This entry enables us to fix the probable date of this geographical poem of Mac Cosse, which seems to have been the manual of Classical Geography made use of in Ross-ailithir, and hence so full of interest for the student of the history of our ancient schools. The Imar, referred to in the above entry, was king of the Danes of Limerick, but in A.D. 968 the Danes of Limerick were completely defeated by Mahoun and his younger brother Brian Boru. Imar made his escape to Wales, but after a year or two returned again, first, it would seem, to Waterford; issuing thence he harried all the coasts and islands of the South, and finally returned to Limerick with a large fleet and army. But he deemed Scattery Island a more secure stronghold, and having fortified it he made that island his head-quarters, and no doubt kept his prisoners there also. Scattery itself was captured from the Danes by Brian, a little later on in A.D. 976, and there Imar was slain; so that it was the interval between A.D. 970-976 that Mac Cosse was kept a prisoner at Scattery Island, and ransomed by the generosity of Brian, who always loved learning and learned men.

This poem consists of one hundred and thirty-six lines, giving a general account of the geography of the ancient world, and was, no doubt, first got by rote by the students, and then more fully explained by the lecturer to his pupils. This tenth century is generally regarded as the darkest of the dark ages; yet, we have no doubt, whoever reads over this poem will be surprised at the extent and variety of the geographical knowledge communicated to the pupils of Ross-ailithir in that darkened age, when the Danish ships, too, were roaming round the coasts of Ireland. It is not merely that the position of the various countries is stated with much accuracy, but we have, as we should now say, an account of their fauna and flora—their natural productions, as well as their physical features. The writer, too, seems to be acquainted not merely with the principal Latin authors, but also with the writings of at least some of the Grecian authorities.

In the opening stanza he describes the five zones: “two frigid of bright aspect,”—alluding, no doubt, to their snowy wastes and wintry skies, lit up by the aurora borealis—and then two temperate around the fiery zone, which stretches about the middle of the world. There are three continents, Europe, Africa, and Asia; the latter founded by the Asian Queen, and much the larger, because she unduly trespassed on the territories of her neighbours. Adam’s paradise is in the far East, beyond the Indus, surrounded by a wall of fire. India “great and proud,” is bounded on the west by the Indus, on the north by the hills of Hindoo Coosh. That country is famous “for its magnets, and its diamonds, its pearls, its gold dust, and its carbuncles.” There are to be found the fierce one-horned beast, and the mighty elephant—it is a land where “soft and balmy breezes blow,” and two harvests ripen within the year. In like manner he describes the other countries of Asia; the mare rubrum “swift and strong,” and Egypt, by the banks of the Nile, the most fertile of all lands. He even tells us of the burning fires of the Alaunian land, alluding to the petroleum springs around the Caspian. He names all the provinces of Asia Minor—“little Asia,” he calls it—and says most accurately, that it was bounded on the west by the Propontus and the Ægean sea. In like manner he describes Africa, and derives its name from Apher, a son of Abraham and Keturah, showing that he was familiar with the Greek of the Antiquities of Josephus.[356] He then goes through the various countries of Europe, giving their names, and chief cities. The principal rivers, too, are named, and their courses fixed, as when he says that—

“Three streams issue from the Alps westward, and across Europe they appear
The Rhine in the north-west, the Loire, and the River Rhone.”

Finally, he comes to Ireland, which, in loving language, he proclaims to be

So ends this most interesting manual of geography written by an Irish scholar, in the Irish tongue, and taught to the students of Ross-ailithir, whilst the Danish pirates were roaming round our seas, and ruling with strong hand in Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick.

Of the subsequent fortune of Ross-ailithir we know little. In A.D. 1127 the fleet of Toirdhealbach O’Conor sailed to Ross-ailithir, and despoiled Desmond, as the Chronicon Scotorum informs us—for it was not the Dane alone that our schools and churches had to fear—often, far too often, the spoiler was some rival chieftain, whose churches and monasteries were sure to be spoiled very soon in their turn. Then came the greatest of all the devastators—the Anglo-Normans, who laid waste Corca Laighde under FitzStephen, a few years after Bishop O’Cearbhail went to his rest in A.D. 1168. Since that period the school has disappeared, but the See of Ross still holds its ground, after having gone through some strange vicissitudes of union with and separation from the neighbouring dioceses of Cloyne and Cork.

IV.—The School of Innisfallen—St. Finan.

The island of Innisfallen in the Lower Lake of Killarney has been long celebrated both in song and story for its wonderful scenic beauty. It is commonly regarded as the Queen of Irish Islands, and one enthusiastic admirer has declared that it is the most beautiful spot in Europe. The monks of old were great lovers of nature, and hence, as might be expected, we find that at a very early period a monastery was founded on the island of Innisfallen. It offered many advantages to saintly men, who wished to give themselves up entirely to a life of holiness and learning. It was not merely its own sweet beauty and the glory of the lake and mountains round about, that made it a desirable place of seclusion; it had more prosaic advantages to commend it. It was near enough for convenience to the promontory of Ross, yet far enough for security; for it was surrounded by deep water and was within sight of that noble keep whose friendly owners were always the protectors and benefactors of the monks of Innisfallen. It is true, indeed, the monks had been there long before the present picturesque ruin was built, but then there was always some dun or fort on Ross Island, as it is now called, for it is a spot not only of singular beauty but also admirably situated for defensive purposes.

All our authorities agree that the monastery of Innisfallen was founded by St. Finan; but to which St. Finan it owes its origin is another question. There were many saints who bore that name, of whom two were particularly distinguished, St. Finan the Leper, and St. Finan Cam, or the Crooked. It is commonly said that St. Finan the Leper was the founder of Innisfallen. After a careful examination of his Acts as given by the Bollandists on his feast day, which is believed to be the 16th of March, we can find no evidence to support this statement, which in itself also is sufficiently improbable. It is true, indeed, that St. Finan the Leper came of the old Desmond race, for his father, Conal was fourth in descent from Ollioll Olum, the common ancestor of all the great Munster families. But Finan belonged to that branch of the race of Cian, son of Ollioll Olum, which was settled in the portion of Bregia, called from him Keenaght, extending from Dromiskin to Dublin; and it is highly probable that Finan himself was a native, not of Ely O’Carroll, as Colgan says, but of Sord, now called Swords, where his family seems to have resided. He was called the Leper, because on one occasion when a poor woman brought to the saint her son, who was blind, deaf, and leprous from his birth, the saint prayed to God to cure the child and offered himself to bear its leprosy. His prayer was heard—the child was made whole, but the saint was stricken with the dread disease, which he endured for thirty years. St. Finan the Leper is said to have been a disciple of St. Columba, and to have been placed by that saint over his own foundation at Swords; but at what time it is difficult to determine. The saint is also said to have founded Ardfinnan on the Suir in Tipperary, which took its name from him. He is also mentioned in connection with Clonmore in the co. Carlow, founded by St. Maedhog,[357] and according to the writer of his Life, he was buried there. His connection, however, with Innisfallen in Lough Lein is very doubtful, and unsupported by any satisfactory evidence that we have seen. It is much more likely that the Inisfaithlen referred to by his biographers was the island off the Coast of Dublin, now called by its Danish name of Ireland’s Eye, but which in ancient times was known as Inisfaithlen—a fact of which Colgan does not seem to have been aware. The same name was also given to the island of Beg Erin, or Begery, in the Bay of Wexford.

