EX

a

IRELAND :: :: :: ITS
SAINTS & SCHOLARS

High Cross of Monasterboice.

RELAND ::
ITS SAINTS
AND SCHOLARS

BY J. M. FLOOD

Author of
Ireland: Its Myths and Legends"

DUBLIN :

THE TALBOT PRESS LTD.
89 TALBOT STREET

LONDON :

T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.
1 ADELPHI TERRACE

PREFACE

This book is intended as a companion work, and,
in some sense, a sequel of a small volume recently
written by me, entitled Ireland: Its Myths and
Legends. The publishers were desirous of having
the early Christian period of Irish history treated
in the same manner as the pagan period had been
treated in its forerunner, and Ireland: Its Saints
and Scholars represents the attempt to give within
a small compass a concise survey of the most
glorious epoch in the annals of our country.

The subject is a vast and an extremely important
one. A great deal of study and research has been
given to it by learned and devoted workers, and
a great amount of literary and archaBological
research still remains to be done before we can
assure ourselves that we have gained a really com-
prehensive view of Early Christian Ireland. The
size of this volume will not therefore be taken as
the author's measure of the importance of a period
of history of surpassing human interest, and the
book itself is only intended as an introduction to
the study of larger and more ambitious treatises
covering the same ground.

V.

2060594

Vi PREFACE

No useful purpose could be served by overload-
ing with references a book of this kind which is
intended for popular use. I have not, however,
spared any pains in consulting the various
authorities, Irish, English, French, and German,
who have written on this subject, and while
reference is not always made to the sources from
which information is derived, there is no statement
in the book which cannot be substantiated by
learned and thoroughly competent authorities.
Dr. Healy's ' Ireland's Ancient Schools and
Scholars' contains a mine of information, and he
treats the subject in a manner at once learned and
popular. Professor Zimmer's '' Ueber die
Bedeutung des irischen Elements fur die Mittel-
alterliche Cultur" is an important contribution
to the history of the influence of Irish thought on
the Continent from the fifth to the twelfth century.
Pere Gougaud's ' Les Chretientes Celtiques ' is,
perhaps, the ablest and most authoritative study
which has yet been published on the Early Irish
Church, a work which combines the most pains-
taking and up-to-date research with the lucidity
and clearness of presentation which is a character-
istic of French litterateurs. Miss Margaret Stokes'
' Sketch of Early Christian Art in Ireland' though
written thirty years ago, has not yet in any degree
diminished in value by the publication of subse-
quent and larger books on the subject, and the

PREFACE Vil

author's deep and unique knowledge of Irish
Archaeology will always make her work extremely
useful to students. Every modern writer on Irish
history owes much to the splendid work of Dr,
P. W. Joyce.

While I have endeavoured to be concise, I have
at the same time striven to omit nothing essential,
and I hope I have been able to give my readers
a fairly comprehensive idea of a splendid period
in our national history. I may say, in the words
of St. Columbanus, that I wished to include every-
thing, but I found it impossible to compress every-
thing within a small compass. There is much
reason to believe that, in trying to make a selection
from a great amount of material, and to combine
the net results of great learning and research into
a small volume, faults both of commission and
omission may have occurred. It is consolatory,
therefore, to reflect that the most competent
judges of such a book as this, will undoubtedly
be its kindest critics, since they who can most
easily detect any errors that may have occurred,
will also be most capable of judging its difficulty.
Any effort that has been expended in the writing
of the book has been more than rewarded by the
closer study which its preparation has entailed of
some of the greatest personalities that have lived
and worked in Ireland. Dr. Healy remarks with
truth that while we speak glibly of the Saints and

PREFACE

Scholars of the early times, we know, in general,
very little about them, and that the information
concerning them is contained in volumes not easily
accessible to the general reader. The author hopes
that the present little work may in some degree
supply this deficiency.

The greatest results may be expected from a
closer knowledge of first centuries of the Faith in
Ireland. In the words of a distinguished Irish-
man, it is no vain or retrogressive study for Ire-
land to look back and ponder well upon her old
Christian past. The lessons that can be learned
from that distant time can never be out of date,
no matter what may happen in the world, or who
may come or go in it ; for they teach eternal truths
— they are indeed the sole needs of men and
nations. Education, industry, knowledge of the
arts, the practice of justice, temperance, fortitude,
judgment and mercy. Above all, they teach the
beauty and the power of faith in God, and of the
unselfish labour for the welfare of His creatures.
"And let us remember," continues Sir William
Butler, " that these old teachers belonged entirely
to us. It was not a strange race of beings, who
thus toiled and taught, and triumphed— they were
our own glorious people. The dust of many of
them is in our midst, and the simple words in
which they asked our prayers, can still be read
upon their mouldering tombstones."

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGS

I. THE ISLAND OF SAIHTS AND SCHOLARS ... 1

II. THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK ... ... 10

III. ST. COI«UMCII,I,B ... ... ... ... 19

IV. ST. COI,UMBANUS ... ... ... ... 31

V. THE IRISH SAINTS ... ... ... ... 43

VI. THE IRISH MISSION ... ... ... 55

VII. SOME FAMOUS IRISH MISSIONARIES ... 70

VIII. THE IRISH SCHOOLS ... ... ... SO

IX. THE IRISH ^EARNING ... ... ... 90

X. EARI/V CHRISTIAN ART IN IRELAND ... 105

fat.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

High Cross of Monasterboice ... Frontispiece

Initial letter "L." "Irish Tract" Lib., Trin. Coll..

Dub 9

Tara Brooch Facing p. 10

Cross of Cong ... ... — ••• •» 10

Shrine of St. Patrick's Bell ... ... „ 10

Frontispiece of Epistle of St. Jerome. Book of

Durrow ... ... ... Facing p. 19

Capitals and Mouldings, Clonmacnois ... ... 30

Shrine of St. Culanus1 Bell ... Facing p. 31

Initial letter "S." Book of Hymns ... ... 42

Head of Celtic Pin. Clonmacnois ... ... 54

Moulding, Tuaim Greine ... ... ... ... 69

Frontispiece to St. John's Gospel... Facing p. 71

Frontispiece to St. Luke's Gospel... ... ... 79

Initial "IN." Book of Kells ... ... ... 89

Initial letter " R." Book of Kells 104

Portion of Illuminated Monogram, Book of Kells.

Facing p. 105
The West Side of the Cross at Monasterboice.

Facing p. 113
Doorway of St. Farannan's Church, Donaghmore.

Facing p. 116

Cormac's Chapel, Rock of Cashel ... ... ... US

Many of the illustrations in this
book are printed from blocks kindly
lint by the Nat. Museum, Dublin,

IRELAND :: :: ITS
SAINTS 6? SCHOLARS

CHAPTER I.

The Island of Saints and Scholars

The sixth and seventh centuries of the Christian
era must be regarded as the Golden Age of Ireland.
The story of our country during this period is one of
the most glorious epochs in the history of European
Christianity. St. Patrick had not been half a
century in his grave when the whole island was
studded with the monasteries and schools of the
new faith. The doctrines of Christianity were
received by the people with a burst of enthusiasm
which has scarcely been equalled in the history of
any nation. Learning became the handmaid of
Faith, and art and letters followed rapidly in the
train of the churches and monasteries. While
Science and Sacred Studies were almost extin-
guished on the Continent owing to the victorious
advance of the Goths and Vandals, and the
civilisation of the East became the prey of Islam,

i

2 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

Ireland was the secure abode of European culture.
Armagh, Clonard, Durrow, Bangor and Clonmac-
noise were at this time the Universities of the
West, and the great centres from which the
spiritual life was once again to be renewed in
Europe.

