What may be called the autograph copy—it has never yet been printed—exists, says Dr. Reeves, in all its original dimensions, beauty, and material excellence written in large vellum folio in double columns, and is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Colgan’s edition is merely an abstract of the Irish life rendered into Latin. It may be safely said that O’Donnell’s Life comprises everything that has been written, or handed down by tradition, concerning Columcille. Some of the miraculous stories which he gives were deemed so extravagant even by Colgan, that he omitted them in his own compilation. Still, this Life is of great value, and we hope to see it soon fitly edited by some competent Irish scholar.

VI.—Other Scholars of Iona.

Besides Columba himself there were several other distinguished scholars connected with Iona. Of these the most distinguished was the celebrated Adamnan, ninth abbot of Hy. Before, however, giving an account of Adamnan, it will be useful to give a brief sketch of some of his predecessors in the abbatial chair.

“Let Baithen write the rest,” said Columba, when he was attacked with his last illness, and dropped his pen at the end of the page in the middle of the thirty-third psalm. The saying was taken as an indication of his wish that Baithen should succeed him as head of the Columbian Houses. He was a cousin of the founder, and had been for many years prior of Iona. Moreover, he was in every way fitted for the high office by his virtues, his learning, and his prudence. Kinship with the founder, too, was deemed at the time an indispensable qualification for holding the abbacy. The monastic family formed, as it were, a kind of spiritual clan or tribe, and as connection by blood with the head of the tribe was deemed necessary for the chieftaincy in the temporal order, so also was it deemed for many generations to be essential in the spiritual order likewise.

Baithen from his boyhood was the pupil of Columba himself, and inherited all his virtues. He was especially remarkable for his spirit of prayer. When walking his hands were clasped in prayer beneath his habit: when working at the harvest he prayed whilst he was carrying his handful of oats to the sheaf; even at his meals he said, Deus in adjutorum meum intende, between every two morsels of food. He was a monk in Derry, when chosen by Columba to accompany him to Iona. There he was appointed a general overseer of the work done by the monks in the field, but being an accomplished scribe, he was often engaged in reading and writing. Like his friend and master, whatever time he did not spend in relieving the wants of others, he gave to reading, or prayer, or bodily labour; so his Life expressly states.

His great virtues marked him as a fitting person to be sent to govern the monastery, which Columba had founded at Magh-Lunga—the Plain of the Ships—in the Island of Heth, called also Ethica, ‘the low lying land of the barley,’ as it is called in an ancient Gaedhlic poem. It was situated about twenty miles to the north-west of Iona, from which it is of course distinctly visible. It is a low, sandy tract, about eleven miles long, and varying in breadth from one to three. He, however, maintained a constant connection with the parent house, which he frequently visited; for twenty miles even of that wild sea were as nothing to the hardy sailor monks, who knew that God watched over them on sea as well as on land. He wrought many miracles, and possessed in a very striking manner that power, which our Saviour gave His apostles, of casting out devils.[268] He is also recognized either as the founder or patron saint of Taugh-boyne (Teach-Baeithin), in the barony of Raphoe, county Donegal. It is not unlikely that this was his native district, and was afterwards placed under his special protection.

Baithen’s rule as Abbot of Iona was very brief—from A.D. 597 to A.D. 600—three years exactly, if these dates are correct; for he died on the same day of the month as his beloved master Columcille. He was seized near the altar with a fainting fit on Tuesday, the 4th of June. The brethren crowded round him in tears, for they thought he was going to die, and Dermitius, Columba’s old attendant, said to them, “You see, my brothers, what a small interval will separate the feast-days of our two abbots.” Thereupon Baithen opened his eyes, and prayed earnestly to God not to take him out of the world until the feast-day of his beloved master. His prayer was heard; he died like Columba on the 9th of June, and, doubtless, was buried beside him in that church, where they so often joined in prayer before the same altar.

The very last sentence in the Life, as given in the Salamanca MS., states that the intense pains, which he suffered, did not prevent the sick monk from continuing his constant occupation of writing, praying, and teaching, up to the very moment of his happy death.

Writing, praying, and teaching—truly fit occupations for the head of a great monastic school. No wonder that Fintin, son of Lippan, when asked about the learning of St. Baithen, replied—“Be assured that he had no equal on this side of the Alps in his knowledge of sacred Scripture, and in the profundity of his science.”[269] There is an old Irish poem still extant, purporting to be a dialogue between Columcille and Baithen, which has been attributed to the latter; and some verses eulogistic of Columba have also been circulated under his name. That he was a man of great learning is undoubted; and that he left his spirit behind him in Iona will be seen from what follows.

Columba used to say that Baithen was like St. John the Beloved in his innocence and simplicity of heart, and that even in the rigorous discipline of perfection they were not much unlike; but that it was very different with their fosterers—he himself was very far indeed from being like unto Christ.

Laisren, who had been Abbot of Durrow during Columba’s lifetime, was now called to succeed Baithen in Iona. We know little of his history, except that he was uncle of Seghine, the fifth abbot, who ruled from A.D. 623 to A.D. 652, during the stormy period of the Paschal Controversies. The latter was an ardent defender of the ancient discipline both as to the tonsure and paschal observance. He had been a pupil of Columba in Iona; and was of his knowledge able to testify to many things concerning the saint in presence of the Abbot Falveus, the immediate predecessor of Adamnan.

In literary history Seghine is chiefly remarkable as the person to whom Cummian addressed his celebrated Epistle on the Paschal Question in the year A.D. 634, to which we have referred at length already.[270] The superscription is “Segieno Abbati Columbae Sancti et Caeterorum Sanctorum Successori”—a high testimony to the reputed sanctity of his predecessors. Seghine was also one of those to whom the Roman clergy during the vacancy of the See in A.D. 640, addressed an important letter on the same subject. This shows that from his high official position, as head of the Columbian monasteries, and, doubtless, also from his high personal character, it was deemed of the greatest importance to secure the adhesion of Seghine to the Roman discipline. In this, however, the authors of both the letters were disappointed. Seghine, who was animated with the unyielding and somewhat, haughty spirit of Conal Gulban’s line, could not bring himself to believe that his sainted predecessors, whose holiness was proved by so many miracles, could by any possibility be wrong in the discipline which they followed. The monks who were trained under him, like Aidan and Colman of Lindisfarne, were animated with the same spirit; so that even after the Conference of Whitby the aged Colman preferred to leave his beloved retreat in Lindisfarne, and sail back again to his stormy home on the coast of Mayo, rather than adopt the new discipline; and we know that the Irish monks of Lindisfarne followed him to a man.

Seghine was succeeded by Suibhne, the first “outsider” whom the monks of Iona elected as head of their Order. Colgan observes that his genealogy is not recorded in our native annals; whence we may infer that he owed his elevation to his merit rather than to the accident of his birth. He died in A.D. 657. His successor, Cuimine, was of the Cenel-Conail line, for he was nephew of Seghine, the fifth abbot. He wrote a tract, De Virtutibus S. Columbae, which is cited by Adamnan. It really forms the groundwork of Adamnan’s Third Book, into which it has been bodily transferred. It has been also published by Colgan, and the Bollandists, though from different sources. It is also to be found in the recently published Salamanca Codex. This life shows that Cuimine was an excellent Latin scholar, and although scarcely possessing the wide culture of Adamnan, he is little inferior to that celebrated writer, in the graphic account which he gives of the miracles and virtues of St. Columba.