On the other hand, St. Finan Cam was a Kerry man by race and birth, and moreover spent most of his life in the West of Kerry, which has many places connected with his name and memory. He was born in that wild promontory of Corkaguiny (Corca-Duibhne) which is swept bare by the wild Atlantic blasts. His father Mac Airde[358] is mentioned in the Life of St. Brendan—for it seems to be the same person—as a man of considerable wealth, who made a present of thirty cows with their calves to that saint shortly after he was born. Indeed it seems highly probable from the narrative that the family of St. Brendan and St. Finan were connected by ties of consanguinity. We are told too in the Life of Finan in the Salamanca MS. that St. Brendan was the first tutor of the boy, and that the latter spent seven years in Brendan’s corner—contra fornacem—whilst he was learning to read and study monastic discipline under the guidance of that great master. This was probably in the early part of the sixth century, whilst Brendan was still living in his native Kerry, before he went on his Atlantic voyages, or founded any of his monasteries in the province of Connaught.

It was by the direction of the same saint that young Finan, who was already far advanced in holiness, left his father’s territory, and went to Slieve Bloom, the utmost boundary of his native Munster towards the north, and there, about A.D. 560, founded the monastery of Kinnity, near Birr, at the roots of Slieve Bloom, with which his name has been ever since associated. It is a singular fact that so late as the year A.D. 907, we find that Colman, Abbot of Kinnity, and King of Corca-Duibhne, was slain in the fatal field of Ballaghmoon, where Cormac Mac Cullinan, and so many of his Munster nobles lost their lives.

Finan, however, returned after a brief sojourn at Kinnity to his native territory; and thenceforward we find that almost all the events recorded in his life took place in Kerry.

There is one incident mentioned, which goes far to show that this St. Finan Cam was the founder of the monastery on Innisfallen. For we are told that a boat was built on ‘St. Finan’s Island,’[359] and that a message was sent to Fedelmith, the King of Lough Lein, to carry away the boat. The king came with thirty men to bring the boat to the water, but they could not carry it. Then the angels of God, with Finan, carried the boat down to the Lake Lugdech. It is true this seems to refer to Finan’s Island on Lough Currane, but the incident certainly shows that Finan had friendly relations with the King of Lough Lein, who in return would very naturally grant the holy man one of the islands on his own lake for a religious house.

On another occasion we find that when Finan’s horse died, another steed came out of Lough Lein, and for three years drew the saint’s waggon; and then at the bidding of Finan once more returned to his stable beneath the waves of Lough Lein. So the saint then probably had his own ‘home’ on the shore, or in an island of the lake. Once again, on a particular occasion, when Finan was living on a certain island, and his horses were on the mainland grazing, having, it seems, their feet tied, they swam to the saint’s house, without loosening the bonds, and at his bidding swam back again to the shore. We find him also protecting his tribesmen of Corkaguiny against the attacks of Nechtan, King of the Hy-Fidhgente, who dwelt beyond Slieve Lougher, in the west of the County Limerick. This prince, refusing to listen to the prayers of Finan, was conquered in battle, and forced to fly from his kingdom. We are then told that he betook himself to Diarmaid, King of the Hy-Niall, which fixes the date of these events at some time between A.D. 544 and 565, the limits of the duration of King Diarmaid’s reign. He returned, however, more than once to his monastery of Kinnity, where many monks lived under his rule and guidance. We find him also, towards the close of the sixth century, at an assembly of the Munster chiefs, probably at Cashel, in the time of Failbhe Flann. Failbhe succeeded his brother as King of Munster in A.D. 619; but he was, no doubt, for many years previously a prince of much influence and power. On this occasion Finan wrought some wondrous miracles before the king, and Failbhe did penance, and granted all the requests of Finan—one being to allow him ‘to take a census of the population,’—it means rather to remit a tax that pressed on the people. We also find the saint nigh to Lough Lugdech, which seems to be the lake now called ‘Lough Currane,’ in the south-eastern extremity of Iveragh, near the Bay of Ballinskelligs. It seems to have been a favourite haunt of the saint; and the remains of his oratory are still to be seen on an island in the lake. On this occasion Finan wanted to get his horse shod; but the smith had broken his tongs, and could not hold the glowing iron. “Take it in your hands,” said the saint. The smith did so, and held it without inconvenience, whilst he fashioned the shoe with his hammer! This is a fair specimen of some of the extravagant miracles attributed to Finan by the writer of his Life.

“Lough Lugdech, now,” says O’Donovan, “called Lough Luigeach (Lee), or Currane Lough,” is of oval form, about three miles long by two broad. It abounds with salmon and white trout, which, no doubt, often furnished a luxurious meal to the abstemious saint. On the south it is surrounded by a range of bold mountains, partly covered with woods in Smith’s time,[360] but now quite bare of timber. The remains of Finan’s Church and cell were to be seen on the largest of three small islands in the lake,[361] when Smith wrote about 140 years ago; and he says that they keep his (Finan’s) festival on the 16th of March. This is the day generally assigned to Finan the Leper in our Martyrologies—the 7th of April being the festival of Finan Cam, according to the Martyrology of Tallaght—the change may have taken place from the confusion of names, for no one says that the Leper saint ever penetrated as far to the south-west as Lough Currane. The obliquity which gave Finan the surname of ‘Cam,’ was in his eyes, not in his body, adds the same eminent authority.

Derrynane also takes its name from our saint; it means the oak-grove of Finan—Daire Fionain—the letter ‘f’ being aspirated, and not sounded in the compound. The old abbey, however, situated on the shore, is of mediæval origin, as its ruins tell. St. Finan’s Bay, north of Bolus Head, also speaks of the saint. It is quite open and exposed to all the fury of the Atlantic billows.

St. Finan was in all probability the first founder of the oratory on the Greater Skelligs, which is directly opposite the bay to the south-west. When the Danes swarmed round our coasts, the monastery was removed from the island to the mainland, and its dilapidated walls may still be seen in the only sheltered corner at the head of St. Finan’s Bay. Several holy wells also bear the saint’s name, and his memory is still vivid in various parts of Kerry. In our opinion this St. Finan Cam, not St. Finan the Leper, was the founder of the monastery of Innisfallen.

V.—The Annals of Innisfallen.

There are only two entries referring to Innisfallen in the Four Masters; one A.D. 1144, merely records the death of Flanagan of Innisfallen, a distinguished anmchara, or soul’s friend—that is counsellor and confessor—or as we now say, spiritual director. The other entry, however, is an earlier and far more important one. It records the death in A.D. 1009 (recte 1010) of Maelsuthain O’Cearbhail (Carroll) of the community or family of Innisfallen, “chief doctor of the western world in his time, and lord of the Eoghanacht of Lough Lein,” who died ‘after a good life.’ This Maelsuthain was a very celebrated man, and in all probability the original compiler from older authorities of the Annals of Innisfallen. Hence he deserves special notice at our hands. The Eoghanacht of Lough Lein, of whom he was chief, was that branch of the great Eugenian race of Desmond, whose territory surrounded the beautiful Lakes of Killarney, and included the greater part of the Barony of Magunihy. O’Donoghue of Lough Lein, whose principal stronghold was on Ross Island, was the chief of this wide territory. He derived his descent from Cas, son of Corc, King of Munster, whose elder brother, Nadfraich, was the ancestor of the great MacCarthy family. In A.D. 1015 was slain Domhnall, who commanded the forces of Desmond at Clontarf, and he was father of Donchadh, from whom the family name has been derived. The O’Carrolls of Lough Lein were sub-chieftains under the O’Donoghues, and derived their descent from a younger brother of that Nadfraich above referred to as ancestor of the MacCarthy Mor.