At this time Ireland came to be known as ' The
Island of Saints and Scholars' and the noble work
which Irishmen accomplished for religion and
learning securely vindicates her claim to this splen-
did title. The energy and enthusiasm which were
awakened throughout the country by the preach-
ing of the Gospel could not be contained within
the limits of Ireland itself. Montalembert notes
as one of the most striking characteristics of the
Irish monks their passion for pilgrimage and
preaching, and the imperious necessity which
seemed to impel them to spread themselves over
Western Europe, seeking and carrying knowledge
and faith afar, and of penetrating into the most
distant regions, to watch and combat paganism.
St. Bernard speaks of the multitude of saintly men
who descended from Ireland on the Continent like
an overflowing stream. They threw themselves
with the fiery enthusiasm of their race into the
struggle with the mass of heathenism that was
threatening the existence of the Christian world.
So splendid was their success, and so prominent
a part did they play in the re-establishment of the
faith amongst foreign nations, that, in the strik-
ing words of John Richard Green, it seemed for
a time as if the world's history was to be changed,

THE ISLAND OF SAINTS AND SCHOLARS 3

and as if Celtic, and not Latin Christianity, was to
mould the destinies of the churches of the West.
Another historian writes that from Iceland to the
Danube and the Appenines, among Frank or
Burgundian or Lombard, the Irish energy ap-
peared omnipotent and inexhaustible.*

" During the sixth and seventh centuries in
Ireland," says Dr. Dollinger, " the Church of
Ireland stood in the full beauty of its bloom. The
spirit of the Gospel operated amongst the people
with a vigorous and vivifying power; troops of
holy men from the highest to the lowest ranks of
society, obeyed the holy Gospels of Christ, and
forsook all things that they might follow Him.
There was not a country of the world during this
period, which could boast of pious foundations or
of religious communities equal to those that
adorned this far distant island. Amongst the
Irish, the doctrines of the Christian Religion were
preserved pure and entire; the names of heresy
and schism were not known to them ; and in the
Bishop of Rome they acknowledged and venerated
the Supreme Head of the Church on earth, and
continued with him, and through him with the
whole Church, in a never interrupted communion.
The schools in the Irish cloisters were at the time
the most celebrated in the West. While almost
the whole of Europe was desolated by war, peace-
ful Ireland, free from the invasion of external
foes, opened to the lovers of learning and piety
a welcome asylum. The strangers who visited
•Lane-Poole : "Studies in the History of Mediaeval Thought,"

4 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

Ireland, not only from the neighbouring shores of
Britain, but also from the remote nations of the
Continent, received from the Irish people the most
hospitable reception, a gratuitous entertainment,
free instruction, and even the books that were
necessary for their studies. Thus in the year 536,
in the time of St. Senanus, there arrived at Cork
from the Continent, fifteen monks who were led
thither by their desire to perfect themselves in the
practices of an ascetic life under Irish directors,
and to study the Sacred Scriptures in the schools
established near the city. At a later period the
Anglo-Saxons passed over to Ireland in great
numbers for the same laudable purpose. On the
other hand many holy and learned Irishmen left
their own country to proclaim the faith, to estab-
lish or to reform monasteries in distant lands,
and thus to become the benefactors of almost every
nation in Europe."

The mere summary of the names of the best
known of the Irish missionaries is sufficient to
show how great and wide was the influence which
they exercised on other nations. St. Columcille
founded the celebrated monastery of lona, which
spread the knowledge of the Gospel amongst the
Picts of the Scotch mainland. At the time of his
death forty-one missions had been established,
twenty-five amongst the Scots, and eighteen in the
country of the Picts. His monks went to all the
islands of the west coast of Scotland, and there
is scarcely one of these islands that does not
acknowledge an Irishman as the founder of its

THE ISLAND OF SAINTS AND SCHOLARS 5

church. Cormac, a disciple of St. Columcille,
visited the Orkneys, and there were settlements of
the Irish monks on the Faroe and Shetland Islands.
Further north they went to Iceland, and when
the Northmen first discovered that island they
found there books and other traces of the early
Irish Church. Aidan, a monk from lona, founded
the great monastery of Lindisfarne and spread
Christianity through the kingdom of Northumber-
land and the North of England. Finnian and
Colman, his successors, carried on the work begun
by Aidan and brought the faith to Mercia and East
Anglia. St. Columbanus went through France,
founding monasteries at Luxeuil, Fontaines and
Annegrai; then passing through Switzerland, he
crossed the Alps to build the famous Abbey of
Bobbio in Lombardy. Jonas, his contemporary
and biographer, tells us that from Luxeuil alone
over six hundred missionaries went to Bavaria.
St. Gall, one of the companions of St. Columbanus,
laboured in Switzerland, and established a
monastery near the lake of Constance on the site
of the town that still bears his name. St. Killian
became the Apostle of Franconia and Thuringia,
and St. Colman is the Patron Saint of Lower
Austria. St. Fridolin, the first Bishop of Alsace,
worked at Glarus where his figure still finds place
on the cantonal arms and banner. St. Frigidian
who converted the Lombards and became Bishop
of Lucca, and St. Donatus, the first Bishop of
Fiesole, were both Irishmen. In Southern Italy
St. Cathaldus of Lismore became the Bishop and

6 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

Patron Saint of Tarentum. Marianus Scotus, on
his pilgrimage to Rome, stopped at Regensburg
on the Danube and founded a monastery, out of
which there grew twelve Irish convents in Ger-
many and Austria. The Irish missionaries did not
confine themselves to Europe, for we find one of
them named Augustine residing at Carthage, and
writing a treatise on the Sacred Scriptures, while
at the same time two of his countrymen Baetan
and Mainchine taught in the same city.

As the sixth and seventh centuries were the
great period of the Irish Saints and Missionaries,
so in the eighth and ninth centuries the Scholars
from Ireland became famous throughout the West
of Europe. In the ninth century Irishmen were
to be found in every cathedral and monastery of
the empire, and were so identified with the
new intellectual movement which was then
taking place that the teaching of the scholars
was called the Irish learning. They went in great
numbers to France, and a distinguished French
savant writes that in the time of Charlemagne
nearly all the learned men of the empire were of
Irish origin. t Their name is inseparably associated
with the foundation of the Carolovingian Schools,
an event of the greatest importance in the history
of civilisation, since it marked the commencement
of the attempt to recover for Europe all that it had
lost by the inroads of the Goths and Vandals. A

tScaliger le Jeune: " Du temps de Charlemagne 'cranes
fart docti' etaient dlrelande."

THE ISLAND OF SAINTS AND SCHOLARS 7

great French writer! has described the letter which
Charlemagne sent to his mayors, recommending
them to found schools, as the Charter of Modern
Thought. It marked the beginning of an intel.
lectual renaissance in Europe in no way inferior
in importance to the humanistic movement of the
fifteenth century. Although Tiraboschi in his
' History of Italian Literature' claims the honour
of the Carolovingian revival for Italy, the greatest
part of the credit is, as Renan points out, due to
Irish scholars. It was Italy, indeed, that inspired
Charlemagne with the idea of founding schools,
but it was Ireland that sent him masters to impart
the new learning. Charlemagne and Charles the
Bald have given the name Carolovingian to this
period of revival of letters, but the revival itself
had commenced before their time by the emigra-
tion to France of learned Irishmen, whom Renan
calls " les colonisateurs scientifiques de 1'Europe
Occidentale."

The annals of the period fully justify the claim
which Renan makes for the Irish scholars. In
the chronicles of the reign of Charlemagne there
is mention made of how two of these learned Scots
were brought before the Emperor. They had
arrived at the coast of Gaul in company with
British merchants, and were "men learned beyond
compare as well in secular as in sacred writings."
They had none of the ordinary objects of mer-
chandise for sale, .but kept crying to the crowd
who came to buy, " If any man is desirous of

JEenan: " Sur 1'etude de la langue Qrecque au Moyen age."
ID 355) U

8 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

wisdom let him come to us and receive it, for we
have it to sell."* Eric of Auxerre writing in the
middle of the ninth century a dedication to
Charles the Bald of a poem on St. Germanus of
Auxerre, testifies to the nationality of the majority
of the men of learning then in France. " What
need is there," he writes, " to speak of Ireland,
which sets at naught the peril of the sea, and
migrates almost in one body to our shores, with
its crowds of philosophers who voluntarily subject
themselves to exile." At one and the same time
we find John Scotus Erigena lecturing at the Royal
School at Paris, Sedulius Scotus and Findan teach-
ing at Liege and Bheinau, and the Irish Abbot
Moengal, who was famed alike for his know-
ledge of theology and secular science, presid-
ing over the great monastery of St. Gall at a
period when it was one of the foremost schools in
Europe. Clemens, an Irishman, was tutor to
the future Emperor Lothaire and continued his
labours at the court seminary after Charlemagne's
death. His reputation was so great that the Abbot
of Fulda sent some of his best pupils from the
monastery to study grammar under the Irish
monk, and he is known in the court records as
Instructor of the Imperial Court. Dungal, another
Irishman, gained fame as a theologian, an
astronomer and a poet. " Dungal, John Scotus,
Clemens, Sedulius and Moengal," writes Zimmer,
" are representatives of a higher culture than was
to be found in the Continent of their day; to a

•Qesta Carolomanni I.I. Pertz 2—731;

THE ISLAND OF SAINTS AND SCHOLARS 9

purely Christian training, and a severely simple
habit of rnind, they joined the highest theoretical
attainments, based upon a thorough knowledge of
the best standards of classical antiquity. These
Irishmen had a high mission entrusted to them,
and they faithfully accomplished their task."t

tZimmer : " The Irish Element in Medieval Culture."

Initial letter "L."
"Irish Tract" Lib.. Trin. Coll., Dub.

CHAPTER II.