The Paschal Epistle already referred to has been attributed to this Cuimineus Albus, as Adamnan calls him. We have shown elsewhere that the real author was Cummian Fada, Bishop of Clonfert; and it is well known that during the whole of the seventh century the entire community of Iona was vehemently opposed to the adoption of that discipline, which the author of the Paschal Epistle advocates and defends. This of itself proves that the Abbot of Hy was not its author. We are now come to Adamnan, the ninth abbot, whose history we must narrate at greater length.

VII.—Adamnan, Ninth Abbot of Hy.

In the year 1845 Dr. Ferdinand Keller was poking with a German’s pertinacity through the shelves of the Town Library of Schaffhausen, in Switzerland. In a corner of the room he found a high book chest filled with all kinds of old MSS., without title or number of any kind, and at the very bottom of the heap he came upon a dark brown parchment manuscript, bound in moth-eaten beech wood, covered with calf skin, carefully clasped in front, and very neatly and curiously sewed at the back. It was a goodly quarto of 68 leaves, with double columns, written on dark coloured goat skin parchment in large heavy drawn letters of the character known as minuscular. Everything about the MS. showed great antiquity—the cover, the parchment, the lettering, and the ornamentation. Dr. Keller at first thought he had come upon a hitherto undiscovered treasure; but in this he was mistaken. He only recovered a lost treasure, and secured its preservation for the learned world. On examination, the MS. turned out to be the oldest and most authentic copy of Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba, made in Iona either during the life time of Adamnan himself, or certainly within a few years after his death.

The monastery of Richenau in the ninth century appears to have had many Irish inmates; and this is not unnatural, for the great Irish monastery of St. Gall was within a few miles of the shore of Lake Constance, and considerable intercourse would naturally take place between the two houses. Walafridus Strabo, Abbot of Reichenau, from A.D. 842 to A.D. 849, had been previously Dean of St. Gall, and in his writings shows an intimate knowledge of many things connected with Ireland, which he could have learned only from Irishmen.[271] We know, too, from other sources, that crowds of Irishmen came to France and Germany in the beginning of the ninth century, and that many of them brought their books from their schools at home along with them, as Dungal brought the books which he bequeathed to the monastery of Bobbio. It is thus easy to understand how some of the monks of Iona, driven from home by the Norsemen, who so often plundered the Island about the beginning of the ninth century, would migrate to some friendly monastery on the continent, carrying their literary treasures with them.

There can, however, be no doubt that the Schaffhausen MS. of St. Columba’s Life was written in the Island of Hy by one of the Family, so early as the beginning of the eighth century. The character is of that peculiar kind of which we have almost contemporary specimens the Book of Kells, and the Book of Durrow, and which is now universally acknowledged to be purely Irish; the ornamentation of the chapters and of the capital letters is Irish; the orthography is Irish, and what is stranger than all, the Lord’s Prayer is written in Greek on the last page of the MS., and in Greek, of which we have other specimens remaining in old Irish MSS. with the same peculiar spelling, in the same semi-uncial character, without accents, and without breathings—a fact which of itself indisputably proves that the Greek tongue was taught and written in the Irish School of Hy, 1170 years ago.

The Colophon, or superscription, in rubric, at folio 136, at the end of the life, records, according to the usual custom, the name of the scribe:—“Whoever reads these books on the virtues of St. Columba, let him pray to the Lord for me, Dorbbeneus, that after death I may possess eternal life.”

In A.D. 713, Tighernach records the death of Dorbene, Abbot of Hy, the very year of his election to that high office. There can be no doubt that this Dorbene was the writer of the Schaffhausen MS.; there is no mention of any other of the same name in our annals except of one Dorbene, whose son Failan is said to have died in A.D. 724. This Dorbene was as Dr. Reeves thinks, a layman; and, if his son died in A.D. 724, he himself in the course of nature must have lived and died before Adamnan. But the Abbot who died in A.D. 713, would have outlived Adamnan only nine years, and in all probability had been for many years scribe of the monastery, and may have written the book at the dictation of Adamnan himself.

And now, who was Adamnan? Unfortunately we know very little of his early youth. He gives us to understand, at least by implication, that he was born at or near Drumhome, in the barony of Tirhugh, and co. Donegal. The church of Drumhome was founded by St. Columba, but St. Adamnan is the patron; and this fact, too, indicates his connection with the locality. There, also, he seems to have spent his earlier years; for it was there he says, “in my youth that a very old man called Ferreol, a servant of Christ, who is buried in Drumhome, told me of a glorious vision which he saw, when fishing in the valley of the Finn, on the night of Columba’s death.” Scarcely any traces of the old church of Drumhome now remain; but it was once nobly endowed by the O’Donnells. Even so late as A.D. 1609, an Inquisition tells us that “there are in the said parish of Drumhome, four quarters of church land, three quarters of Columbkille’s land, each quarter containing six townlands, then in the possession of Lewis O’Cleary,” the head of that family, which the Four Masters have made illustrious for ever. The old church was finely situated near the shore of the Bay of Donegal, not far from Ballintra, and in view of the bold range of mountains, where the sons of Conal Gulban so long and so nobly defended their ancient freedom.

Adamnan’s father, Ronan, was sixth in descent from that same Conal Gulban, and thus belonged to the royal blood of Tirconnell; his mother was Ronnat, a daughter of Enna, who gave his name to Tirenna, the territory that in ancient times extended from Lough Foyle to Lough Swilly. Thus Adamnan was of the same family as St. Columba himself; for Columba was grandson of Fergus, son of Conal Gulban, and Adamnan was sixth in descent from the same Fergus. He was born in A.D. 624, according to the best authorities, just twenty-seven years after Columba’s death, and, as we may fairly assume, was in his youth placed under the care of the monks of Drumhome, in whose old churchyard he himself tells us many of the monks of Columba await a happy resurrection.

How long the boy remained in his native Tirhugh, feeding his spirit on the glorious vision of its waves and mountains, we cannot now ascertain. It was at that time, as we have seen, the custom of scholars, even of the noblest birth, to visit the great monastic schools of the country, and all the more celebrated masters were surrounded by crowds of eager students, who lived on their wits, and lodged as best they could, generally in little huts of their own contrivance. A curious story is told of St. Adamnan himself in his youth, which amusingly illustrates what may be called the University life of the time.

Finnachta, afterwards Monarch of Ireland, from A.D. 675 to 695, and Adamnan’s greatest friend, although of the blood royal, was at first very poor. He had a house and wife, but only one ox and one cow. Now the king of Feara Ross (Carrickmacross) strayed to the neighbourhood of Finnachta’s hut; his wife, too, was with him and a crowd of retainers; but they could not find their way home, for the night came on dark, cold, and stormy, so they were forced to take refuge in the hut. Small as it was, the size of the house was greater than its wealth. Finnachta, however, “struck the ox on the head and the cow on the head,” and feasted all the king’s people sumptuously, so that no one was hungry.