Maelsuthain O’Carroll was in the beginning of the eleventh century head of this sub-tribe, and hence is called lord of Lough Lein. The School of Innisfallen was one of those which appear to have suffered least from the ravages of the Danes. This, no doubt, was mainly due to its remote insular situation amongst the mountains of Kerry. It is highly probable that Brian Boru, the hero of Clontarf, was educated at Innisfallen; at least we find that Maelsuthain, the head of the island school, was his intimate friend and counsellor during many years of his victorious career. When Brian marched in triumph to Armagh, he laid an offering of twenty ounces of gold on the High Altar of the cathedral; and our Maelsuthain O’Carroll, of Lough Lein, who accompanied him, made the following entry in the name of the king, in the Book of Armagh:—“St. Patrick, when going to heaven, ordained that all the fruit of his labour, as well of baptisms, as of causes and other alms, should be carried to the apostolic city, which in Irish is called Ardd-Macha. So I have found it in the libraries of the Scots. This I have written, that is, Calvus Perennis, ‘the ever bald,’ (which is equivalent to the Irish Mael-suthain), in the sight of Brian, Emperor of the Scots, and what I have written he determined for all the kings of Maceria,”[362] that being the Latin equivalent of Cashel.

Maelsuthain is sometimes called the Anmchara[363] of Brian; but as it seems that he was a layman, the word must mean rather counsellor than ghostly adviser. That Maelsuthain was a renowned professor of the Innisfallen school is apparent not only from the eulogy of the Four Masters and the Ulster Annals, which call him ‘chief sage of Ireland,’ but also from the curious tale about Maelsuthain that has been translated by O’Curry. It is in substance as follows. Maelsuthain was so renowned a professor that three students came all the way from Connor, in the County Antrim, to his school at Innisfallen, in which they spent three years. Then they resolved to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but their professor told them that it was now high time to pay him something for their education. They had no money, however, which is always a scarce commodity with students, but offered to spend three years in service with their teacher as a recompense for their education. “No,” said he, “go to Palestine, and all I ask is that when you die, as you will in the Holy Land, you shall come to me, and let me know whether I also shall die in the peace of the Lord.” They agreed to this, and went to Palestine, where they died in grace; but they asked permission from St. Michael to return to their old professor, and tell him his fate before going to heaven themselves. St. Michael granted this request, and bade them tell Maelsuthain that he had only three years and a-half to live, and then he was to be condemned to hell for all eternity. So they came to Maelsuthain, in the shape of three white doves. He bade them welcome, and asked what was to be his future lot. They told him. “And why am I to be sent to hell?” said he. They told him the reasons also, as St. Michael had directed them: first, because he interpolated the canons; secondly, because of unchastity; and, thirdly, because he had given up the Altus. “I shall not go to hell all the same,” replied the professor, “for God has promised that ‘the impiety of the wicked shall not hurt him in whatsoever hour he shall turn himself away from it.’ I will turn away from my sins; I will put no sense of my own in the canons; I will perform a hundred genuflections every day; I will recite the Altus seven times every night to make up for my past neglect; and I will keep a three days’ fast every week.” On the day of his death the three white doves returned, and told him that his penance was accepted by God, and that they saw his place in heaven, and would now accompany him into eternal glory. So he was anointed by the clergy around his bed; and his three pupils parted not with him until they all went to heaven together. “And,” adds the tale, “it is this good man’s writings (or manuscripts—screptra), that are in Innisfallen in the church there still.”

This reference seems to designate some well-known writings connected with Innisfallen, of which Maelsuthain was the author or compiler, and which can hardly be any other than the well known Annals of Innisfallen. Eugene O’Curry tells us that it has been a constant tradition in the South of Ireland that the Annals of Innisfallen were compiled by Maelsuthain, and he adds that he himself had no doubt the O’Carroll was either ‘the original projector of the compilation,’ or that he enlarged the previous meagre outlines kept in the monastery of Innisfallen into this more regular and extensive historical work.

The principal copy of these Annals is at present preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. “It contains,” says Dr. O’Conor, “fifty-seven leaves (of parchment), of which the first three are considerably damaged, and the fourth partly obliterated. Some leaves at the beginning are also missing.” The missing leaves seem to have begun with a short account of the creation and the history of the early patriarchs extracted from the Book of Genesis. At the sixth begins the history of the Kingdom of the Greeks; then it treats of the general history of the great empires of the world down to the year A.D. 430 (at folio 9), where their real interest begins. Thenceforward there is a brief chronicle of Ireland in different hands, down to the year A.D. 1319. The first scribe has written down to the year A.D. 1130 (at folio 30). The writing of this portion is free and elegant; the initial letters are coloured and adorned; and everything seems to point to the fact that the original scribe of this manuscript wrote no further. But afterwards the work becomes more rude and careless; there is no attempt at ornamentation; in fact, the appearance of the manuscript is a faithful picture of the state of the country—daily going from bad to worse. It is fruitless now to speculate how this venerable monument of Irish learning came into the Bodleian Library of Oxford.

The work known as the Dublin Annals of Innisfallen is a translation in Trinity College Library, which Theophilus O’Flanagan testifies[364] that he made into English “about nineteen years ago, from a copy perfected under the direction of Dr. O’Brien, Bishop of Cloyne and Ross, from the original in the Bodleian Library.” Dr. O’Brien’s scribe was, according to O’Flanagan, a priest of the name of Conroy, who was well versed in the Irish language.

There is another copy in the Royal Irish Academy in Irish and English, beginning with A.D. 250, and coming down to A.D. 1320. It is on paper, and contains 320 folios. During the later years it deals chiefly with the affairs of Munster. At A.D. 1010 we find the following entry:—“Maelsuthain, son of O’Carroll, King of the Eoghanacht of Locha Lein, and the Primate of Ireland, died in Aghadoe.” In the Irish it is ‘Priomfaidh Eirion,’ which appears to mean, ‘chief sage of Ireland.’ More than half this volume deals with the period from A.D. 1170 to 1320, and it contains many interesting entries during that time. The chronology is, however, very defective.

Poetry, it seems, was cultivated in Innisfallen as well as history—for we are told that in A.D. 1197 Gilla Patrick O’Huihair went to his rest. He was archdeacon of the island—which shows that there was a considerable community there at the time—and superior of the convent. He also founded many religious houses, to which he gave books, vestments, and other necessaries. He was, moreover, the Annalist tells us, ‘a celebrated poet;’ and was held in the highest estimation for his chastity, piety, wisdom, and universal charity. We have also another entry, A.D. 1208, which gives us a beautiful picture of a reverend priest of ‘Cloonuama,’[365] who died in this abbey, where he passed the evening of a life chequered by misfortune in penitence and prayer, and was buried in the cemetery of the Abbey of Innisfallen.

