracle;
My sad heart still bleeding;
Weak is the man that cannot lead,
Totally blind are the ignorant (of God’s will.)”

Columba had for companions at Glasnevin St. Cannech, St. Ciaran, and St. Comgall—and during their entire lives a tender and ardent friendship united these holy men together. A pestilence which broke out in A.D. 544, and of which St. Ciaran appears to have died, scattered the holy disciples of St. Mobhi’s School; so Columba resolved to return home to his native territory.

When he crossed the stream then called the Bior, but now called the Moyola Water, which flows into Lough Neagh at its north-western extremity, he earnestly prayed to God to stay the ravages of the terrible “Buidhe Chonnaill” on the southern banks of that stream, so that it might not invade the territories of his kinsmen. His earnest prayer was heard, and thus Tir-Owen and Tir-Connell escaped the dreadful plague.

II.—Columba founds Derry.

Columba was now a priest twenty-five years of age; and he began to think of founding a church in his native territory. The Annals of Ulster record the founding of Derry by Columba in the year A.D. 545;[241] and it was brought about in this way. The first cousin of St. Columba, Ainmire, son of Setna, who succeeded to the throne of Tara later on, was in A.D. 545 prince of Ailech and the neighbouring territory. His eldest son Aedh, was then a boy of ten years; but it seems, according to O’Donnell’s Life of Columba, the king in the name of his son Aedh, offered the fort in which he then dwelt on the site of the present city of Derry to his cousin in order to found his church and monastery. Columba, however, was at first unwilling to accept the gift, because his master Mobhi had not yet given him, as was customary, permission to found a church—doubtless thinking him too young and inexperienced. But Mobhi himself was taken sick, and died of the plague in A.D. 544, shortly after Columba had left him; and before he died he retracted his prohibition, and sent two of his disciples to Columba with his girdle as a sign to give him full permission to act as he pleased. These messengers had just then arrived; and so Columba gladly accepted the gift of his cousin, and founded his church on, what was called then and long after, the Island of Derry. It was a rising ground oval in shape containing 200 acres of land, surrounded on two sides by the Foyle, and on the third by low marshy ground since known as the ‘bog.’ The slopes of the hill were covered with a beautiful grove of oak trees, which gave its name to the place. In ancient times it was called Daire Calgaich, but after the tenth century it came to be more commonly known as Daire Columcille.

Columcille’s original church, called the Dubh-Regles, was built close to the site now occupied by the Roman Catholic Cathedral; and hence it was outside the walls of the modern city. Nigh to it were three wells anciently known as Adamnan’s Well, and Martin’s Well, and Columba’s Well. One of them is, it appears, now dry; and the others are called simply “St. Columb’s Wells.” Near to the church there was also erected a round tower, which in like manner has completely disappeared. So anxious was Columba to spare the beautiful oak-grove which covered the hill, that he would not even build his church with the chancel towards the east according to custom, because in that case some of his beloved oaks should be cut down to make room for the church. It was probably for the same reason he built on the low ground at the foot of the hill, instead of on its slope or summit, where the modern city stands. He strictly enjoined his successors to spare the sacred grove, and even directed in case any of the trees were blown down by the storm to give a part to the poor, a part to the citizens, and to reserve another part as fuel for the guest-house. In later ages a cathedral called Templemore was built on the slope of the hill; and the Dominicans, Augustinians, and Franciscans had each a church and a monastery in the city of St. Columba. It also seems that a Cistercian convent was founded there, but not a trace of any of them now remains; so effectually did the imported colonists change the physical as well as the religious aspect of the city.

We know very little of the history of Derry during the period that Columba ruled over his monastery in person. He always loved it dearly, and many a time his heart turned fondly from his lonely island in the Scottish main to his beloved Derry.

“The reason I love Derry is
For its peace, for its purity,
And for its crowds of white angels
From one end to the other.

My Derry! mine own little grove!
My dwelling, my dear little cell;
O eternal God, in heaven above.
Woe be to him, who violates it!”

From all the highlands and valleys of Tir-connell his kith and kin rallied round the young monk in his infant monastery. It was built on the border-land between the territories of Eoghan and Conal; and in after ages every acre of its termon lands was stained with blood, shed in fratricidal strife by the two great clans of the north. It stood, too, under the shadow of that ancient keep, the Grianan of Ailech, which, it is said, was the abode of the northern kings long before the Christian era. It was certainly the Royal Fortress of the Hy-Niall in their proudest days, and still rears its stately walls, that overlook at once the Foyle and the Swilly, as if in silent scorn of time and storm and man.