Then the King and Queen of Feara Ross gave large herds of cattle to the generous Finnachta, and made him a great man. Shortly after this time Finnachta, not yet king however, was one day coming with a large troop of horse to his sister’s house, and as they rode along they overtook Adamnan, then a young school boy, travelling the same road with a vessel full of milk on his back. Anxious to get out of the way, Adamnan stumbled and fell, spilling all the milk and breaking the jar to pieces. The cavalcade rather enjoyed the fun and rode away; but Adamnan pursued them closely, and said: “O, good men, I have reason to be sad, for there are three good school-boys in one house, and they have us as two messengers—for there is always one going about seeking food for the five—and it came to my turn to-day. The gathering I made is scattered, and what I grieve for far more, the borrowed vessel has been broken and I have no means to pay for it.” Then Finnachta declared he would make it all right, and he kept his word. He not only paid for the vessel but he brought the scholars—clerics they are called—to his own house, and their teacher along with them; he fitted up the ale-house for their reception, and gave them such abounding good cheer that the professor, exhilarated by the ale, or filled with the spirit of prophecy, as the annals say, declared that Finnachta would one day become the King of all Ireland, “and Adamnan shall be the head of the wisdom of Erin, and shall become ‘soul’s friend,’ or confessor to the king.”

When Adamnan was duly trained in the wisdom of the Irish schools at home his thoughts naturally turned to Iona. For that remote islet, surrounded by the stormy waters and under the misty skies of the Hebrides, had long been the religious home of his race and family. At this very time, when Adamnan was about twenty-five years old, a cousin of his own, Seghine, fifth Abbot of Hy, ruled the entire Order. So with the south wind blowing fair, we may suppose the young scholar launched his currach on the Foyle, and sweeping past the hills of Inishowen, he would in about twelve hours see Columba’s holy island slowly rising from the waves. As his bark approached he would eagerly note all the features of the island—the central rugged ridge, the low moory shores and narrow strait separating it from the Ross of Mull on the mainland. With a heart swelling with emotion, he must have stepped on the shore of Port Ronain, and then kneeling prostrate before the Abbot in his wooden cell, begged to be admitted to the habit of the Order. And we may be sure the venerable Seghine received with open arms the strong-limbed, fair-haired boy, who was sprung of his own ancient line and born in his own Tirhugh.

Adamnan began his novitiate about A.D. 650, and after thirty years’ service in the brotherhood was himself raised to the abbatial Chair in A.D. 679. We know little of his life during this period, except that it was eminent for virtue and learning. We have undoubted proofs of his success in sacred studies, not only in the works that remain, but also from the testimony of his contemporaries. He was, says Venerable Bede, a virtuous and learned man pre-eminently skilled in Sacred Scripture.[272] This is high testimony from a high authority. Father H. Ward felt himself justified in saying that Adamnan was thoroughly educated in all the knowledge of his time, liberal, sacred, and ascetical; that he was also skilled in the Greek and Hebrew languages, as well as in the arts, laws, and history written in his native tongue.[273]

Yet this learned monk was not above giving his assistance in the manual labour of the monastery. He tells us in his life of St. Columba[274] how on a certain occasion he and a number of other monks cut down as many oak trees in one of the neighbouring islands, probably Arran, as loaded twelve boats in order to procure material to repair the monastery; and how, when detained by an adverse wind, St. Columba heard their prayer and procured for them a favourable breeze to waft them home. This fact, incidentally mentioned, proves that most of the monastic cells were made of oaken boards, which were covered in with a roof of reeds. St. Columba’s own hut is represented as tabulis suffultum, and we know from other sources that as a protection against the weather these cells were thatched with reeds—harundine tecta. It is in this respect that the “Vita Columbae” is so valuable because it gives us incidentally not only a graphic picture of the simple and pious lives of the Family of Hy, but also of their food, their clothing, their monastery, and their entire social arrangements.

Although St. Adamnan ruled the monastery of Hy from A.D. 679 to his death in A.D. 704, he paid several visits to Ireland, and exercised a large influence both on its ecclesiastical and civil polity. This was due partly to his high character for learning and holiness, partly to his position as supreme head of the Columbian Houses, and in great measure also to his influence with Finnachta, the High King, from A.D. 675 to 695. It is not easy to ascertain the exact date of these visits, nor the work done on each occasion, but the substantial facts are certain.

In the year A.D. 684 one of the generals of the Northumbrian King, Ecgfrid, made a descent on Magh-Bregh, that is the eastern plain of Meath along the sea-shore. He pillaged and slaughtered in the usual fashion, and furthermore carried off many captives, male and female. This attack was wholly unprovoked, and, as Bede testifies, brought down upon the Northumbrian prince the signal chastisement of heaven. In the following year, rashly advancing against the Pictish King Brude, Ecgfrid was slain and his army routed at a place called Dun Nechtain. Thereupon Aldfrid, his brother, returned from Ireland, where he had been for many years an exile, and succeeded to the throne. Aldfrid, during the years he spent in Ireland, became intimate with Adamnan—our annalists call him the alumnus, or foster son of Adamnan. Now that he was raised to the throne, the latter took occasion to pay him a visit in order to obtain by his friendly offices the release of the captives. Miraculously crossing the Solway Frith, whose rushing tide “the best steed in Saxon land ridden by the best rider could not hope to escape,” he came to the Northumbrian Court at Bamborough, and seems to have been received with open arms by his alumnus, who at once consented to restore the captives, sixty in all, whom shortly after Adamnan brought home to Ireland. But this visit to the English court had other important consequences. “When he saw,” says Bede, “during his stay in our province (probably at Easter) the canonical rites of our church, and was prudently admonished that they who were placed on a little corner at the end of the world should not persevere in their peculiar Paschal observance against the practice of the universal church, he changed his mind and willingly adopted our custom.” On the same occasion he visited the monastery of Jarrow, where the monks greatly admired the humility and modesty of his demeanour, but were somewhat scandalized at his Irish frontal tonsure from ear to ear, then known as the tonsure of Simon Magus.

On his return to Hy, Adamnan tried to induce his monks to adopt the Roman Paschal observance; but they were so much attached to the practice sanctioned by their great and holy founder that even Adamnan failed to bring about a change. It was not until A.D. 716, twelve years after his death, that they finally consented to adopt the Dionysian cycle of nineteen years in fixing Easter Day.

He was more successful in Ireland. On his return thither with the captives in A.D. 686, a Synod seems to have been held for the purpose of bringing about this change, to which he himself alludes in his Life of St. Columba. Neither the time nor place of the Synod can be exactly ascertained; it is not unlikely, however, that it took place on the Hill of Tara at the “Rath of the Synods,” where tradition still marks out the place of “Adamnan’s Tent,” and “Adamnan’s Cross.”[275] Others think it was held at a much later date in A.D. 696 or 697, when “Adamnan’s Canon” was published, to which we shall refer later on. It is certain, however, that Adamnan exerted his great influence thenceforward to introduce the new Paschal observance into Ireland, although he did not perhaps finally succeed until towards the end of his life.