There is one significant entry a few years earlier—“anno 1180, this abbey of Inisfallen being ever esteemed a paradise and a secure sanctuary, the treasure and the most valuable effects of the whole country were deposited in the hands of its clergy; notwithstanding which we find the abbey was plundered in this year by Maolduin, son of Daniel O’Donoghue. Many of the clergy were slain—even in their cemetery—by the MacCarthys. But God soon punished this act of impiety and sacrilege, by bringing many of its authors to an untimely end.”

During the eleventh century the O’Donoghoes of Lough Lein rose to great power and influence—one of them became king of Cashel, and several of them are described as royal heirs of Cashel. It was an O’Donoghue who restored the cathedral church of Aghadoe in the twelfth century—he was slain in A.D. 1166. In all probability this Maolduin, son of Daniel, was in feud with his own family, who were always the protectors of the monks of Innisfallen, and he called in the MacCarthys to help him in plundering this venerable shrine. It is satisfactory to know that vengeance soon overtook the despoilers of this paradise, as the chronicler aptly describes it.

Yes, Innisfallen is, in truth, an earthly paradise. The island contains about twelve acres; but this small area is dowered with every charm that can gratify the senses. The surface, fringed with evergreen bowers, is gently undulating, and covered with a carpet of green, so pure and so soft, that the eye loves to linger on its hues. There are miniature creeks, where the wavelets die in gentle ripples; there are giant elms and hoary ash trees, that have lived for centuries; the holly and the arbutus are not shrubs, but forest trees, and their bright green leaves, with blossoms of purest white, or berries of deepest red, gleam through the heavy-laden boughs. Then there are the manifold associations of religion, and history, and poetry, and romance, called up before the mental vision by the aspect of the ruined churches on this queen of islands. You have, besides, the mingled melodies of whispering leaves, and singing birds, and murmuring waters, filling the ear, and inviting the listener to contemplation and repose. Of old, the tinkling of bells was heard from these ruined cloisters, and the gray Franciscan habit was seen stealing along the shores of Muckross, and the cathedral chimes of Aghadoe were borne over the waters to the students’ ears. Now they are all gone—no lectures within these silent roofless walls; no midnight vigils of the gray friars in Muckross; no bishop’s throne in Aghadoe. Yet young Killarney rivals these ivy-grown haunts of ancient learning and holiness in all things save one—the unapproachable beauty of the sites chosen by the monks of old. Their successors live nigh to scenes of beauty; but they have so placed themselves that they can never see them. They seem to prefer naked walls and flat fields to the glorious vision of nature’s unapproachable beauties, which she has poured out with lavish hand, by mountain, stream, and woodland all around this peerless Lake of Learning.[366]

CHAPTER XXI.

The first reference[367] we find made to Mungret is in the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick. When the saint had come into the territory of Hy-Fidhgente, which included that portion of the modern County Limerick west of the river Maigue, with a small portion of the barony of Coshma east of that river, Lomman, the king of the district, made a feast for Patrick on the summit of Mullagh Cae, to the south of Carn Feradaig. This hill still bears its ancient name, and the gifted poet[368] from whom we have already so often borrowed beautiful thoughts, describes its situation:—

“That pleasant hill ascends
Westward of Ara girt by rivers twain,
Maigue, lily-lighted, and the ‘Morning Star’
Once Samhair named, that eastward through the woods
Winding, upon its rapids earliest meets
The morn, and flings it far o’er mead and plain.”[369]

Now Lomman, son of Mac Eire, and Mantan, a deacon of Patrick’s household, had prepared a feast for the saint and his people on the summit of this green hill, when it chanced that a band of itinerant jugglers came upon the scene, and meeting Patrick first, asked him for some food. The laws of hospitality were always imperative in Celtic Ireland, and accordingly Patrick told them to go to Lomman and Mantan, and that they would supply their wants. No one had yet tasted of the banquet, not even Patrick himself; and hence, when the jugglers applied for food, they were rather rudely repulsed by Lomman and the deacon, who told them in effect that strollers like them were not the persons to bless the meat and partake of it first.

They meant no harm, but still Patrick’s request was not complied with, and his honour was compromised, when hospitality was refused even to the jugglers. So Patrick said:—

“To the boy who cometh from the north (Limerick)
To him the victory has been given.”

And forthwith a youth named Nessan appeared coming up the hill-side with his mother, and she being the stronger was carrying a cooked ram on her shoulders for the king’s feast. Then the saint asked the boy to give him the wether, that he might give it to the jugglers, and thus save his honour by complying with the laws of hospitality. The boy at once gladly gave the ram to Patrick; but his mother grumbled a little when she saw its destination.

Patrick, however, resolved to teach them all, that obedience and charity are the first of Christian virtues. Therefore, he said to Lomman, his host, that none of his race should ever be king, or crown-prince, or bishop; and to Deacon Mantan, he said that his cloister would not be lofty, and that it would be the dwelling of a rabble, and that sheep and swine would tread on his remains—but to Nessan he said: “Thou wilt be mighty of race”:—

“Thou that didst the hungry feed,
The poor of Christ that know not yet His name,
And helping them that cried to me for help,
Mine honour cherish, like a palm one day,
Shall rise thy greatness.”

Nessan’s mother, too, was punished for her grumbling. She was not to be buried in her son’s church of Mungret, but beyond the cloister wall to the west, where its sweet-toned bell could not be heard. Then Patrick ordained Nessan a deacon, and founded a church for him, that is, Mungret, near Limerick.

On one occasion Nessan went to visit St. Ailbe of Emly, that he might inquire from that saint if it were right for a monk to receive or to refuse the offerings of the faithful. When Nessan arrived it was the hour of None, and the community were chanting the office in the church. Nessan, however, declined to go into the guest-house until he should see Ailbe and put his question. Now Ailbe continued in prayer from the hour of None until Tierce on the following day; and no one went into him except the guest-master.

At length he gave his answer to the patient deacon—“Go,” said he, “and tell Nessan this verse in the Scottish tongue:

“Danae Dee nis frithcoirthi,
Selba forri [forru] niscorthi;
Acht toberthar, ragabae,
Sech ni muide, ni chele.”

That is:—

Gifts of God are not to be refused,
[But] possession is not to be retained of them
[Literally: possession is not to be put upon them]
If they are offered, you shall accept them,
But you shall not boast [of], you shall not conceal [them].[370]

The festival of Nessan is given in the Calendar of Ængus as the 25th of July. “It is of him,” says the Martyrology of Donegal, “Cuimin of Condeire gave his testimony in showing that he never told a lie out of his mouth.” Thus he says:—

“Nessan, the holy deacon, loves
Angelic pure devotion;
Never came outside his teeth
What was untrue or guileful.”

And the same authority likens him to Laurentius the Deacon in his habits and life.[371] Colgan says that Nessan died in A.D. 551; but even granting that he was a mere boy when St. Patrick was in Munster it is difficult to suppose he could have lived so long.