The Coming of St. Patrick

Towards the end of the fourth, and at the begin-
ning of the fifth century, King Niall of the Nine
Hostages went on successive expeditions against
the peoples of Gaul and Britain. Amongst the
captives brought back from one of these foreign
raids was Succoth, a lad of sixteen, the son of
a Decurion Calpurnius, and his wife Conchessa,
who was a relative of the great St. Martin of
Tours. The boy Succoth, afterwards called
Patricius, probably in allusion to his noble birth,
was sold as a slave in Ireland, and employed by
his master Milcho to tend his cattle on the slopes
of Slieve Mish in Antrim. In the sadness of his
captivity in a strange land, and whilst he ate the
salt bread of servitude a profound spiritual change
came over his mind, and his thoughts turned to
the Christian teaching of his childhood. " I was
not," he tells us himself, " from my childhood
a believer in God, but continued in death and
unbelief until I was severely chastened: and in
truth I have been humbled by hunger and naked-
ness, and it was my lot to traverse Ireland every
day sore against my will, until I was almost
10

Tara Brooch (Hack). Tara Brooch (Front).

Cross of Cong.
Shrine of St. Patrick's Bell (End). Shrine of St. Patrick's Bell (Front)

From photographs kindly supplied by the National Museum,

THE COMING OP ST. PATRICK 11

exhausted. But this proved rather a benefit to
me, because by means of it I have been corrected
by the Lord, and He has fitted me for being at this
day what was once far from me, so that I should
interest or concern myself about the salvation of
others, when I used to have no such thoughts even
for myself."

He tells us further in his ' Confession' that he
was employed every day in feeding cattle, and
that frequently in the day he used to have recourse
to prayer, and that the love of God was thus
growing stronger and stronger, and His fear and
faith were increasing in him, so that in a single
day he would give utterance to as many as an
hundred prayers, and in the night almost as many.
He used to remain in the woods and on the moun-
tains and would rise for prayer before daylight,
in the midst of snow and ice and rain, feeling no
injury, nor was there any sloth in him, because the
Spirit within was fervent. After six years' cap-
tivity Patrick escaped from Ireland to France and
made his way to Tours, where he stayed for four
years receiving instructions from St. Martin. Then
he spent about fourteen years with St. Germanus of
Auxerre, who sent him to Pope Celestine to receive
the episcopacy. The Saint's thoughts often turned
towards the people amongst whom he had spent
the years of his captivity, and he was finally
induced to undertake the conversion of Ireland by
a vision. " I saw in the visions of the night
a person coming from Ireland with innumerable
letters, and he gave me one of them, and I read

12 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS .AND SCHOLARS

in the beginning of the letter ' The voice of the
people of Ireland/ and I thought at that very
moment that I heard the voice of those who were
near the wood of Focluth, which is adjoining to
the Western Sea, and they cried out, as it were
with one voice, ' We entreat thee, holy youth, to
come and walk still amongst us,' and I was very
much pricked to the heart, and could read no
further, and so I awoke. Thanks be to God the
Lord who, after very many years, had granted to
them according to their cry."

St. Patrick received authority from Pope
Celestine to undertake the Irish mission, and com-
menced his apostolate in the year 432, when
Laery was Ard Righ of Ireland. He landed
in the Co. Meath, a little south of Drogheda. He
was received hospitably by a chieftain of the dis-
trict, who, on hearing from him an explanation
of the Christian Faith, became a convert with his
wife and family. Shortly afterwards, the Saint
one day weary from fatigue lay down to rest, and
the chieftain's son, a fair-haired boy of gentle
bearing, strewed flowers round the head of the
Saint, and then sat at his feet. The companions
of St. Patrick rebuked the lad for thus disturbing
the bishop's rest, but the Saint, waking from his
slumber, corrected th'em, saying: " Leave him so,
he shall be the heir of my kingdom." Afterwards
the boy, whom St. Patrick named Benignus on
account of his gentle and kindly nature, succeeded
the Saint as Bishop of Armagh.

Following the course of the Boyne St. Patrick

THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK 13

arrived at the Hill of Slaiie on Easter eve, and
lighted his paschal fire at nightfall in preparation
for the festival. The Ard High was holding
a great pagan celebration on the neighbouring Hill
of Tara at the same time, and the law forbade any
other fire to be lit throughout the kingdom before
the great fire should be kindled on Tara. St.
Patrick's fire was seen by the King and his fol-
lowers, and Laery asked who had thus dared to
disobey the ancient law. His Druids warned him
that unless the fire were immediately extinguished,
it would never be put out in Erin, and Laery set
out with a large force to Slane. He summoned
the Saint to appear before him, and ordered that
no one should show him respect by rising to receive
him. Ere, one of the King's followers, disobeyed
his order, saluted St. Patrick with respect,
and became a believer. Laery listened to the
Saint's explanation of the Easter celebration, and
then desiring to hear him speak further regarding
the Christian faith, told him to appear before him
at Tara on the following day.

On Easter Sunday St. Patrick went to Tara with
his companions to receive audience from the King
in his Hall of Justice. As they went along he
chanted the beautiful hymn, which has become
known as the ' Breastplate of St. Patrick,' in order
to protect himself and his followers from the
dangers by which they were encompassed. When
he entered the King's presence Dubtach, the chief
poet, rose to do him reverence, and afterwards
became a zealous Christian. St. Patrick preached

14 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

on the fundamental truths of Christianity to
Laery and his court, and answered all the objec-
tions of the Druids. The wife and daughters of
the King, and his brother Criffan became
Christians, and Laery, although he remained
a pagan, gave the Saint permission to preach and
make converts throughout his kingdom. St.
Patrick spent some time at Tara, and then went to
Taillten, where the great annual games were
being held. There he made many converts
amongst the clans who were assembled to celebrate
the festival of Lugh of the Long Arm. Leaving
some of his companions to carry on the mission in
Meath, the Saint himself went westward, passing
through Granard and Cavan. At Magh Slecht,
or the ' Plain of Adoration' in Cavan, he found the
people worshipping the idol Crom Cruach and
twelve lesser idols which surrounded it. St.
Patrick had these idols of the Druidical rite
destroyed, and founded a church near the place.
Passing over the Shannon he directed his course
to Eathcroghan, the residence of the Kings of
Connacht.

When the Saint and his attendants assembled
at early morning at Clebach, a well on the east
side of Eathcroghan, they found there Ethnea and
Felimia, two daughters of King Laery, who were
in fosterage in Connacht. The story of their con-
version is told in the Book of Armagh. The sisters
at first thought that St. Patrick and his white-
robed companions were Duine Sidhe or fairies, and
inquired who they were, and from whence they

THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK 15

had come. St. Patrick told them that it were
better for them to confess to the true God than to
inquire concerning the race and the country of
himself and his followers. Then the maidens
questioned him concerning God, asking who was
He, and where He dwelt, in heaven, or earth, in
the sea, or the rivers, in the mountains or valleys ?
Was He ever-living and beautiful? Did many
foster His son, and were His daughters dear and
beauteous to men of the earth? How was He to
be seen and loved, and was it in youth or old age
that He was to be found ? St. Patrick told them
that the God of whom he was come to preach to
them was the God of all men, the God of heaven
and earth, of the seas and rivers, of the sun, moon,
and all stars, of the high mountains and lowly
valleys. He was the God who was above heaven,
and in heaven, and under heaven. He had a
habitation in heaven, in the sea, and all that were
therein. He inspired all things, quickened all
things, was over all things, sustained all things,
gave the light to the sun, made springs in a dry
ground, and islands in the sea. He had a Son
co-eternal and co-equal with Himself. The Son
was not younger than the Father, nor was the
Father older than the Son, and the Holy Ghost
breathed in them. The Father and the Son and
the Holy Ghost were not divided. The Saint also
told them that he desired to unite them to the
Heavenly King, and the maidens asked him that he
would teach them diligently how they might
believe in Him and how they might see Him face

16 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

to face. St. Patrick asked1 them did they believe that
by baptism they put off the sin of their father and
mother; did they believe in repentance after sin,
in life after death, in the Eesurrection at the Day
of Judgment, and in the unity of the Church ?
The two sisters professed their belief in all these,
and the Saint baptized them, and put a white gar-
ment on their heads. Then they asked him that
they might see the face of Christ, and St. Patrick
replied that they could not see the face of Christ
except they received the sacrifice and tasted of
death. They begged that they might receive the
sacrifice and behold the Son, their spouse. They
received the Eucharist of God from the hands of
the Saint, and slept in death. "And they were
laid out on one bed, covered with garments ; and
(their friends) made great lamentation and weep-
ing for them."