On this occasion Adamnan’s visit was not of long duration; but he paid a second visit to Ireland in A.D. 692—fourteen years after the death of his predecessor, Failbhe, as the Annals say. This time it was a political question that attracted him from Hy. For forty reigns the men of Leinster had been paying the cow-tax, known as the Borumean tribute, to the princes of the Hy-Niall race, to which Adamnan himself belonged. Finnachta, however, the reigning High King, the old friend of Adamnan, remitted this tribute at the prayer of St. Moling, whom our Annalists represent as having recourse to a curious equivocation to effect his purpose. The king, at the prayer of the Saint Moling consented to remit payment of the tax for “the day and night.” “All time,” said the saint, when the king had pledged his royal word to this remission, “is day and night; thou canst never re-impose this tax.” In vain the monarch protested that he had no such intention; the saint kept him to his word, promising him heaven if he kept it, and the reverse if he did not. When Adamnan heard how weakly the king had yielded the ancient rights of the great Hy-Niall race, he was somewhat wrathful, and at once sought out the monarch, and asked to see him. The king was playing chess, and told Adamnan’s messenger, who asked an interview for the saint, that he must wait till the game was finished; then he played a second and was going to play a third, when the saint threatened him with reading a psalm that would not only shorten his life, but exclude him from heaven. Thereupon he came quick enough, and at once Adamnan said, “Is this true that thou hast remitted the Borumha for day and night?” “It is true,” said the king. “Then it is the same as to remit it for ever,” said the saint; and he “scolded” him in somewhat vigorous language, and made a song on him on the spot, calling him a foolish, white-haired, toothless king, and using several other epithets the reverse of complimentary.

Of course all this is the work of a northern bard, who puts into the mouth of Adamnan language which he would use himself; nevertheless, there is a substratum of truth in the story highly coloured as it is by poetic fiction. In the end, however, the writer adds:—“Afterwards Finnachta placed his head on the bosom of Adamnan, and Adamnan forgave him for the remission of the Borumha.” Shortly after, however, Adamnan was again angry with the king, and foretold “that his life would be short and that he would fall by fratricide.” The Irish life gives the true cause of the anger and the prediction; it was because Finnachta would not exempt from taxes the lands of Columbkille, as he exempted the lands of Patrick, Finnian, and Ciaran. This not unnaturally incensed the saint against the ungrateful king, whose throne he had helped to maintain. The prediction was soon verified; Finnachta fell by the hand of a cousin in A.D. 697.

It was on his return to Hy after this second visit that Adamnan seems to have written the Life of Columbkille. Shortly after he paid a third visit to Ireland in A.D. 697, and apparently spent the remaining seven years of his life in this country. It was in that year, most probably, was held the Synod of Tara in which the Cain, or Canon of Adamnan, was promulgated. According to a story in the Leabhar Breac there are four great Laws, or “Canons” in Ireland. The Canon of Patrick, not to kill the clergy; the Canon of the nun Dari, not to kill the cows; the Canon of Adamnan, not to kill women; and the Sunday Canon, not to travel on that day. The origin of the Canon of Adamnan was this:—He was once travelling through Meath, carrying his mother on his back, when he saw two armies in conflict, and a woman of one party dragging a woman of the other party with an iron reaping hook fixed in her breast. At this cruel and revolting sight, Adamnan’s mother insisted that her son should promise her to make a law for the people that women should in future be exempted from all battles and hostings. Adamnan promised and kept his word[276]—in A.D. 696, according to the Ulster Annals. That is he procured the passing of a law exempting women and children—innocentes—from any share in the actual conflict or its usual consequences, captivity or death. This fact is substantially true, though considerably embellished in the details.[277] And Ireland owes the great Abbot a lasting debt of gratitude for procuring the enactment of this law, which was afterwards re-enacted in A.D. 727, when the relics of Adamnan were removed from Iona to Ireland and the “law renewed.” There were several other Canons probably enacted at a Synod held at Armagh about the same time, but this is far the most important of them all.

The Life of St. Gerald of Mayo represents Adamnan as governing the monastery of that place, originally founded by the Saxons, for seven years. Tradition also connects the saint with the Church of Skreen in the county Sligo, of which he is the patron, and was in all probability the founder. As head of the Columbian Order it was his duty, from time to time, to visit the Columbian Churches in Ireland, of which there were very many, especially in Sligo and Donegal. He may thus have spent a considerable time in Mayo of the Saxons, although the Life of St. Gerald is very unsatisfactory evidence of the fact.

We cannot stay to notice the alleged “cursing” of Irgalach by Adamnan. The story is intrinsically improbable and unsustained by respectable authority. In the last year of his life, A.D. 704, he returned to Iona. Although the monks would not consent to give up St. Columba’s Easter, he loved them dearly, and wished to bless them before he died. After his noble life he might well rest in peace with the kindred dust of all the saints of Conal Gulban’s line that sleep in the holy island.

A century later, however, as we have seen, the sacred relics were transferred to Ireland, but it is not known for certain where they were laid.

Adamnan’s two most important works are his Vita Sancti Columbae, and his book, De Locis Sanctis.

The life of St. Columba has been pronounced by Pinkerton to be “the most complete piece of such biography that all Europe can boast of, not only at so early a period, but even through the whole middle ages.” Adamnan himself declares that he wrote the book at the earnest request of the Brothers; and that he states nothing except what was already written in the records of the monastery, or what he himself heard from the elder monks, many of whom saw the blessed Columba, and were themselves witnesses of his wonderful works. The entire narrative, which is written in fairly good Latin, furnishes ample proof of the truth of this statement. Hence the great value of this Life, not only as an authentic record of the virtues and miracles of St. Columba, but also as a faithful picture of the religious life of those early times by a contemporary writer, so well qualified to sketch it, and who does so quite unconsciously. The manuscript in the library of Schaffhausen is of equal authority with the autograph of the saint, if, indeed, it were not actually written at his dictation, so that the most sceptical cannot question the authenticity of this venerable record. The Life was printed from this codex by Colgan in 1647, and by the Bollandists at a later date. But the edition published in 1837 by Dr. W. Reeves for the Irish Archæological and Celtic Society, is by far the most valuable. The notes and appendices to this admirable volume render it a perfect mine of wealth for the student of Irish History.

Venerable Bede gives us a very full account of the treatise De Locis Sanctis, in the 16th and 17th chapters of the fifth book of his Ecclesiastical History. It is, he says, a book most useful to the reader (in that age). The author, Adamnan, received his information about the holy places from Arculfus, a bishop from Gaul, who had himself visited Jerusalem, Constantinople, Alexandria, and all the islands of the sea. When returning home a tempest drove his vessel to the west parts of Britain,[278] where he met Adamnan, probably in Hy, to whom he narrated all the noteworthy scenes he had gone through. Adamnan at once reduced the narrative to writing, for the information of his own countrymen. He presented the work to his friend King Aldfrid, through whose liberality copies were multiplied for the benefit of the young, if such be the meaning of Bede’s phrase:—“Per ejus largitionem etiam minoribus ad legendum contraditus.” Bede himself was greatly pleased with the book, from which he inserts several extracts in his own history, concerning Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Mount Olivet, and other places in Palestine. It was published at Ingoldstadt in 1619.