The fame of Mungret School is, however, due much more to St. Munchin, or Manchin, surnamed the Wise, than to Deacon Nessan, although unfortunately little can be ascertained with certainty about his history. He was of the Dalcassian race, being son of Sedna, and grandson of Cas, who was seventh in descent from Cormac Cas, son of Ollioll Olum, the great father of the race. His uncle Blod was king of the Dalgais of Thomond, during the early years of St. Patrick’s mission in Ireland. According to some writers, St. Manchan or Munchin, of Limerick, was identical with Manchan the Master, who is mentioned in the Life of St. Patrick. There were, however, several saints who bore that name; and it seems highly improbable that ‘Master’ Manchan of the Tripartite was the founder of St. Munchin’s. O’Curry says that this latter saint was daltha, or foster-son, and pupil of St. Mac Creiche of Ennistymon in Clare, who flourished towards the end of the fifth century; for he was the friend and contemporary of St. Ailbe of Emly. We assume, therefore, that Manchin, the founder of Cill-Munchin, now known as St. Munchin’s, flourished in the first half of the sixth century. It is said that he succeeded Nessan as Abbot of Mungret, and that under him and his successors, this monastic school attained great fame during the sixth and seventh centuries.

The fame of Mungret, however, seems to be principally founded on local tradition, for we can find no satisfactory evidence to prove its celebrity in any of our ancient documents. It is said that there were no less than six churches in Mungret, and no less than 1,500 monks (not to speak of the boys at school) within its cloisters. Of these one-third were preachers, or as we should now say, went about giving missions; one-third were constantly engaged in celebrating the divine office; and the remaining third were employed in teaching in the schools, or labouring for the community.[372] It is strange that no trace of these ancient buildings now remains, with the exception of the walls of one not very ancient church, which is 41 feet long, by 23 feet in breadth. The door-way in the west gable has a flat lintel with sloping jambs—its most characteristic feature. The round arches of the remaining opes rather show that this church belongs to the ninth or tenth century, than to the time of St. Munchin.[373] It is probable that St. Munchin presided for many years at Mungret; and then in his old age retired from community life, and built himself a cell and oratory in the neighbourhood, which was afterwards known as Cill-Munchin, and became the nucleus of the present city of Limerick. Thus it was that he came to be recognised as the patron of the city and diocese of Limerick; and, as such, his church is said to have been the cathedral church of the city down to the building of St. Mary’s by Donald O’Brien, who died in A.D. 1194.

It is very doubtful if there was any See in Limerick before the Danish colony became Christian, and got a bishop of their own. The only scrap of evidence in favour of a line of earlier prelates in St. Munchin’s that we could find, is the statement in the prose Life of St. Senan, that “Deron, Bishop of Limerick,” was present at the obsequies of St. Senan in Scattery Island. But, as Lanigan remarks, this Life is of the post-Norman period, and cannot be accepted as an unquestionable authority.

The subsequent history of Mungret may be briefly summed up. The death of Ailill, Abbot of Mungret, is noticed by the Four Masters in A.D. 760, which shows that there was a succession of abbots in that great school. But evil days were now in store for Mungret. Situated close to the great highway of the Shannon, it was one of the first places that felt the fury of the Danes, and suffered most from their constant presence in the great estuary of Luimnech. We are told that it was burned and plundered by these ‘gentiles’ in A.D. 834, like most of the great monasteries on the southern coasts and estuaries. Shortly afterwards the Danes took permanent possession of the estuary of the Shannon; and although defeated by the native tribes at Shanid and elsewhere, still, owing to their possession of the sea, and the constant arrival of fresh hordes, they were able to maintain themselves at Limerick, where they established strong forts on the King’s Island, which they held against all comers down to the time of Brian Boru. They were, indeed, the real founders of the city of Limerick, and their choice of that site, so suitable at once for commerce and defence, shows how keenly alive their chiefs were to the advantages to be derived from a good natural position. Of course whilst the Danes held the lower Shannon and all its islands, Mungret could not flourish. At best they could only live there on sufferance, and were constantly exposed to pillage and murder.

Still Mungret was not obliterated. Cormac Mac Cullinan by his will, which he made before he set out for the fatal field of Ballaghmoon, bequeathed, amongst other charitable bequests to other churches, three ounces of gold, an embroidered vest, and his blessing to Mungret; so that it is not improbable the great king-bishop, so learned in the Scotic tongue, as the Four Masters tell us, had himself been a student of Mungret.[374] In A.D. 909, Maelcaisil, Abbot of Mungret, died; and although the school was burned in A.D. 934, we read of Abbot Muirgheas, whose death is noticed in A.D. 993, by the Four Masters. They also record the death of “Rebachan, son of Dunchadh, Archdeacon of Mungret,” or as they write it Mungarid, in the next year; so that it was still a place of importance, having an abbot, an archdeacon, and an airchinneach also, for Constans, who held that office, died in A.D. 1033. It was burned in A.D. 1080; and was no sooner rebuilt than it was once more destroyed by a native prince, Domhnall Mac Lochlann, ‘King of Ireland,’ in A.D. 1088. On this occasion the King of Ireland harried the coasts and the churches of Thomond quite as cruelly as ever the foreigners had done.

Yet, phœnix-like, it rose once more from its ruins, for we are told that in A.D. 1102, “Moran O’Moore (Mughron O’Morgair), chief lector of Armagh, and of all the west of Europe, died on the third of the nones of October at Mungret in Munster.” Though the Irish princes of the North and South were as usual at deadly feud, Mungret gave a hospitable home and an honourable grave to the great professor from Armagh, who was the father of St. Malachy—one of the greatest of our Celtic saints. The last entry in the Four Masters is the shameful record that Mungret was plundered in A.D. 1107 by Mortogh O’Brian. Can it be that this Mortogh, who thus impiously plundered the shrine of his kindred at Mungret, is the same Mortogh who gave Cashel to the Church, and carried the arms of Thomond in triumph from Luimnech to Lough Foyle? Thenceforward Mungret, as a school, disappears from our Annals—almost, but not quite, up to the present hour.

‘The learning of the Mungret women’ is proverbial about Limerick; and the proverb had its origin in this way.[375] A controversy arose between Mungret and some other monastic school of the South, as to which was the more learned community; and it was agreed by both parties that their best scholars should meet at Mungret on a certain day, and exhibit their learning in a public disputation. Now as the time drew nigh the Mungret scholars feared they would be worsted in the disputation, and so they had recourse to stratagem. A number of them dressed themselves as women, and going to the place, where a stream crossed the highway near Mungret by which the visitors were to approach, they began to wash clothes. The strangers coming up put some questions to the ladies in the vernacular, but the ladies replied in excellent Latin, and even some, it is said, in Greek. The visitors were filled with astonishment, and asked them how they learned the ancient languages. “Oh,” they said, “every one about Mungret speaks Latin and Greek; that is nothing at all—‘mere crumbs from the monks’ table’—would you like to talk philosophy and theology with us?” When the strangers saw that even the women were so learned they knew they would have no chance at all if they met the monks; so they decamped right off, leaving the victory to the ‘wise women of Mungret.’