From Rathcroghan, St. Patrick went to Mayo,
and spent the forty days of Lent on the summit of
Croagh Patrick in fasting and prayer. In
Tyrawley he baptised the seven sons of Awley,
brother of King Dathi, and a great number of their
followers. He spent seven years in Connacht, and
then went through the midlands of Ireland towards
Munster. At Cashel the royal residence of the
Munster Kings he was met by Aengus, King of
the Province, with his brehons and chieftains.
Aengus and his followers embraced Christianity.
While St. Patrick was baptizing Aengus, the
pastoral staff which he held, and which terminated
in a spike, pierced the King's sandalled foot.

TSE COMING OF ST. PATRICK 1?

Aengus, imagining that the pain which he bore
was part of the rite, submitted patiently to the
wound which the saint, unwittingly, inflicted.
Then St. Patrick went to the south-west, and great
numbers of the people from Corca Baiscin crossed
the Shannon in their curraghs, and were baptized
in the waters of the river. In compliance with
their request St. Patrick ascended a hill near
Foynes, since known as Cnoc Patrick, and blessed
the land of Thomond.

St. Patrick is said to have founded the See of
Armagh in the year 453. Daire, a chieftain of
Ulster, gave him the site for the church, and it
was to Armagh that, when the Saint felt his end
approaching, he went to die. He set out from
Saul towards Armagh, and tradition has it that he
was commanded by an angel to return to Saul. He
died and was buried at Downpatrick about the
year 493.

Judged by what he accomplished, St. Patrick
must be ranked amongst the greatest of the
missionaries who spread the Christian Faith be-
yond the limits of the Roman Empire. He
organised the Christianity which existed in Ire-
land before the date of his arrival, converted king-
doms which were still pagan, and made Ireland
a part of universal Christendom. He had a strong
personality, great powers of initiative, a splendid
enthusiasm for his great mission, and he showed
himself wise and politic by the manner in which
he dealt with the kings and chieftains, effecting
a great revolution in the life and habits of the

18 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

people with little bitterness and no sacrifice of
human life. While he did not introduce
Christianity into Ireland, he secured the per-
manence of the faith in the country, and made it
a living force which could never be extinguished.
Like the great Apostle of the Gentiles he refused
to take any personal credit for the success of his
efforts, and attributed the results he had attained
to the purpose of the Creator, and the working of
Divine Grace. " I protest in truth," he writes,
" and can rejoice in the thought before God and
His holy angels, that I never had any motive save
the Gospel and its promises, for ever returning to
that people from among whom I had escaped. And
I beg all that believe in God and seek and fear
Him, whoever of them may be pleased to examine
or read this letter, which I, Patrick — poor sinful
and ignorant creature as I am — have written in
Ireland, that no one will ever say that my ignor-
ance is to have the credit of it, if I have effected or
performed any little matter according to the pur
pose of God ; but believe and be assured for certain
that it was God Who has done it. And this is rny
confession before I die."

Frontispiece of Epistle of St. Jerome.

Book of Burrow.
Illuminated by St. Columcille.

CHAPTER III.

St. Columcille

In the whole range of Irish biography there is
not a nobler or more attractive figure than that of
St. Columcille. Dowered with many gifts, he has
gained fame as a poet, statesman, scholar, patriot
and missionary. We are fortunate in possessing
the record of his life which was written by one of
his own monks, St. Adamnan ; a work which has
been described as one of the most complete pieces
of such biography that all Europe can boast of,
not only at so early a period but throughout the
whole of the Middle Ages — one of the most living,
most attractive and most authentic monuments of
Christian history. In the vivid portrait which
Adamnan has drawn of the first Abbot of lona,
we can still feel the singular beauty and charm of
the great Irish Saint who takes rank amongst the
most splendid types of Christianity. "Angelic in
appearance, graceful in speech, holy in work, with
talents of the highest order and consummate
prudence, he lived during thirty-four years an
island-soldier. He could not spend the space of
even one hour without study or prayer, writing or
some other holy occupation. So incessantly was

19

20 IRELAND: ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

he engaged night and day in the unwearied exer-
cise of fasting and watching, that the burden of
each of these austerities would seem beyond the
power of all human endurance. And still in all
these, he was beloved by all ; for the holy joy eve*-
beaming from his face revealed the joy and glad-
ness with which the Holy Spirit filled his inmost
soul."

St. Columcille was born at Gartan, Co. Donegal,
on December 7th, 521. His father Phelim, a
chieftain of the O'Donnell Clan, was the great
grandson of King Niall of the Nine Hostages, and
his mother Eithne was a descendant of the Kings
of Leinster, so that by both parents he was of royal
lineage. After his birth, in accordance with the
custom of the times, he was placed in fosterage
with an aged priest Cruitnechan, and under his
care the boy's mind became imbued with a deep
religious feeling. According to the * Leabhar
Breac' he derived his name Columcille or ' Dove
of the Church' from his gentle affectionate man-
ners, and because he was so often met by his com-
panions coming forth from prayer in the Church
of Tullydouglas near his birthplace. When he
passed from under the care of Cruitnechan, St.
Columcille became a pupil of the Ecclesiastical
School founded by St. Finnian at Moville, Co.
Down, where he was ordained deacon. He then
studied for a time under Gemman, an aged bard of
Leinster, and acquired from him the love of poetry
which was one of his most distinguishing and
beautiful characteristics JFrom Gemman, he

ST. COLtJMCILLE 21

went to the famous monastic school founded by St.
Finnian at Clonard, near the Boyne. Here he had
as his companions the eleven great Saints who
with himself were afterwards known as the
* Twelve Apostles of Erin.' Columcille was
ordained priest, while at Clonard, by Bishop
Etchen of Clonfad, and after his ordination he
went with three of his companions Comgall Kiaran
and Kairrech to complete his sacred studies in the
school of St. Mobhi at Glasnevin.

When St. Columcille went forth on his mis-
sionary work he founded his first church on a high
ridge over Lough Foyle, which was covered with
a great oak from which it was called ' Daire' or
the ' Oak Wood,' and which was known for nearly
a thousand years afterwards as Daire Columcille.
The church was situated on the site of the present
city of Londonderry. At the date when he founded
the church 545, the Saint was twenty-four years
of age, and during the seven years which followed
he went through Ireland establishing many
churches and monastic societies, of which the most
famous were Durrow, Arran, Boyle, Swords,
Raphoe, Kells, Tory Island and Drumcliff. His
greatest work, however, was to be done outside of
Ireland amongst the Picts of Scotland, who lived
Aorth of the Grampian Mountains. Tradition has
it that the event which led to his exile was the
great battle of Culdreimhne which was fought six
miles north of Sligo between Diarrnait King of
Ireland, and Columcille's kinsmen, the Clan Niall.
The Clan Niall felt aggrieved because Diarmait

22 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

had slain one of their clansmen, the young Prince
Curnan, who had taken sanctuary with him at
Tara, and on accoount of a decision pronounced by
Diarmait on the question of the ownership of a book.
St. Columcille had made a copy of a beautiful
book of the Psalms that was kept by St. Finnian
at Clonard. When St. Finnian discovered this he
demanded the copy as his right. The book had
cost Columcille much pain and trouble, and he
refused to surrender it. The disputants referred
the matter to King Diarmait, and he decided in
favour of St. Finnian on the principle that " to
every cow belongeth her calf." Columcille pro-
tested against Diarmait's judgment, and went back
to his kinsmen who took up arms in his cause.
King Diarmait was utterly defeated at the battle
of Culdreimhne. After the battle Laisren, Colum-
cille's confessor, told him that as penance for the
deaths of the many warriors who were slain in the
battle he must leave Ireland, and win as many
souls for Christ as there had been lives lost.

This is the traditional account of the cause of
Columcille's exile, but it is to be noted that the
Old Irish Life does not ascribe his journey to Scot-
land to the circumstances arising out of the quarrel
ivlth King Diarmait, but merely states that:—
' When Columcille had made the circuit of all
Erin, and when he had sown faith and religion;
when numerous multitudes had been baptised by
him ; when he had founded churches and establish-
ments, and had left in them seniors, and reli-
quaries, and relics of martyrs, the determination

ST. COLUMCILLE 23

that he had formed from the beginning of his life
came into his mind — namely, to go on pilgrimage.
He then meditated going across the sea to preach
the word of God to the men of Alba and to the
Britons and the Saxons. He went therefore on
a voyage. His age was forty-two when he went.
He was thirty-four years in Alba. And the num-
ber that went with him was, twenty bishops, forty
priests, thirty deacons, and fifty students. He
went in good spirits until he reached the place the
name of which to-day is Hii-Coluim-Cille
(lona)." It is also to be noted that neither Bede
nor Adamnan make any reference to the quarrel
between the Saints, so that the popular version of
the cause of St. Columcille's exile is a story of
a very doubtful character.