A Life of St. Patrick and some poems have been attributed to Adamnan, but there is no evidence to prove that they are genuine. The same may be said of the “Vision of Adamnan,” a kind of moral discourse in Irish, which purports to relate a wonderful vision of the joys of heaven, and of the torments of hell, as seen and narrated by the saint. The work is certainly very ancient, but contains many things that go far to disprove its own authenticity.

When we consider the life and writings of this great man, as well as the large influence which he exercised on Irish affairs during the latter half of the seventh century, few will be disposed to question his right to take a high place amongst the saints and scholars of the west. He has been justly described in the prologue to the Vision as “the noble sage of the Western World.” We have already quoted Bede’s high testimony to his virtue and learning. The Four Masters emphatically endorse that testimony, and add that “he was tearful, penitent, fond of prayer, diligent and ascetic;” and that he was, moreover, “learned in the clear understanding of the Holy Scriptures of God.”

After the death of Adamnan, A.D. 704, the Annals of Hy become less interesting. It still retained its headship of all the Columbian houses both in Erin and Alba—its abbots holding what is called a principatus over the rulers of the subject monasteries. Mention is also made of the cathedra of Columba and of Iona; but probably the same thing is meant—not episcopal or territorial jurisdiction, but the supreme authority over the Columbian houses and their wide domains. Reference, however, is made, for instance, in A.D. 712, to the death of “Ceddi, Bishop of Iona,” but he doubtless derived his jurisdiction from the abbot. In A.D. 717 we are told that the Pictish King, Nectan, expelled the Columbian monks from his dominions, because they refused to conform to the general discipline as to the paschal observance, and the coronal tonsure. This seems to have brought the entire community to a sense of their duty, for now at length, under the Abbot Faelcu, they began to wear the Roman tonsure, as they had already adopted the Roman Easter. In A.D. 727 we are told that the “Relics of Adamnan” were brought to Ireland, and his Law renewed in that country. The object of bringing over these relics seems to have been to heal a feud between the Cenel-Eoghain and Cenel-Conal, in which the clergy appear to have been also mixed up, contrary to the Cain or Law of Adamnan. The relics were brought back again by the abbot in A.D. 730.

In A.D. 739, we read of the Dimersio familiae Iae, as if the greater part of the community were lost in some flood or shipwreck—most likely the latter. In A.D. 753, and in subsequent years reference is made to enforcing the Law of Columcille, which seems to have been a tribute assessed by the parent house on the subject monasteries and their adjacent lands. As the relics of Adamnan were carried to Erin, where his Cain was enforced, so it is likely some relics, if not of Columba’s body, yet in some other way connected with him, were carried round on these occasions.

Iona had now become a celebrated place of pilgrimage. Even kings and princes, as Columba had predicted, came to the island shrine, and were deemed especially happy, when they died on their pilgrimage. Niall Frassach gave up his crown to take the pilgrim’s staff, and died in Iona in A.D. 778; so did Artgal, son of Cathal, King of Connaught, in A.D. 791, and many princes of the Picts and Saxons in like manner.

Thus for two hundred years since the death of their holy founder, the community had been growing in celebrity and influence, but now a day of trial and doom was at hand.

In A.D. 794 the ‘Gentiles’ made their first descent on the Hebrides; the following year they attacked and pillaged the holy island itself. It was, however, only the beginning of the evil time. It was burned in A.D. 802, and the same year saw the death of Connachtach, ‘a very choice scribe,’ whose end was doubtless hastened by the sight of his beloved monastery in flames.

Fortunately, however, the community of Hy got two years later “a free grant of Kells without a battle.” They had, doubtless, been claiming it as their own; for it was given to Columba by King Diarmait long ago; but the place may have got into other hands in the interval. Now, however, that they had recovered it in peace, they resolved to make it their headquarters in future. In A.D. 807 they began to build a new religious ‘city’ in Kells; the great church was finished in A.D. 814, when the old Abbot Cellach resigned the principatus of Iona, which thenceforward was transferred to Kells, where the new abbot fixed his official abode. It seems that the venerable Cellach would not leave his beloved island for the new city in Ireland, and so he resigned his office, and next year went to his rest in that old churchyard, where the bones of so many of his sainted predecessors were already laid.

Many of the monks still clung with the same tenacious affection to the old monastery in the sacred island of Columba, although they knew that they lived there in daily peril of their lives. It was thus the martyrdom of St. Blaithmac came to pass in A.D. 825. The Gentiles’ fleets were once more upon the seas. Word was brought that they were harrying the neighbouring islands; and the monks of Iona betook themselves to flight. It was not difficult to cross the narrow strait, and escape into the wild hills of Mull. But Blaithmac would not stir; he was ardently longing for the crown of martyrdom, and now the hour of his triumph was at hand. He had hidden the shrine containing the relics of the holy founder, adorned with gold and gems, deep in the earth, and covered over the spot with fresh green sods, so as to leave no trace of the treasure beneath. This was, however, what the spoilers wanted. They asked the old man where he had hidden the shrine. He refused to tell; and then, enraged by baffled greed, they slew him on the spot. It was fitting that Iona, the sacred nursery of so many doctors and confessors, should also have its martyrs in the ranks of the saints of God. It was fortunate, too, that the heroic martyr should have found a poet to celebrate his triumph in verses not unworthy of such a Christian hero.

Walafridus Strabo, a monk of the abbey called Augia Dives, now Reichenau in Switzerland, heard of the heroism of the Ionian monk from his fellow monks who had fled for refuge to their countrymen in this Irish House on the Rhine. Of German birth himself, he was filled with admiration for such lofty Christian courage; and composed a poem of 180 Latin hexameters, in which he celebrates the fortitude of—

“Blaithmaic, genuit quem dives Hibernia mundo,
Martyriique sequens misit perfectio caelo.”

The poem is too long to insert here, but it is a noble tribute from the pen of a foreigner to the courageous virtue of the Columbian monk who gave his life for Christ in Iona more than one thousand years ago.

The Rule of Columba[279] required that his monks should be ready for martyrdom whenever God’s honour required it. Their mind was to be always fortified and steadfast for ‘the white martyrdom’ of patient endurance; but they were also bound to have the mind if occasion arose prepared for ‘red martyrdom.’ Blaithmac found the opportunity and was unwilling to lose his crown.

CHAPTER XV.

Meanwhile Kells did not escape the ravages of the Danes. In A.D. 949, recte 951, it suffered greatly. Godfrey, King of the Danes of Dublin, marched to Kells, and having plundered all the country round about, returned home with “3,000 captives, besides gold, silver, raiment, and various wealth and goods of every description.”[280] Although Kells suffered much in various attacks, both before and after this date, it is doubtful if the good monks of Columcille were ever so completely cleaned out as on that occasion. It is called an expilatio by an old chronicler—pillage that left nothing after it. Kells was five times plundered during the tenth century; once also at the close of the ninth, and once at the opening of the eleventh century; and it was burned during the same period even oftener than it was plundered. Yet the school and monastery lived on, and after the Danish wars seem to have become once more quite flourishing.