Mungret is finely situated on a gently rising sweep of fertile land, close to Lord Emly’s beautiful demesne at Tervoe, about three miles to the south-west of Limerick. It commands a grand view of several reaches of the Shannon, with the pine clad hills of Clare rising in the distance beyond the river. Once more, too, bands of students roam through its meadows; and in statelier halls than St. Nessan built the languages and philosophy of Greece and Rome are taught to eager disciples. There is once more a great college at Mungret; once more its students come from afar to seek sanctity and learning under the shadow of the ancient Church of St. Nessan. The Jesuits have there established, since 1884, a College and an Apostolic School, both of which have achieved wonderful success during the brief period of their existence. May St. Nessan, and all the saints of Mungret, help them to revive the ancient glories of their own monastic school, and to send to foreign lands missionaries of the Celtic race, as zealous and as learned as the men who in olden days carried the faith and fame of Erin from the Shannon’s banks through so many distant lands, even to the utmost shores of Calabria.

II.—The School of Iniscaltra.

Another celebrated nursery of ancient sanctity and learning flourished in the island of Iniscaltra, especially during the seventh and eighth centuries. This beautiful island is situated in the south-western angle of Lough Derg, where that great expansion of the Shannon runs in towards the village of Scariff, between the Counties of Galway and Clare. It is elliptical in shape, and contains 45 statute acres of exceedingly fertile land, so that £100 per annum has been frequently paid for the grazing of the island. It belongs to the county Galway, but ecclesiastically the island is a portion of the parish of the same name, in the diocese of Killaloe. The gaze of every stranger is at once arrested by the stately round tower, which rises up in lonely grandeur from this green speck in the placid bosom of the lake, marking the spot where the saints of old sought communion with God, and spent their lives in prayer, and fasting, and sacred study. No one now dwells on this lonely and beautiful island; and indeed it would be a profanation to erect a building for the common-place purposes of every-day life on its sacred soil. Better—far better—to leave its tower, its graveyards, and its ruined churches to be the lone and silent memorials of the vanished past, than to mar their holy memories by association with anything that would be commonplace or trivial.

Mention is first made of this island in A.D. 548, when, as the Four Masters and the Annals of Ulster record, “Colum of Inis-cealtra died” of the Crom Chonaill, or Yellow Plague, which then for the first time, but not for the last, depopulated these countries, and carried off amongst others many of the most distinguished saints and scholars of ancient Erin. The Four Masters record in this same year, and probably from the same cause, the death of St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise, St. Tighernach of Clones, St. Finnian of Clonard, the tutor of the saints of Ireland, St. Colum of Inis-cealtra, and also of St. MacTail of Old Kilcullen, of Sincheall of Druimfada, now Killeigh, in King’s County, of St. Odhran of Latteragh, on the eastern slopes of Keeper Hill, and of St. Colum, son of Ninnidh, called also Colum Mac Hy-Crimthainn, the celebrated founder of Terryglass. It is highly probable that the two Colums here mentioned, Colum of Inis-cealtra, and Colum Mac Hy-Crimthainn, were really one and the same person; but the transcriber finding Colum in one place, called ‘Colum of Iniscaltra,’ and in another place ‘Colum of Terryglass’—Tir-da-glas—thought they were different persons, and recorded them as such.

The Life of St. Columba of Terryglass, recently published in the Salamanca MS., shows how this error may have arisen. This St. Columba was of Lagenian origin, for his patronymic, Mac Hy-Crimthainn, is derived from an ancestor, who was King of Leinster five generations before. His father, Ninnidh, seems to have been born not far from Clonenagh, in Queen’s County, for in his youth we are told that the saint learned his psalms and hymns from a holy old man named Colman Cule, who lived in that neighbourhood, and founded the Church of Cluain Cain. This has been identified with great probability as Clonkeen, near Clonenagh, in the Queen’s County. Columba afterwards studied under the celebrated Finnian of Clonard, and he, with his greater namesake, Columba of Iona, is reckoned amongst the Twelve Apostles of Erin, who studied together at that great school. When he was sufficiently trained in all spiritual knowledge at Clonard, we are told that he resolved to go to Rome, and bring home with him some of the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul. On his return he came to St. Martin’s monastery at Tours, where he was privileged to obtain the staff and chrismal of that saint, which he carried home with him to Erin. He also visited England during this return journey, and preached with some success to the still unconverted Saxons. Returning home to Leinster his brother Cairbre offered him a place called Echargabul, on which to build a church and monastery; but he preferred to leave in that place one of his disciples called Cronan, who was a foreigner. Afterwards, with his disciples, he remained a year at Clonenagh,[376] and then crossing Slieve Bloom he came to Hy-Many of the Connaughtmen, and founded a church, where he had a flock of 700 souls, at a place called Tir Snama, which seems to have been not far from Lough Derg; for we are told that shortly afterwards he founded other churches near the lake, called Aurraith Tophiloc and Tuam Bonden, where he dwelt for some time.

Then an angel appearing to him bade him go to the island Keltra—since called Iniscaltra. At that time a certain old man dwelt on the island, called Maccrihe; but the angel told him to leave the island to St. Columba, which he willingly did.

Thus we find St. Columba of Terryglass established at Iniscaltra, where he remained a ‘long time,’ and where he was miraculously supported for a while by the liquor that distilled from a lime tree growing on the island. The birds that lived on the island, too, became quite familiar with the saint; and when Nadcumius, one of his disciples, asked him the reason, he gave a very beautiful reply. “Am I not a bird myself,” he said—“why should they fear me, for my soul always flies to heaven, as they fly through the sky?” It is said that on one occasion, when one of his ‘family’ died suddenly on the shore opposite the northern part of the island at Mount Shannon, he ordered his monks to go and say to the dead man—“Columba bids thee arise”—and the dead man arose and returned with them to the island.

Whilst at Iniscaltra the saint seems to have made frequent voyages over the lake. On one of these occasions seeing the place, ‘where Terryglass now is,’ rising over the broad waters of the lake, towards the east, he said, “Oh! that my resurrection would take place from that sweet spot”—a wish that was destined afterwards to be fulfilled.

Crowds of people came to visit the saint and his companions at Iniscaltra, so that he pined for some more lonely spot, where he might hide himself far away from men. Accordingly he embarked in his curragh, as we may suppose, then shooting the rapids, and sailing out into the estuary of the Shannon, called Luimnech, he established himself with a few companions in a lonely island, called ‘Insula Erci’ in the Latin Life, which may, perhaps, have been corrupted into Iniscorcy, the name of an island in the bay formed by the Fergus River, close to Kilydysart. The place, at any rate, was west-north-west (a circio) of Mungret, not very far away; and had, close at hand, another small island, to which the saint was sometimes in the habit of retiring, in order, it would seem, to be still more alone with God.

From this island he was called away to visit his master, St. Finnian of Clonard, who had been stricken with the yellow plague, and anxiously longed to receive the Holy Communion from his hands. The saint at once set out for far-distant Meath, a ten days’ journey, and arrived in time to give the ‘sacrifice’ to his beloved master before he died of that dreadful pestilence. It was in the year, it seems, A.D. 551 or 552 (548 with the Four Masters).

The blessed Columba himself seems to have caught the contagion whilst attending his dear old master; for retiring to a neighbouring place called Cluain Hii, where one of his old fellow-students had founded a church, he sickened and died of the same disorder towards the close of the same year—his festival day being December 13th, as marked in all our Calendars.