St. Columcille and his companions landed at
lona in 563 at the little bay of Port-na-Churraich,
the ' Bay of the Coracle,' on the southern shore of
the island. Above the bay on a hill is the cairn,
that has been known since his time as the ' Carn-
cul-ri-Erin,' * The Cairn of the Back turned to
Ireland,' which marks the spot where the exile
found that Ireland was no longer in sight, and
where he could work and pray without being
tempted to return to his own dearly -loved country.
The story of his voyage tells that he landed first at
Oronsay, but when he found that Ireland was visible
from one of the hills on the island, he went onward
to lona for he could not endure to live away from
Erin, and yet within sight of his Fatherland. He
established his church oil the eastern slope of the

(o 355) C

24 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

island, and here trained his followers and disciples
to become the Soldiers of Christ. His monks were
taught by him to observe Obedience, Celibacy,
Caution and Reason in Speech, Humility, Hospi-
tality, and Kindness to Animals. The two years
after his landing were spent in establishing his
community, and in preparation for his mission to
the neighbouring islands and the mainland of
Scotland. He set out in the year 565 on a long
journey through ' The Great Glen of Alba,' the
series of lakes and glens that are now united by
the Caledonian Canal, in order to preach the gospel
to the Northern Picts.

" It was a daring adventure," writes Mr. Mor-
rison in his Life of Columba, " full of hazard,
thus to pierce into the heart of Pictland. It called
for undaunted courage and resource, and unwaver-
ing trust in the leader. Yet how few of the
travellers who pass through that glen to-day with
its deep lochs and its dark and solemn forests, and
all its mystery of light and shadow, know anything
of the little band of heroes who threaded it many
centuries ago ?" Brude, King of the Picts, barred
his gates against the mission, and his Druids and
their followers opposed it in every way. Coltirn-
cille and his followers triumphed over all natural
and human obstacles, and the handful of un-
daunted men bore the standard of the Cross into
the country where the legions of Caesar had failed
to subdue the inhabitants. The devoted little
company of Irishmen worked incessantly and in-
defatigably for many years amongst the Picts of

ST. COLUMCILLE 25

the mainland, and throughout the islands on the
west coast. They founded their churches and
schools everywhere, and instructed the people in
the faith, baptising and preaching. The gospel
was brought to the Orkneys, Shetlands, the
Hebrides and the Faroes. Even within the life-
time of its founder lona sent forth missionaries to
Northumbria, the Isle of Man, and South Britain.
St. Columcille returned to Ireland in the year
575 to attend the great Convention of Drumceatt,
near Limavady. He was attended, as an old poem
tells us, by forty priests, twenty bishops of noble
worth, thirty deacons and fifty youths. He had
two important objects in being present at the Con-
vention. He desired to secure that Dalriada, an
Irish colony in Scotland, should be freed from an
annual tribute, which was paid to the Mother
Country, and also that the bards of Ireland, who
were under sentence of banishment on account of
their burdensomeness, should not be sent from the
country. In both objects, owing to his great
personal influence and power over men, he was
successful. The colony of Dalriada was freed
from all tribute to the supreme King of Ireland,
on condition that its inhabitants should join in
expeditions or ' hostings' organised in Ireland, and
that the Mother Country and her colony should
mutually assist one another against the Saxons,
Danes or Norsemen. The sentence of banishment
on the bards was revoked on condition that they
should lessen their claims to refection and main-
tenance at the hands of the people, and that they

26 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

should curtail the retinues of their followers.
Dalian Forgaill, the chief of the bards, expressed
the thanks of the brotherhood to Columcille by
composing a poem in his honour * Amhra Colum-
cille'—4 The Praises of Columcille.' Dalian tells
us in the poem that the twelve hundred poets who
were at the Convention composed a song of praise
for their preserver, and that they sang it with
music and chorus, ' and a surpassing music it was.'
But Columcille forbade his praise to be further
produced or published, adding that no one should
be praised in a life that might end badly, and that
he alone who had run well and ended his race
successfully should be praised after death.

Adamnan, Columcille's biographer, gives many
particulars of the life of the great Abbot and Saint
of lona. He would often bathe the feet of the
brethren after their daily labour, and used to
carry the bags of flour from the mill to the kitchen.
He practised great austerities, sleeping on a hide
spread on the ground, with a stone for pillow, and
was most strict and constant in fasting, prayer,
and meditation. Much of his time was spent in
writing, and the transcription of the Scriptures
and the Psalter. In the Old Irish Life of the
Saint it is stated that he transcribed 'three hundred
splendid, lasting books.' He was himself, too,
a gifted poet, and in all probability a member of
the Order of the Bards. We have three beautiful
Latin hymns attributed to him, the ' Altus
Prosator, ' In te Christe' and ' Noli Pater,' and he
composed many poems in his own native Irish

ST. COLUMCILLE 27

tongue, of which some still survive. His reputa-
tion for sanctity spread far abroad, and in the
words of Adamnan : " Though he lived in this
small and remote island of the British Sea, his
name not only became illustrious throughout the
whole of our own Ireland and Britain, but reached
even to triangular Spain and Gaul and Italy, and
also to the city of Rome itself, the head of all
cities." Men who came into contact with him
were charmed alike with his wisdom and his
humility. " There was not born of the Gaedhil,"
says the old biographer, " a being more illustrious,
more wise, or of better family than Columcille.
There came not of them any person who was more
modest, more humble, or more lowly."

The story of his death as told by Adamnan is
one of the most affecting passages in Christian
biography. On the last day of his life he went
to a little hill near the monastery that overlooked
the whole island, and gazing around him for the
last time, he blessed the island and its inhabitants.
Then he told Dermot, one of his monks who was
with him, of his approaching death. " This day,"
he said, " is in the sacred volume called the
' Sabbath,' which is interpreted, ' Best/ and to-
day is truly a Sabbath for me, because it is the last
day with me of this present toilsome life, upon
which after all my toils and sorrows, I come to
enjoy my Sabbath; and at the approaching hour
of midnight, as the hallowed day of the Lord
begins, I shall, as the Scripture saith, be going the
way of my fathers. For now my Lord Jesus

28 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

vouchsafes to invite me to Himself, and when this
midnight, as I say, comes, I shall go at His own
bidding to be with Him."

As he was returning to the monastery he sat
down by the roadside, wearied by age and his
exertions. Whilst he sat here an old white horse
that was used for carrying the milk pails to the
monastery, laid his head on the Saint's breast and
began to whinny and to drop great tears. When
the attendant saw this, he came up to drive the
horse away, but the Saint forbade him, saying,
" Let him alone, for he loves me. Whilst thou,
a man possessing a rational soul, couldst in no wise
know anything about my departure hence, this
brute beast, devoid of reason, has been shown in
some way by the Creator Himself that his master
is about to depart from him." And saying this,
he blessed his servant, the horse, as it sadly turned
to go away. Then returning to the monastery,
he sat in his cell transcribing the Psalter until he
came to the verse of the thirty-third Psalm which
reads: — " But they that seek the Lord shall not
want any good thing." " Here," he said, laying
down his pen, " I must stop, and what follows let
Baithene (his cousin and disciple) write." After
attending vespers in the church he returned to his
cell, and sat up during the night on his pallet,
a bare fock, exhorting the Brothers to preserve
mutual and unfeigned charity and peace amongst
themselves. When the bell began to toll for
prayer at midnight he went to the church, which
he reached before any of the other monks, followed

ST. COLUMCILLE 29

by his attendant Deruiot, and fell on his bended
knees before the altar in prayer. Dermot was
unable to see St. Colunicille in the dark church,
and called out, " Where art thou, Father ?" Then
groping his way in the darkness he found the
Saint lying before the altar, and raising him up
a little he placed the holy head on his bosom. The
little community of monks now began to assemble
with lights in the church, and all wept when they
beheld their dying father. The Saint opened his
eyes and looked around him with great cheerful
ness and joy of countenance. Dermot lifted up
his right hand that he might bless the choir of
monks, but the venerable father himself at the
same time moved his hand as much as he was able,
so that though he could not speak, he might give
his last blessing to the Brotherhood. And thus
signifying his holy benediction, the Saint breathed
forth his spirit. The author of the Old Life says
that in three places is the full habitation of St.
Columcille, lona, Derry, and Down. To lona he
gave his ' stainless grace,' to Derry, his soul,5 and
to Down, where he was buried, his body.