The celebrated Cathach, to which we referred when speaking of the School of Moville, was enshrined at Kells about the close of the eleventh century. On the margin of the under silver plate of the casket, which contains the MS., the following words in Gaelic are still quite legible.

“Pray for Cathbarr O’Donnell for whom this casket was made, and for Sitric, son of Mac Aedha, who made it, and for Domnald Mac Robartaigh Comarb of Kells, at whose house it was made.” As this abbot of Kells died in A.D. 1098 the cumdach, or casket, must have been fabricated by MacHugh’s son before that date, probably at the joint expense of O’Donnell and the abbot.

The family of Mac Robartaigh seems to have produced several distinguished scholars during this century, many of whom were connected with the monastic school of Kells. The Mac Robartaigh clan appears to have belonged to Donegal. The parish of Ballymacgroarty in Tirhugh was most likely their family inheritance, as it takes its name from the clan. The celebrated Marianus Scotus was a member of the same family; for in his own hand he describes himself as Muredach Mac Robartaig, giving his original Irish name, instead of the literary patronymic, which his learning and virtue have immortalised.

II.—This Marianus Scotus,

Scribe and Commentator on Sacred Scripture, must be carefully distinguished from his countryman and namesake Marianus Scotus the Chronicler. We have fortunately an authentic Life of the former written by another Irishman, who was an inmate of the same religious house as Marianus, and who tells us that he derived his information from Father Isaac, then living, the life-long associate of Marianus himself.

This Life sets forth that Marianus was a native of the North of Ireland, but does not name the locality in which he was born. In his early youth he was handed over by his parents to the care of certain religious men in order to be trained up for the clerical state in all learning and pious discipline. There is hardly a doubt that the reference here is to the monks of Drumhome, in the barony of Tirhugh, county Donegal. The old monastic church was situated near the sea shore, where the boy must have often wandered in view of the noble mountains that rise up so grandly beyond the bay, and in the sight and hearing of the wild Atlantic waves that break upon its shore. Later on he was doubtless sent to Kells to complete his studies, for several members of his family presided over that abbey about this period.

We gather from statements made by Marianus himself, that he left Ireland in A.D. 1067; and therefore just eleven years after the departure of his namesake, Marianus the Chronicler. At this period old Father Isaac described him to the writer of his life, as a handsome fair-haired youth, strong-limbed and tall, moreover a man of goodly mien, and gracious eloquence, well trained in all human and divine knowledge.[281] His purpose was to go on pilgrimage to Rome; but calling to see Bishop Otho of Bamberg, he was induced to remain with that prelate for a whole year. Subsequently the bishop gave Marianus and his two companions a cell at the foot of the mountain, in which they lived as recluses, the bishop generously supplying their simple wants.

After the Bishop’s death they journeyed on to Ratisbon, where they were once more induced to stay at the earnest entreaty of the venerable abbess Emma and her nuns. As before they lived as recluses in their own little cells, Marianus devoting himself with great zeal to the composition and transcription of religious books for the good abbess Emma and her nuns. He also found leisure to write books for the monks around Ratisbon; “for his pen was swift, his handwriting clear and beautiful, and his labour incessant.” He worked so diligently in his cell that his two companions, John and Candidus—Irishmen also—found quite enough to do in preparing the parchments which he filled up with the words of salvation. We are expressly told that they all laboured without fee or reward—giving their books gratuitously, contenting themselves with the poorest raiment and the plainest and scantiest fare. “To tell the truth without a fog of words,” says the writer of the Life of Marianus, “amongst all the things which Divine Providence wrought by the hands of the said Marianus, nothing in my opinion is so wonderful and praiseworthy as the zeal with which the holy man, not once or twice, but frequently transcribed with his own hand the entire Old and New Testament with commentaries and explanations; while at the same time he wrote many smaller books, and psalters for poor widows, and for the needy clerics in the same city (of Ratisbon), and that, too, merely for his soul’s sake, without any hope of earthly gain. Moreover, many monastic congregations in faith and charity imitating the same blessed Marianus, having come from that same Ireland (Hibernia), and now dwelling throughout Bavaria and Franconia, are for the most part sustained by the writings of that same holy man.”

Such is the noble testimony borne to the learning, zeal, and charity of this pure-souled Irish monk in the land of the stranger. And therefore it was that, not without good reason, he and his countrymen were so warmly welcomed and so generously treated in all the great cities of mediæval Germany.

But Marianus was quite as remarkable for the holiness of his life as for his learning and literary labours. “He was,” says the writer of his Life, “like Moses, the meekest of men; and God bestowed upon him in a wonderful way the gift of healing many diseases, but especially fevers, and not only during his life, as I have heard from trustworthy witnesses, but at his tomb after his death, as I have seen with my own eyes.”

We cannot now, however, give an account of the celebrated monastery of St. James of Ratisbon, which was founded by Marianus for his countrymen, who came to that city in great numbers towards the close of the eleventh century, nor of the great scholars which it produced.

Marianus is described by Aventinus in the Annals of Bavaria as a distinguished poet and theologian—poeta et theologus insignis—second to no man of his time. His poems are unfortunately lost, but his Commentaries still remain to us at least in manuscript. His Commentary on the Psalms was so highly valued, as Aventinus tells us, that it was not allowed outside of the walls of the monastic library without a valuable deposit being left to secure its safe return. There is in the Cotton collection a codex not yet published entitled Liber Mariani genere Scoti excerptus de Evangelistarum voluminibus sive Doctoribus.

His most famous work, however, is the codex containing the Epistles of St. Paul, with a marginal and interlinear commentary. This precious MS. is now in the Imperial Library at Vienna,[282] and is especially valuable because it contains several entries in the old and pure Gaedhlic of the eleventh century.[283] It is quite astonishing what a number of writers is quoted by Marianus in the marginal gloss—Jerome, Augustine, Cassiodorus, Arnobius, St. Gregory, Origen, St. Leo the Great, Alcuin, Cassian, Peter the Deacon, Pelagius, and the Ambrosiaster are all laid under tribute. We wonder how many Irish scholars of the present day are acquainted with them.

This great work was completed on Friday, the 16th day before the kalends of June, A.D. 1079—he marks the date himself, and asks the reader to say ‘Amen’ to the brief prayer for his soul’s salvation. “Amen, God rest him” (Amen Got der Erleich), wrote a pious old German of the fifteenth century on the face of the page in response to this pious request. Amen say we too—may God give him rest—that God whom he served so well during all the years of his pilgrimage in the land of the stranger.