The men of Meath learning that so great a saint had died amongst them, were unwilling to let the blessed body be carried off, so that his companions had recourse to stratagem to convey the body secretly away. But even this they could not effect until a year after the saint’s death, so closely were they watched by the men of Meath. At last they hid the remains of their beloved father in a waggon, covered over with oats, and taking several other waggons also, as if for the purpose of bringing a supply of provisions with them, they set out for the Shannon, choosing the road towards Clonmacnoise. There they were hospitably received; and they told the abbot, in confidence, of the blessed burden which they bore along with them. The abbot then greatly rejoiced, and wished to have the holy relics kept at Clonmacnoise; but the brethren would not consent. Terryglass, blessed by St. Patrick, on the swelling shore of the beautiful Lough Derg, was chosen by himself to be ‘the place of his resurrection;’ so the Abbot-Ængus, next successor to St. Ciaran, let them go in peace with his blessing. But the men of Meath now began to suspect that their treasure was taken away, and followed quickly after, headed by the prince of the southern Hy-Niall, Colman Beg. The brethren, however, had already embarked; and when Colman took the helm to pursue them, Nadcumius threatened him with God’s anger if he followed them further. So for the time he turned back, and the monks with swelling sail and sturdy oar quickly traversed the lake, and came to Iniscaltra, where they buried the saint in secret for seven years, giving out, it seems, that his remains reposed at Terryglass.[377] We are told that the lake was lit up with a heavenly light of marvellous beauty during all the time that the body of the saint was borne over its heaving bosom.

Meantime the men of Meath, for seven years, kept watch around Terryglass, to see if they could get a chance of recovering their lost treasure; but finding no opportunity, they returned at last to their homes. Only then did the faithful Nadcumius transfer the holy relics from Iniscaltra to Terryglass, and thus carry out at length the dying wish of his beloved master. The men of Meath saw the bright beams that shone from heaven over all the lake on the night the holy relics were transferred; and at last reluctantly said—“Let us cease this toil. The saint chose this place for himself; let him rest in peace there for ever.”

Such is the account given in the Life; but in the Leabhar Breac, it is stated that the relics of Colum, son of Crimthann, were taken by Mochoemhe of Terryglass, and by Odhran the Master, on a wain southwards over Esge, to Caimin of Iniscaltra. Esge is a corruption of Echtge, the ancient and correct name of the Slieve Aughty mountains, that separate Galway from Clare. As St. Caimin was certainly not then in Iniscaltra, this would seem to point to a subsequent translation of the holy relics once more to the beautiful island where Columba had spent so many years. His successor, Caimin, had, it would seem, rendered the island once more a celebrated home of learning and piety, and wished to possess at least a portion of the blessed body of his illustrious predecessor.

Columba died A.D. 552; St. Caimin, the still more famous saint of Iniscaltra, and who has always been regarded as its patron, died, according to the Annals of Innisfallen, just one hundred years later, in A.D. 653; so that Caimin cannot have been a disciple of Columba. He came, however, of the same royal Lagenian race of Cathair Mor, for his father Dima, or Dimma, belonged to Hy-Kinsellagh, but his mother Cumaine, who was also, it is said, the mother of Guaire, King of Connaught, and of Cummian Fada, Bishop of Clonfert, belonged originally to the west of the County Kerry. We know little of the life of this great saint. He appears to have been present at the Synod of Easdara, now Ballysadare, which was held by St. Columba, and attended by the principal saints of Erin about the year A.D. 580 or 585. In that case the saint must have been born about the middle of the sixth century, and reached the age of one hundred years before he died. It is still more difficult to explain how he could have been a friend and contemporary of St. Senan of Scattery Island, who died about the year A.D. 544.

It is certain, however, that Caimin has always enjoyed the reputation of being himself a distinguished scholar, and the master of a very famous school. Lanigan tells us that he wrote “a Commentary on the Psalms collated with the Hebrew text,” a portion of which Usher says that he himself saw, and that both the text and notes were generally regarded as in the handwriting of St. Caimin.

If this be the fragment of the Commentary on the 119th Psalm, now in Merchants’ Quay, Dublin, that handwriting is certainly marvellously beautiful, but there is, we believe, no appearance of any collation with the Hebrew text. This fragment was once in the Franciscan Convent of Donegal; afterwards, it was in Colgan’s possession, and has now fitly returned to the representatives of the original owners.

Caimin’s school at Iniscaltra attracted, we are told, great numbers of pupils, even from foreign countries. In the Life of St. Senan reference is made to seven ships that arrived in the Shannon crowded with students seeking this island college of St. Caimin. Some poems have been attributed also to the saint, but without good authority. At present the remnant of the 119th Psalm is all that can fairly be regarded as his; but when complete, it must have been a very beautiful and most interesting specimen of our ancient Latin MSS.

Belonging, as he did, to the ruling classes, and connected by blood with several of the provincial kings, being, moreover, a man of great wisdom and virtue, Caimin seems to have exercised very considerable influence over the course of public events in his own time. Guaire, his half-brother, much against the wish and counsel of Caimin, provoked the King of Tara at the time, Diarmaid, son of Aedh Slaine, to a pitched battle at a place called Carn Conall, near Gort. Guaire was defeated, and his allies, the kings of Munster and Hy-Fidhgeinte, were slain on the field, thus verifying Caimin’s predictions of the disastrous consequences that would certainly result to the authors of this unjust war. The Four Masters say this great battle was fought in A.D. 645, but A.D. 648 or 649 seems to be the true date.

It would seem, from the curious story told by the Scholiast on the Felire of Ængus, that Caimin was afflicted during the latter years of his life with many painful diseases, which he bore in a spirit of perfect resignation. On a certain occasion when Guaire, Caimin, and Cummian were together in the great church of Iniscaltra, which Caimin had built, and the two saints were giving spiritual counsel to Guaire, Caimin said to his brother, “Well, Guaire, what would you wish to have this church filled with?” “With gold and silver,” replied Guaire, “that I might give it in charity to the saints and to the poor for the good of my soul.” Cummian, in answer to the same question, said he would wish to have it filled with books, for learned men to instruct others in the Word of God; but Caimin himself when asked the same question, said he wished it full of all diseases and sicknesses to afflict his body. And we are told that each of the brothers got his wish from heaven, “so that sickness and disease came on Caimin, and not one bone of him remained united to the other on earth, but his flesh was dissolved, and his nerves with the excess of every disease that fell upon him.” On account, doubtless, of this penitential spirit, Caimin has been likened, by an old author, to Pachomius the monk, one of the great fathers of Eastern monasticism. The monastic school of Caimin continued to flourish for many centuries after his death, and produced several distinguished scholars, whose names are still held in great veneration by the learned.