The great name of St. Colunicille is held dear
by the descendants of the Scots both in Erin and
in Alba. The people of the Hebrides invoke his
aid to this day in their annual Shealing Hymn,
and the stone flag on which he was born at Gartan
is worn bare by the hands and feet of pious pil-
grims. Yet he has his full habitation throughout
even a wider area, and even in his own time
Adamnan could write that: — "Though he lived

30 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

in this small and remote island of the British sea,
his name has not only become illustrious through-
out the whole of our own Ireland and Britain, but
has reached even to triangular Spain, and to Gaul,
and to Italy which lies beyond the Pennine Alps,
and also to the city of Rome itself, the head of all
cities." " His large statesmanship," writes Mrs.
Greene, " his lofty genius,' the passionate and
poetic temperament that filled men with awe and
reverence, the splendid voice and stately figure
that seemed almost miraculous gifts, the power of
inspiring love that brought dying men to see his
face once more before they fell at his feet in death,
give surpassing dignity and beauty to his life."

Capitals and Mouldings, Clonmacnoia.

Shrine of St. Culanus' Bell.
Art work of eleventh century.

CHAPTER IV.

St. Columbanus

The great St. Columbanus is the most strik-
ing figure of his age, and one of the most
remarkable men in the long catalogue of the
Saints. He has been described as being in many
respects the greatest, bravest, the most thoroughly
national, and the most representative of all the
warriors of the cross that went forth from Ireland.
There is no character lay or religious in our
history who represents so well in temperament the
' perfervidum ingeniuin Scotorum' — the lightning
genius of the Gael. "A stern ascetic aflame with
religious passion, a finished scholar bringing from
Ireland a knowledge of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, of
rhetoric, geometry and poetry, and a fine taste,
Columbanus battled for twenty years with the vice
and ignorance of half -pagan Burgundy. Scornful
of ease, indifferent to danger, astonished with the
apathy of Italy as compared with the zeal of Ire-
land, he argued and denounced with ' the freedom
of speech which accords with the custom of my
country.' ' Owing to his splendid character
and achievement he is entitled to be considered as

•Mrs. A. 8. Greene. " Irish Nationality," p. 49.
SI

32 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

the outstanding personality in the history of
Europe of his own time, and it is not too much
to say that a more remarkable man never went
forth to preach the Gospel of Christ. In his fiery
zeal for the faith, and his strong detestation of the
vice and brutality of the people amidst whom he
laboured, he recalls to mind the stern prophets of
the Old Testament. The danger in which he stood
from his fiery denunciation of the vicious lives of
kings and nobles and the apathy of French church-
men never deterred him from his task.' A great
French historian tells us that he preached the
reformation of morals and devotion to the faith
with perfect heedlessness of all other considera-
tions and all external circumstances, sometimes
embroiling himself with princes and bishops,
throwing the divine fire on all sides, and uncon-
cerned as to the conflagration which he caused.

St. Columbanus was born about the year 543 in
West Leinster. He was educated under the care
of St. Sin ell at a monastic school at Cleenish in
Lough Erne, and afterwards studied at the great
school of Bangor under St. Comgall. When he
became fully trained for his career as a missionary,
Columbanus set forth from Ireland to the Con-
tinent, bringing twelve monks of Bangor as his
companions. Saint Atalas, who succeeded him at
Bobbio, St. Gall, who founded the monastery of
St. Gall on the shore of Lake Constance, Lua,
founder of a monastery in Neustria, Waldolen,
head of the monastery of Luxeuil, were included
in the small company. After staying for a time

ST. COLUMBANUS 33

in Britain to visit certain of the monasteries which
liad already been founded by Irishmen there,
Columbanus and his companions went to Gaul.

The date of the arrival of St. Columbanus in
Gaul is fixed by most writers as 575, and he found
there a state of affairs which might have daunted
a missionary less courageous and resolute than
himself. The country had reached a compara-
tively high degree of civilisation as a colony of the
Roman Empire in the first centuries of the
Christian era, but this civilisation was utterly
destroyed when the Vandals, Huns, and Franks
became the masters of the West of Europe. In
the words of a celebrated historian, " the scene of
peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a
desert, and the prospect of smoking ruins could
alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the
work of man." The Franks, after a time,
embraced Christianity, but, though nominally
Christians, they still retained the worst vices of
barbarity and paganism. Even after their con-
version they remained as vicious and as brutal as
before, and the people over whom they ruled were
reduced to ignorance and savagery. The native
bishops and priests were altogether unable to make
head against the vices of the northern invaders,
and religion and learning came to be almost
entirely neglected.

Such was the state of Gaul, when Columbanus
and his few companions went through it preach-
ing and teaching. His fiery and enthusiastic
nature made his words to the people eloquent and

34 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

impressive, and everywhere he went he made
sincere and earnest converts. His splendid corn1-/
age and intense zeal for the salvation of souls
made an irresistible appeal to the hearts of the
people, and witnessed to the strength of the faith
which impelled him to take great risks and endure
great sacrifices. Passing through Gaul, he came
to the court of Gontran, King of Burgundy.
Gontran received Columbanus and his fellow
missionaries kindly, and established them at Anne-
grai, where they founded their first monastery,
which was to be the parent of many religious
houses on the Continent. Columbanus drew
up for the guidance of his monks a series of rules
which were stricter and more severe than those
regulating the life of any monastic community
in Europe, with the exception of the monasteries
of Ireland, from which he derived the customs and
practices that were to be observed by his followers.
He realised that if he was to be successful in com-
batting the sin and ignorance of a country which
was pagan at heart, he must use the sternest dis-
cipline amongst the men who were to serve as his
instruments. His monks had to employ every
moment of the day, and the intervals between the
united prayer of the community were devoted to
copying manuscripts, writing, teaching in schools
or labour in the fields. They were only to cease
from work when overpowered by sleep, and had to
commence their tasks again after insufficient rest.
In commenting on the sternness of this rule estab-
lished by Columbanus, Montalernbert rightly

ST. COLUMBANUS 35

observes that it was only at the price of excessive
and perpetual labour that France and Europe were
restored to cultivation and life.

We should, however, entirely misread the
character and mission of Columbanus if we only
view him as a stern and rigid ascetic, who was
utterly careless of his own ease and that of others,
and who disregarded all things human in the fiery
zeal of his great life work. He was, it is true,
strong and inflexible in all things that pertained
to the faith, yet he always retained a warm and
kindly Irish heart, and had a great .sympathy for
all created things. Legends tell us that he had
a fascination for animals, that the birds played
freely with him as he walked through the forest,
and that the squirrels came down from the trees
and nestled in his cowl. It is said that on one
occasion, when he was in the depth of the woods,
a pack of wolves gathered round him, and were
subdued by the mildness and saintliness of his
presence.

Though he ruled his disciples sternly, he loved
and was beloved by every member of his house-
hold. On one occasion when he was bidding them
farewell, he concluded his letter with the following
words: — " The end of my parchment compels me
to finish my letter. Love is not orderly, and it is
this that has made it confused. Farewell, dear
hearts of mine. Pray for me that I may live in
God." He always wrote to them affectionately as
nis dearest sons, his dearest pupils, his brethren in
abstinence. When parting from Deicola, who

36 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

was also from Leinster, and who was one of his
oldest friends, he said : " May the Almighty Lord,
for the love of Whom you have left your native
land, grant that we may meet before His face in
heaven." He loved tenderly St. Valery, a shepherd
boy, who became one of his monks, and who had
charge of the novices' garden, and always held it
as a mark of the divine favour, that no flowers
smelt so sweet, and no vegetables were so fresh as
those of his dear brother Valery.

The community soon became too large for the
old castle of Annegrai and it became necessary to
establish another house at Luxeuil, about seven
miles distant. At the time of the Roman occupa-
tion, Luxeuil, or Luxoviurn, had been an important
town and it was famous for its medicinal springs
and baths. During the invasions of the barbarians
the Roman town was reduced to ashes, and the
population and all the semblances of agriculture
and cultivation had disappeared from the district.
When Columbanus came there the place was
deserted save by wild animals and the ruins of the
Roman villas were overgrown by thickets and
weeds. In a few years the monks had cleared
away woods, tilled and sowed the land, and trans-
formed the wilderness into a smiling garden. They
toiled so hard that they often fell asleep when
returning home from their daily task. Frankish
youths of noble family spurred by the example of
the Irish monks, joined the brotherhood, and shared
their hard life of toil and prayer. One of them,
Theodulf, followed the plough for twenty-two

ST. COLUMBANUS 37

years, and when lie died the people kept his plough
in the village church as a relic.