“And now, my brothers,” says the eloquent old Irish monk, who wrote the Life of Marianus, thinking no doubt of his own far-off home in Ireland by the swelling Boyne or winding Erne; “and now my brothers, if you should ask me what will be the reward of Marianus and pilgrims like him, who left the sweet soil of their native land which is free from every noxious beast and worm, with its mountains and hills, its valleys and its groves so well suited for the chase, the picturesque expanses of its rivers, its green fields and its streams welling up from purest fountains, and like the children of Abraham the Patriarch, came without hesitation unto the land which God had pointed out to them, this is my answer: They will dwell in the house of the Lord with the Angels and Archangels of God for ever; they will behold in Sion the God of Gods, to whom be honour and glory for endless ages.”

The exact date of the death of Marianus is not marked, but it seems to have occurred in A.D. 1088, just six years after the death of his namesake the Chronicler. After Adamnan he was the most distinguished writer produced by the Columbian Schools.[284]

III.—The Later School of Derry.

As the great Columbian order of monks and scholars began in the Black Cell of Derry, so also from Derry flashed out the latest bright gleams of that sacred lamp which Columba had kindled, and which at one time irradiated both Scotland and Ireland. Kells held the principatus during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, as we have already stated; but during the twelfth century Derry came again to the front, and produced a large number of very distinguished men, most of whom belonged to a famous literary family named Ua Brolchain, or O’Brollaghan. This family derived its descent from Suibhne Meann, who was King of Ireland from A.D. 615 to 628. He was of the Cenel-Eoghain, but belonged to a sub-division known as the Cenel-Feradhaich, whose tribe-land seems to have been in the barony of Clogher, County Tyrone. The first of the Ua Brolchain family noticed in our Annals is Maelbrighde, whose death is recorded in A.D. 1029. He is described as chief builder of his time in Erin.[285]

The next of the name whom we meet with is St. Maelisa O’Brolchain, a very celebrated man, who died A.D. 1086. He was probably an alumnus of the monastery of Derry, but afterwards retired to Both-chonais, an ancient monastic church in Inishowen, which is best known from its connection with this holy and learned man. It was delightfully situated[286] on the margin of a semicircular bay in the north-western extremity of Inishowen, where the fierce Atlantic billows spend their force in broken wavelets on its sandy shore. It is well sheltered on the east and south by a range of steep and rugged hills. The entire parish of Clonmany, in which it was situated, abounds in natural curiosities as well as in objects of antiquarian interest, such as cromlechs, raths, and castles perched on lofty crags.

No traces of the old monastery now remain, but its site is probably marked by an old church-yard in the townland of Binnion, situated close to a narrow inlet of the bay, and in a spot which a sea-king of old might fitly choose as the site of his stronghold. The place got its name of Both-chonais—the House of Conas—from its founder, who was the husband of St. Patrick’s sister, Darerca, and by her the father of two holy bishops, Mael and Maelchu. It is referred to at intervals as a place of some celebrity during the ninth and tenth centuries, and the death of its Airchinneach is recorded in A.D. 1049.

Maelisa O’Brolchain shunned church dignities, if he were not indeed a lay professor; but all the same he certainly acquired great fame even in this remotest corner of Erin both as a teacher and a scholar. The Four Masters describe him as “the learned senior (or sage) of Ireland, a paragon of wisdom and piety, in poetry as well as in both languages—(Irish and Latin).” The term ‘chief senior’ is never given except to the most eminent men, who were recognised as such by their contemporary annalists. Colgan speaks of him, too, in the highest terms as an humble man shunning all worldly honours, and devoted to a pious and studious life. He was the author of many books “replete with genius and intellect,” which were preserved in the neighbourhood of Both-chonais in Colgan’s time, but have since unfortunately perished. “I have in my own possession,” adds Colgan, “some few fragments which he wrote,” and which also appear to have completely disappeared since Colgan’s time. Even the site of his monastery is uncertain. O’Donovan seems to think it was in the townland of Binnion; but Reeves places it in the townland of Carrowmore, parish of Culdaff, on the left-hand side of the road from Moville to Carn, and about three miles from the latter village.[287] It is said that he founded an oratory at Lismore, which was burned in A.D. 1116, and is called the Oratory of Maelisa. He may have spent some time either as a student or as a teacher in that celebrated seminary. He died in A.D. 1086 at a very advanced age, for he had no sickness, but simply gave back his soul to God. This holy and eminent scholar seems to have belonged to that class of learned lay professors, of whom Conn-na-m-Bocht at Clonmacnoise was the most remarkable example. They were equally renowned for holiness and learning, but abstained from taking Holy Orders either from humility, or in order to have more leisure and more freedom in the pursuit of knowledge.

The death of Aedh, son of Maelisa O’Brolchain, who is described as “an eminent professor” (praecipuus lector), is recorded in A.D. 1095. He was, doubtless, the son of Maelisa of Both-chonais, and probably lectured either there or in the monastery of Derry. Two years afterwards, in A.D. 1097, the Four Masters record the death of Maelbrighde Mac-an-tsaer O’Brolchain, Bishop of Kildare, who is described as a ‘learned doctor.’ There can hardly be a doubt that he was the son of that chief builder—prim saer—whose fame as a mason or architect was known throughout all Erin, and who died in A.D. 1029. Then we find two members of the family raised to the primatial Chair; one was Maelcolaim—disciple of Columba—O’Brolchain, who died in A.D. 1122; and another, named also Maelbrighde O’Brolchain, who died in A.D. 1137. It is not unlikely he belonged to the class of laymen who claimed jurisdiction over, and called themselves “Bishops of Armagh” during a portion of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; for “Flaithbhertach, ‘son of Bishop O’Brolchain,’”[288] was Comarb of Columcille in Derry from A.D. 1150 to 1175. The history of this remarkable man is especially noteworthy.

When he was elected as Comarb of Columcille to the abbacy of Derry, in A.D. 1150, that ancient monastic seat of learning was, it appears, very much dilapidated. Like other places near the sea, it was greatly exposed to the ravages of the Danes, and had been several times plundered and burned. Most of the buildings were of wood, for the great stone church—Temple-more—was not yet built. A new era of ecclesiastical architecture was, however, inaugurated in Ireland towards the middle of the twelfth century by the workmen whom the Cistercians brought over from France and England to build their own magnificent churches and monasteries. Nothing like them had yet been seen in the land. There were Irish workmen, however, who, if opportunity offered, would be worthy rivals of the masons that built the Norman abbeys in France and England; and they gave proof of their capacity in the building of Cormac’s Chapel at Cashel, which is a gem in its own way that cannot be surpassed. The Abbot of Derry came of a family that had won renown as builders, and he was anxious to show his own taste and skill in the renovation of the ancient monastery over which he had just been placed. Money, of course, was wanting, but it could not be long wanting to the Comarb of Columcille, if he were resolved to procure it. He made an official visitation of the Cenel-Eoghain, to whose kith and kin he himself belonged, and ‘received his tribute,’ in A.D. 1150—the year of his appointment to Derry. Next year he made a visitation of the Siol-Cathusaigh in the County Antrim, “and he obtained a horse from every chieftain, and a sheep from every hearth, and his horse and battle dress, and a ring of gold, in which were two ounces, from O’Lynn, their lord.” In A.D. 1153 he made a visitation of the Dal Cairbre, and the Ui Eathach Uladh, and got a horse from every chieftain, and a sheep from every house, and a screaball, a horse, and five cows from O’Donlevy himself, and an ounce of gold from his wife. Coined money was scarce; but cattle and horses were plenty, and would do as well. Later on he even visited Ossory, and raised his tribute, and procured immunity for the Columbian churches in Meath from all assessments except, we presume, his own. Being at this time Head of the Columbian Order, he was, doubtless, present at the great Synod of Kells, which was held in that city by Cardinal Paparo in A.D. 1152; and during that year we find he made no official visitation elsewhere. No doubt he had enough on his hands; and we may be sure he voted for that Canon of the Council which ordered tithes to be regularly assessed for Church purposes on all the lands of Erin. It was what he had himself twice done already, and what he could now do, not only with custom, but with law also in his favour.