It will help us to understand better the subsequent history of Columcille, if we try now to realize what manner of man he was. He came of a fierce and haughty race, and seems to have been himself by nature, notwithstanding his name, a man of ardent temperament and strong passions. He was, says an ancient commentator,[242] quoting from a still more ancient poet, “a man of well-formed and powerful frame; his skin was white, his face was broad and fair and radiant, lit up with large grey luminous eyes; his large and well-shaped head was crowned (except where he wore his frontal tonsure) with close and curling hair. His voice was clear and resonant, so that he could be heard at the distance of fifteen hundred paces, yet sweet with more than the sweetness of the bards.” Truly a great and striking man to hear and to look at; one to admire but also to fear, and moreover, animated with lofty purpose, and inspired with all the dauntless courage of his race. In many respects his character appears to us to bear a very striking resemblance to the character of the Prince of the Apostles both in its strength and in its weakness.

Doubtless such a man as we have described, found it not only useful, but necessary to chastise his body and bring it under subjection. “Though my devotion is delightful,” he is represented as saying of himself, “I sit in a chair of glass, for I am fleshly and often frail.”[243] We are told that he practised the most extreme austerities. He barely took food enough to sustain nature, and that was of the simplest kind. “He did not,” says the Felire, “take as much in a week as would serve for one meal of a pauper.” He abstained from meat and wine, living exclusively on bread and water, and vegetables—sometimes contenting himself with nettles. He slept on the bare ground with a stone for a pillow, and a skin for a coverlid. Three times at night he rose to pray; and often scored his flesh with the discipline in atonement for his sins. By day he read, or preached to the brethren, or recited the divine office; and not unfrequently he took a share in the manual labour of the monks—carrying on his own broad bare shoulders the sacks of meal from the mill to the kitchen.

No wonder with such an example before their eyes that the young nobles of Tirconnell strove with generous emulation to excel each other in the service of God. What marvel if the white-robed brethren under such a master became angels in the flesh; and what wonder if God’s angels came down from heaven, and “crowded every leaf on the oaks of Derry,” to listen to such a brotherhood chanting at midnight’s hour and at morning’s dawn the inspired strains of the Hebrew Bard?

III.—The Schools of Durrow and Kells.

We know from the express statement of Venerable Bede that Columba founded the noble monastery of Durrow before he left Ireland for Iona.[244] Like Derry, it takes its name from an oak-grove; for it means the Plain of the Oaks—in Irish Dair-magh. It was anciently called Ros-grencha—the oak plain of the far famed Ros-grencha—and also Druim-Cain, or the Beautiful Hill; and even to-day whoever wanders through the rich pastures and the stately groves of Durrow will readily admit that it well deserves its ancient name. It is situated not far from Clara in the barony of Ballycowan, in the King’s County; but in the time of Columcille it formed part of the ancient kingdom of Teffia. Aedh, son of Brendan, prince of the territory, gave it to Columcille for the purpose of founding a monastery. It is true that Brendan himself was alive until A.D. 576; but, as not unfrequently happened in Erin, after the death of Crimthann in A.D. 533 the lordship passed not to his brother, but to his nephew, Brendan’s son, who doubtless had been previously recognised as the tanist. If, as Bede says, the monastery was founded before Columba set out for Britain in A.D. 563, it certainly was not completely founded; for several years after Columba’s arrival in Britain we read of the building of the Great House of the monastery—whether that was, as Petrie thinks, the round tower, or what is more likely, a larger church than the original one designed to accommodate the enlarged community.

We may assume then that Durrow was founded about A.D. 553, that is seven years after the foundation of Derry. By this time the reputation of Columba had spread far and wide over the entire kingdom. His ‘cousins’ too of the Southern Hy-Niall then reigned at Tara, and at this period the saint seems to be on friendly terms with that branch of his family. Being so famous and so influential, it is not to be wondered at that Columba was invited to found monasteries through almost all the northern half of Ireland to which even Durrow at that period belonged.

Several interesting incidents are recorded by Adamnan in his Life of Columba having reference to Durrow. The monks, it seems, had an orchard near the monastery on its southern border, and in the orchard there was one tree that produced a great abundance of apples; but they were so bitter that no one would eat them. The saint hearing every one complaining of the sour apples, raised his hand and blessed the tree in the name of Almighty God, and lo! at once every apple on the tree became sweet and good to eat.