When Coluinbanus had lived for some years at
Luxeuil, a dispute arose between himself and the
secular clergy. The French bishops and priests
in the neighbourhood complained that the
Columban monks wore the tonsure differently from
the Gaulish clergy. The Columban monks, in
accordance with the Irish custom, shaved the front
of the head as far as the ears, while the priests of
Gaul shaved the top of the head. It was also
complained that Columbanus and his followers
calculated the time of Easter in accordance with
the practice introduced into Ireland by St.
Patrick, and did not conform to the usage of the
French church in this matter. St. Columbanus
was summoned to attend before an assembly of
Gaulish bishops to answer on these points, but he
did not appear lest, as he tells us, " he might
contend in words." He wrote instead a letter to
the French churchmen, in which he admonished
them to hold Synods more frequently, and to pay
attention to matters more important than the
celebration of Easter. As to his Paschal Cycle
and himself, he said : " I am not the author of this
divergence. I came as a poor stranger into these
parts, for the cause of Christ, Our Saviour. One
thing alone I ask of you, Holy Fathers, permit me
to live in solitude in these forests near the bones
of seventeen of my brothers now dead. . . . Surely
it is better for you to comfort than to disturb us,
poor old men, strangers, too, in your midst. Let

38 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

us rather love one another in the charity of Christ,
striving to fulfil his precepts, and thereby to
secure a place in the assembly of the just made
perfect in heaven. "

Another source of trouble also arose. Thierry, the
youthful King of Austrasia, acting on the advice
of his grandmother Brunehaut, repudiated his
lawful wife, and lived in a state of debauchery.
Saint Columbanus reproved Thierry for his wicked
life, and the King, who greatly reverenced him,
promised to reform, but showed no signs of amend-
ment. One day Brunehaut brought four illegiti-
mate sons of Thierry before Columbanus, and
asked him to bless them. Columbanus replied :
" No, I will not bless them ; they shall not reign,
they are a bad breed." Finally Columbanus
refused the guilty pair admission to the monastery,
and the angry King made an order that it should
be open to all visitors under pain of forfeiting the
royal gifts and patronage. St. Columbanus
replied : — " If you wish us to violate our rules, we
do not want any of your gifts." The Saint and
his Irish companions were thereupon expelled from
the kingdom.

In parting from the community at Luxeuil
Columbanus sent a letter of farewell, in which,
writes Montalembert, recollections of classical
antiquity mingle with evangelical instruction to
dictate to the Saint some of the finest and proudest
words which Christian genius has ever produced.
The letter runs as follows : — " I had at first meant
to write a letter full of sorrows and tears, but

ST. COLUMBANUS 39

knowing well that your heart is overwhelmed with
cares and labours, I have changed my style, and
sought to dry the tears rather than call them forth.
I have permitted only gentleness to be seen out-
side, and chained down the grief in the depths of
my soul. But my own tears begin to flow! I
must drive them back; for it does not become
a good soldier to weep in front of the battle. After
all, this that has happened to us is nothing new.
Is it not what we have preached every day ? Was
there not of old a philosopher wiser than the others
who was thrown into prison for maintaining
against the opinion of all that there was only one
God? The Gospels also are full of all that is
necessary to encourage us. They were written
with that purpose, to teach the true disciples of
Christ crucified to follow Him bearing their cross.
Our perils are many; the struggle that threatens
us is severe, but the recompense is glorious, and
the freedom of our choice is manifest. Without
adversaries no conflict, and without conflict, no
crown. Where the struggle is, there is courage,
vigilance, patience, fidelity, wisdom, prudence;
out of the fight there is misery and disaster. Thus
then, without war no crown, and I add without
freedom no honour."

On leaving Luxeuil St. Columbanus went north-
ward and was hospitably received by Clotaire,
King of Neustria, at Soissons. Thence he went
to Metz, the capital of Austrasia, where he was
joined by some of his brethren, who had escaped
from Luxeuil in order to accompany him, and with

to 355) O

40 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

their help, he began a mission amongst the pagan
populations who dwelt on the right bank of the
Rhine. He established monasteries at Tuggen on
Lake Zurich and at Constance. After spending
three years in Switzerland, he crossed the Alps by
the Pass of St. Gothard into Italy, and Agilulph,
King of the Lombards, gave him lands for the
foundation of a monastery at Bobbio, a lonely spot
in the Appenines. There was a ruined church at
Bobbio dedicated to St. Peter, and St. Columbanus,
who was now over seventy years of age, set about
to repair it, to build his monastery, and to clear
away the surrounding district of timber in order
to prepare it for cultivation. When the monastery
was built St. Columbanus went to Rome to
obtain the Pope's approval for his rule, and placed
the monastery under his protection. He lived but
one year after the foundation of Bobbio, and
passed away from the brotherhood in the year 615,
when he was in his seventy-third year.

The life work of Columbanus must be judged,
not by his own accomplishment alone, but by the
accomplishment of the men who were trained by
him, and under the rule which he established. It
has been calculated that 105 monasteries were
founded by his disciples in France, Germany,
Switzerland, and Italy. The great monastery of
Bobbio which he founded in Lombardy became
one of the most celebrated homes of religion and
learning in Europe. " St. Columbanus," said
Montalembert, " lit up at Bobbio a fire of science
and teaching which for ages was a centre of peace

ST. COLUMBANUS 41

for Northern Italy." Frederick Ozanam writes:
" The apostolic zeal which drove the monks of
Ireland to the Continent, led St. Columbanus to
Bobbio, at the foot of the wild deserts of the
Appenines. He bore to this place, along with the
severe observances of the hermits of his country,
their passion for letters, and the necessity which
possessed them for learning and teaching. The
spirit of this great reformer lived after him and
spread on from those Irishmen who were his com-
panions to their Italian disciples and successors."
There are many sides to the character of this
great Irish Saint, but in whatever light we view
him he stands out nobly in relief, worthy to take
rank with the highest types that Christianity has
produced. Perhaps the outstanding feature of his
character is his dauntless courage, and history, as
Montalembert says well, should admire in him
monastic integrity struggling against Merovingian
vice and brutality; the fiery and solitary mis-
sionary taking up, in the face of the conquerors
of Gaul, the freedom of the prophets of the ancient
law against the crowned profligate. The task
which he accomplished in France is sufficient to
establish his fame amongst the great Saints of the
Church, but his activities did not cease after he
left that country. When more than seventy years
of age he founded the celebrated monastery of
Bobbio in Italy, and at the time of his death he
is said to have contemplated a mission to the Slav
nations. A French History of Literature sums up
thus his life work : " The light of St. Columbanusj

42 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

disseminated by his knowledge and doctrine,
wherever he presented himself, caused a contem-
porary writer to compare him to the sun in his
course from East to West ; and he continued after
his death to shine forth in numerous disciples
vrhom he had trained in learning and piety."

Initial letter " 8 " Book of Hymns.

CHAPTER V.

The Irish Saints

During the three centuries that followed the
coming of St. Patrick there were numerous Saints
in every province of Ireland, and the conversion
of the people to the faith influenced the whole life
of the nation to an extent that has scarcely been
parallelled in the history of the spread of
Christianity. Cardinal Newman speaks of " the
Irish multitude of Saints which the Book of Life
alone is large enough to contain," and Montal-
embert tells us that the Thebaid reappeared in
Ireland, and that the West had no longer any-
thing to envy in the history of the East.

An ancient Irish manuscript of unknown
authorship divides the Saints of Ireland into three
great orders. The First Order was in the time of
St. Patrick. They were 350 in number, all
bishops and all founders of churches, and were
either citizens of the Roman Empire, Franks,
Britons or Scots. This order consisted chiefly of
St. Patrick with the great number of foreign
missionaries who accompanied him to Ireland, or
who came there after his time, and of the Britons
and native Irish ordained by the Apostle of Ire-

43

44 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

land and his successors. The Order continued for
more than a century after the date of St.
Patrick's arrival. The Second Order numbered
300, of whom many were priests and a few were
bishops. It included Finnian, Enda, Colman,
Comgall, Ciaran, Columba, Brandan, Cainnech,
Coemghan, Lasrian, Lugeus and Barrind, and
flourished during the latter half of the sixth
century. The Third Order of Saints lived in
Ireland for a period which extended for about
seventy years from the end of the sixth century.
The writer of the manuscript says that " the First
Order was most holy, the Second Order holier, and
the Third holy. The First glowed like the sun in
the fervour of their charity ; the Second cast a pale
radiance like the moon ; the Third shone like the
aurora. These Three Orders the blessed Patrick
foreknew, enlightened by heavenly wisdom, when
in prophetic vision he saw at first all Ireland
ablaze, and afterwards only the mountains on fire ;
and at last saw lamps lit in the valleys."