The ruined monuments still remaining at Iniscaltra, and now happily in charge of the Board of Works, sufficiently attest the ancient importance of the religious establishment on “Holy Island.” The peasantry still speak of it as the “Seven Churches,” and the island is almost invariably called ‘Holy Island,’ which shows the reverence that still clings to its ruined walls. The round tower which, in the distance, seems to rise from the waters of the lake, is a strikingly beautiful and picturesque object in the landscape. It is still 80 feet high, 46 feet in circumference, with an internal diameter of nearly 8 feet. The stones in the lower courses are very large, and the masonry of a massive character for the first seven or eight feet; after that the work becomes coarser and more irregular, and the stones are much smaller. The door-way is 10 feet 7 inches above the present level—anciently it was much more. There is a single window for each of the different lofts, looking towards the cardinal points, and lighting the different storeys. The northern window is formed of finely cut stone, and is triangular outside, but square-beaded within.

There is probably no foundation for the local tradition which ascribes the building of this tower, as well as those of Inis Clorann and Scattery Island, to St. Senanus. It is much more likely that it was built at the close of the tenth, or the beginning of the eleventh century, by Brian Boru, who also erected or repaired the great church, which had been more than once partially destroyed by the Danes. The door-way of the tower is circular-headed, and formed of very finely-chiselled blocks of stone. It was anciently secured by an iron door—the bolt hole and traces of its fastenings were visible in 1838, when O’Donovan visited the island, and one of the floors existed, in the memory of an old man then living; no traces, however, of the flooring now remain.

What is now called St. Caimin’s Church, a little to the east-north-east of the belfry or round tower, was probably a restoration by Brian Boru of the great church built by St. Caimin himself. It consists of a nave and chancel, the former 31 feet by 20; and the latter 15 by 12½ feet. The east wall of the chancel was quite gone, but has been partially restored. The masonry of the chancel is finely jointed ashlar, much superior to the coarser work of the nave. The chancel arch is the most striking and characteristic feature in this old church. It is semi-circular, formed of fine cut stone in three plain orders, rising from engaged jamb-shafts with very peculiar capitals. The arch is 10 feet 2 inches wide at the bottom, narrowing to 9 feet 11 inches at the top of the jambs. It is regarded by the best judges as a work of the time of King Brian. The west door-way has been lately restored. Its character is similar to that of the chancel—a plain impost moulding, two orders rising from engaged pilasters, with sculptured heads carved on the round at the top. There was a chevron moulding round the face of the arch. The sill is of limestone, and the entire door seems to have been an insertion in an older building. There are two windows in the south wall of the nave—one square, the other round-headed, but not specially striking; the round-headed window has a deep and finely executed splay.

A stone font, one foot and a half deep, probably for holy water, was close to the west door at Lord Dunraven’s visit, and is there still. Traces of the ancient cashel which surrounded the monastic church were also visible. There are many interesting inscribed stones and crosses lying about. The base of a cross lies sunk in the ground north-east of a piece of a wall said to have been portion of a small chapel called ‘Teampul na bh-fear ngonta,’ or the Church of the Slain Men. Here, it is said, the bodies of those slain in battle were usually buried.

The fine Church of St. Mary—Tempull Maire—is about fifty paces from St. Caimin’s Church, and is much larger; but we cannot now describe it at length. The view through the arch of the church over the lake towards the wooded hills of Tipperary is of surpassing beauty, and once seen can never be forgotten.

Several sculptured stones also have been found, and six of them still bear the names of the deceased persons over whose graves they were placed. One oblong slab with the words OR DO ARSSEI ... was partially broken, so that the full name cannot be deciphered. Another flag has a beautiful cross within a circle with the words, MOENGAL MAC LODGIN, over the arms of the cross. Another is inscribed, HILAD I DECHENBOIR—the stone tomb of ten persons. Another stone with Celtic cross of interlaced bands, asks a prayer for “Conn;” whilst three simpler flag stones, with rather plain crosses of similar formation, ask a prayer for Diarmait Macc Delbaid, for Maelpatraic, and for Laithbertach.

We can identify with much probability Diarmaid, as “Diarmaid, son of Caicher, Bishop of Inis-cealtra,” who died A.D. 951 (F.M.) The last may refer to “Laithbeartach son of Ængus, Bishop of Cluain-fearta Brenainn (Clonfert),” who died A.D. 820, probably during a pilgrimage at the Holy Island. Diarmait is the only bishop whose name is mentioned by the Four Masters in connection with Iniscaltra. They also give the names of five abbots, and one anchorite[378] of Iniscaltra. St. Caimin himself was probably only a priest. He died in A.D. 652; but we could find no trace of his tomb-stone, although he was certainly buried there. It may be that he was the saint interred in the square building outside the present wall of the churchyard and which is sometimes called the ‘Confessional.’ The churchyard is still much used for interments, and is greatly overcrowded, the coffins in some cases not being covered with more than six inches of earth.

This holy and beautiful island suffered fearfully during the ravages of the Danes. The Shannon was a highway for their ‘ships’ from Limerick to Lanesborough, and hence we find that all the churches on its shores and islands were frequently pillaged and burned by these marauders during the two centuries of their domination. It was first plundered by Turgesius about the year A.D. 836, who on the same occasion plundered all the churches of Lough Derg and set up his wife Ota, as a kind of priestess to deliver oracles on the high altar of Clonmacnoise. It was again plundered in A.D. 922 by the Danes of Limerick, who brought a fleet on Lough Derg “and plundered Inis-cealtra, and they drowned its shrines, and its relics, and its books,” and having harried both shores of the river as far as Lough Ree, they returned safely to Limerick. Yet we find it had a bishop in A.D. 951; and the comarb of Colum Mac Hy-Crimthainn in Terryglass, Killaloe, and Inis-cealtra, died A.D. 1009 (recte 1010). This is the last abbot of whom we have any record. It is evident, however, that the school and monastery still continued to flourish. Brian Boru repaired the great church about that very time, A.D. 1005-1010, and no doubt also restored the efficiency of the schools, for his biographer tells that “he sent professors and masters to teach wisdom and knowledge, and to buy books beyond the sea and the great ocean, because their own writings and books, in every church and in every sanctuary where they were, were burned and thrown into the water by the plunderers from first to last, and Brian himself gave the price of learning and the price of books to every one separately who went on this service.”[379]

We may be sure that Brian did not neglect Iniscaltra; for it was the great school of his own hereditary kingdom, and was within a few miles distance of his own palace of Kincora.

III.—Other Monastic Schools of Thomond.

There were, at least, four other great monasteries in Thomond, and two of them are mentioned as having monastic schools connected with them, that is, Birr and Roscrea. But we do not find the names of any distinguished scholars educated in these schools, and hence our account of these monasteries must be very brief.

St. Brendan of Birr, is to be carefully distinguished from his more celebrated namesake of Clonfert. He is sometimes called Brendan the Elder—Brendanus Senior—and like Brendan of Clonfert, came of the race of Fergus MacRoy, which produced more saints and heroes than, perhaps, any of the other Celtic tribes. The two Brendans were together at Clonard under St. Finnian, and both are ranked amongst the Twelve Apostles of Erin. St. Brendan of Birr was especially remarkable for the fulness of the prophetic spirit[380] which he possessed; and, according to one account, it was in obedience to his counsel that St. Columba, after the battle of Cuil-Dreimhne, resolved to leave Ireland, and preach the Gospel in Alba. It is said that on the same occasion he befriended Columcille at a Synod held near Teltown in Meath, where an attempt was made by some of the ‘saints’ to excommunicate Columba for his alleged share in bringing about that bloody conflict.