O’Brolchain made an excellent use of the funds which he thus procured. He removed all the houses that surrounded and disfigured the church of Derry, and then built on the site of the old church that new Temple Mor which gives its name to the parish, and appears to have been a large and imposing structure. The Four Masters say it was eighty feet long, and that it was built by O’Brolchain and his clergy, with the help of the king of Ireland, in forty days. If so, the materials must have been all prepared, and a large number of tradesmen must have been employed, which is not unlikely, seeing that he had already built a limekiln[289] measuring seventy feet every way, which took him twenty days to construct. The limekiln was built in A.D. 1163; but the church was not erected until A.D. 1165, and it is highly probable that the walls were being built in the meantime, and that the Four Masters mean that the church was covered in during the space of 60 days, which might easily be done. Doubtless, O’Brolchain constructed many other buildings also at Derry, for otherwise he would scarcely have occasion for building that enormous limekiln.

The merits of O’Brolchain were fully appreciated by the clergy and people of the north, and led to his formal elevation to the episcopal order in the year A.D. 1158. He had previously enjoyed large jurisdiction as Comarb of Columcille not only in Derry, but over the Columbian Churches generally. It was felt, however, especially after the Synod of Kells, that this state of things was now becoming anomalous and unsatisfactory, and might lead to a conflict of jurisdiction between the Comarb of Columcille and the regular diocesan authority. Hence it was resolved at a meeting of the Irish Clergy, held in Meath in that year, to raise O’Brolchain to the episcopal dignity, and circumscribe his jurisdiction by assigning him a definite territory. The Four Masters record it in this manner:—

A.D. 1158. “A Synod of the Clergy of Ireland was convened at Bri Mac Taidgh in Laeghaire (near Trim), when there were present twenty-five bishops, with the legate of the Successor of Peter to ordain rules and good morals. It was on this occasion the clergy of Ireland, with the successor of Patrick, ordered a Chair, like every other bishop, for the successor of Columcille—Flaithbheartach Ua Brolchain—and the Arch-abbacy of the churches of Ireland in general.” Very little is known of the history of this Synod; but we may note the following important facts:—The legate of the Comarb of Peter was Christian, Bishop of Lismore; his presence at the Synod was sufficient to authorize the bishops to proceed to the erection of a new See. The ‘Chair’ spoken of means not merely a chair in that assembly, but a new diocese, with all the rights and privileges canonically appertaining thereto. The new bishop was, however, still allowed to retain, and perhaps for the first time canonically to acquire, the Headship of all the Columbian monasteries. It may be that Kells was still a rival, and that its abbot also claimed to be Comarb of Columba; if so, this decree settled the question; and the new bishop of Derry was formally recognised as the Head of all the Columbian houses in Erin—for at that time there could be no question of any other.

Thus it was that the See of Derry was established. Mention is made of a Bishop of Derry previously, and of a Bishop-abbot of Derry; but it was, so to speak, by accident that this took place. There was no See of Derry, and no Diocese of Derry until A.D. 1158, when O’Brolchain was formally elevated to that dignity. It is not unlikely that he too was in Episcopal Orders previously—but now for the first time he got a chair or diocese. This eminent ecclesiastic, the founder of the Diocese of Derry, died in A.D. 1175, and the Four Masters record his death with the following honourable testimony:—

“Flaithbhertach O’Brolchain, Comarb of Columcille, a tower of wisdom and hospitality, a man on whom on account of his goodness and wisdom the clergy of Ireland had bestowed a bishop’s chair, to whom the abbacy of Hy had been offered (in A.D. 1164), died in righteousness, after exemplary sickness, in the Duibhregles of Columcille; and Gilla Mac Taidgh Ua Brenain was appointed to his place in the abbacy.” It is a curious fact that in A.D. 1173, we find recorded the death of Muiredhach Ua Cobthaich, Bishop of Derry and Raphoe; but it only implies that before the year A.D. 1158 he was the bishop territorially of Derry; for after that date he could have no legal claim to the See.

During the half-century between A.D. 1100 and 1150, Iona was under the influence of the Kings of Norway, especially of Magnus the Great, who subjected the island to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Man; but in A.D. 1156 royal Somerlid recovered Hy and others of the ‘Southern’ islands. Being himself a Celt of Irish blood, he was anxious to restore the Celtic influence in the island; and hence we find that in A.D. 1164, at his instance the abbacy of Hy was offered to O’Brolchain, Abbot and Bishop of Derry. But O’Brolchain being now Bishop of Derry, and the recognised head of the Columbian Order, declined to accept the abbacy of Hy, preferring to remain in Derry. Domhnall O’Brolchain, however, was appointed to the insular abbacy, and being, like all his family, a building man, he determined to signalize his reign by the erection of a great church in Hy. It was the cathedral whose ruins are still to be seen, and they furnish a striking monument of the taste and munificence of the Irish Abbot. On the capital of the tower column are inscribed the still legible words—Donaldus O’Brolchan fecit hoc opus. We cannot have absolute certainty; but there can be no reasonable doubt of the identity of this name with the Domhnall O’Brolchain, the prior and exalted senior, whose death the Annals of Ulster record in A.D. 1203, and the Four Masters in A.D. 1202. After his death a certain Cellach,[290] “without any legal right, and in despite of the family of Hy, erected a monastery there in the middle of Cro-Hy.” But the clergy of the North of Erin, bishops and abbots, passed over into Hy and pulled down this new monastery; and Awley O’Ferrall was elected Abbot of Hy by the suffrages both of the Foreigners and Gaedhil. This points to an attempt made by the foreign influence to eject the Irish monks from Hy; but for once it signally failed. The last entry in our Annals records the death of Flann O’Brolchain, the last Irish Abbot of Hy, in the year A.D. 1219. Thenceforward it ceased to be Irish, and became a purely Scottish monastery and remained so until the Reformation.

IV.—Gelasius.

We cannot pass away from the School of Derry without some reference to one of the most distinguished men it ever produced—the celebrated Gelasius, who succeeded St. Malachy in the See of Armagh. He was one of that noble band of prelates who, with Celsus, and St. Malachy at their head, did so much for the true reformation of the Irish Church in discipline and morals during the half-century that immediately preceded the advent of the Anglo-Normans to our shores.