The First Order of Saints were mainly occupied
in spreading the Christian faith amongst the Irish
people. They were not connected, as a rule, with
monasteries, although there were monastic estab-
lishments and schools founded during the period,
and many of the abbots were bishops. Their lives
were, in general, as Dr. Healy remarks, too full
of missionary labours to be given to the govern-
ment or foundation of monasteries. They devoted
all their energy to the task of converting the Irish
people from paganism, and they effected this great

THE IRISH SAINTS 45

change by their zeal and fervour, leaving1 no bitter
memories and without any sacrifice of human life.
When they had satisfactorily accomplished their
work a transition set in from the missionary
church of St. Patrick and his immediate successors,
who were engaged in preaching the Christian Faith
and founding churches, to the monastic church of
the sixth century. The Saints of the Second Order
were the pioneers of the great monastic movement
in Ireland, and the love of monastic seclusion
characterised to a remarkable degree the religious
life of the country during the period. The move-
ment took its rise principally from the great
monastery and school founded by St. Finnian at
Clonard, as the Saints who were educated there
went forth to found, in imitation of their master,
monasteries and schools in the different provinces.
The Third Order was chiefly composed of
Anchorites or hermits, who retired from the world
to spend their lives in prayer and meditation in
places removed from human society. The desire
for solitude had become general amongst religious
men of the time, and we find whole communities
living apart in remote valleys or on lonely islands.
Each member of the community constructed a
little cell for himself, a church was built in the
centre of the cells and a low rath or wall sur-
rounded the settlement. The monks passed the
greater portion of their time apart from one an-
other in their own cells, and only assembled to-
gether in the church for common worship or at
meal times. There are interesting remains of

4(5 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

these hermit communities on some of the islands
off the Irish coast, notably at Inishmurray off the
coast of Sligo, at Ardoileu off the coast of Galway,
and on the Great Skellig off the coast of Kerry,
where there is still a group of the beehive-shaped
stone houses built by the monks in a good state
of preservation.

The ecclesiastical system prevailing in Ireland
for a long period was almost exclusively monastic.
The monasteries were governed by rules that had in
many cases been handed down from their founders.
Thus reference is made in ancient documents to the
rules of St. Ailbe of Emly, St. Ciaran of Clon-
macnoise, St. Comghall of Bangor and St.
Carthach of Lismore. These rules were not similar
to the set body of rules which were afterwards drawn
up for the regulations of great religious orders
like the Benedictines and the Dominicans, but
were a number of pious practices derived from the
precept or example of the first Abbot. In all of
these rules the three virtues most strongly com-
manded are obedience, poverty, and chastity.
Every member of the community had to yield the
most implicit obedience to the commands of the
Abbot. To hold riches in contempt and to denude
oneself of all worldly possessions was regarded as
the first perfection of a monk. The rule of St.
Columcille prescribes absolute nakedness from
worldly goods in imitation of Christ. The life of
the community was conceived as a warfare; they
regarded themselves as the soldiers of Christ, and
therefore divorced themselves from earthly in-

THE IRISH SAINTS 47

terests. They were also required to be chaste in
thought, word, and work. The rule of St.
Columbanus provides that silence, " which is the
practice of justice," must be carefully preserved
at every task and in every place. The tongue was
regarded as a source of sin, and therefore the
monks must only speak when absolutely necessary,
and the Abbot in giving his orders was to be brief
and to the point. Humility was another virtue
strongly insisted upon and the rule of St. Carthach
of Lismore requires the monk to live in humility
towards all, showing to everyone " devotion,
humility, and enslavement."

The spirit of monasticism existed in the Irish
Church from the beginning. St. Patrick writes
of the great multitude of the Scots and their
daughters who became monks and virgins of
Christ. The first ardours of the faith, which
brought the first Christians in other countries to
martyrdom, drew the Irish neophytes to the
monastery, says Frederick Ozanam. The bishops
and clergy left by St. Patrick in the churches
which he founded, lived together in a relation
similar to the community life in a monastery.
The clan system also assimilated to the monastic
life where the Abbot was the spiritual father of the
other monks as the chief was considered the father
of the clan, and the example of the members of
the chieftain's families who became Christians
and monks was imitated by their followers. A
Leinster chieftain, who was baptized by St.
Moedoc of Ferns said, " I offer myself to God and

48 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

to you, and with myself I offer all my race ; be you
master over all of us." Women were not behind-
hand in sanctity and St. Brigid, St. Ita, and St.
Fanchea founded communities of holy women.

The more ardent and enthusiastic spirits were de-
sirous of leading a life of even greater mortification
and prayer than was contemplated by the monastic
rule, and went to live apart in solitary communion
with God. One of the earliest of these, St. Enda,
was a son of the King of Oriel, who resigned
his kingdom and became a monk, obtaining from
his relative the King of Munster a grant of Aran
Mor island as a place where he might retreat from
the world for solitude, penance, and mortification.
St. Kevin dwelt alone for seven years in a small
cave at Glendalough. St. Fiac retired every year
for the season of Lent to a cave near Sletty, taking
with him some barley loaves, which were the only
food he used until he returned to his monastery
to celebrate the great festival of Easter with his
brethren. The Saints who led this life of prayer
and mortification became naturally the objects of
great veneration and respect, and when their
places of retreat were discovered, others came to
learn from them and to place themselves under
their guidance. Thus disciples came from various
parts of Ireland to St. Enda at Aran, and after
a time he had one hundred and fifty monks under
his control. In the same way a shepherd made
known the retreat of St. Kevin, and great numbers
of holy men made their way to Glendalough
attracted by his reputation for sanctity, so that

Kevin became the father of many monks. St.
Finian's lonely retreat at Clonard became a place
of great resort of pilgrims who were drawn there
by his learning and sanctity, and Clonard soon
became the greatest ecclesiastical and teaching
centre in Ireland.

As most of our Irish Saints were trained under
the monastic system, it is interesting to take a
survey of the life in the monasteries in Ireland.
The rules drawn up by St. Columcille and St.
Columbanus for the guidance of their monks are
still extant, and they give us some idea of the
training that produced such a great number of
Saints. In the rule of St. Columcille the day is
divided into three parts and the three labours of
the day are prayer, work, and reading. The
work of a monk was again divided into three
parts, and was to consist of : Firstly, the necessary
work of each member of the community and the
work of his dwelling; secondly, his share of the
brethren's work ; lastly, his help was to be given
to the people of the neighbourhood by instruction,
writing, sewing, or whatever labour they might be
in need of. St. Columbanus describes the work
of a monastery as consisting of fasting, prayer,
labour, and study. The life of the monks was one
of great austerity and activity, and it was provided
that at all times during the day when they were
not occupied at prayer they should be engaged on
some work for the community or for the people
whom they served. They slept on the bare
ground or on a skin laid on a little straw or

50 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

rushes. St. Columcille and St. Ciaran of Clonmac-
noise had stones for their pillows. Their food was
of the simplest and poorest character, and was
only just sufficient to maintain them in their life
of toil. All, including the Abbot, engaged in
manual labour, levelling and fencing the ground,
and cultivating the fields and reclaiming woods
and wildernesses. Some of them were skilled
workers in metal, or craftsmen, and made many
articles for their own use or for the outside world.
Others were physicians and helped the poor in the
time of sickness. They had attached to the
monastery a guest house for travellers, and here
all who choose to avail of their hospitality were
received and given the best cheer that the monas-
tery could afford.

Writing was one of their chief occupations, and
it is to their industry that we owe the preservation
of most of our ancient learning that has come down
to us. They copied and multiplied manuscripts
for their own use, or for presentation to others,
and executed their work of transcription with the
greatest care and artistic beauty. St. Columcille
gave up whatever time he could spare from other
labours to this work, and he is said to have made
three hundred copies of the New Testament with
his own hand. They gave up another portion of
their time to the study of the Sacred Scriptures,
the Fathers of the Church, classical literature, and
other branches of learning. They had also the
duty of giving instruction in the schools.

A genuine and unselfish love of learning for its

THE IRISH SAINTS 51

own sake was one of the characteristic features in
the lives of our Irish Saints. Many of them were
endowed with great literary gifts and made im-
portant contributions to letters. A number of
them gained distinction as poets. Saint Fiac of
Sletty, one of the earliest of the converts of St.
Patrick, who was a nephew of the royal poet
Dubhtach, and who had been trained by his uncle
for the Bardic profession, was the author of a
metrical life of the National Apostle, which is one
of the most important works that we possess in
connection with the early history of the Church in
Ireland. Saint Sechnall composed a hymn in
honour of St. Patrick, and also a beautiful
Eucharistic Hymn which is preserved in the
Antiphonary of Bangor. Saint Columcille, who
studied the art of poetry under the aged bard,
Gemman of Leinster, has written poems in Irish
and Latin. St. Columbanus sought refreshment
from his labours as a missionary in the writing of
playful Latin poems. Donatus, Bishop of Fiesole,
has left us graceful JJatin verses in praise of Ire-
land. TJltan, Cummain, and Colman were poets
as well as Saints.

They had, also, a great love of nature, and, as
Dr. Healy notes, a very keen perception of the
grandeur and beauty of God's universe. " The
voice of the storm and the strength of the sea, the
majesty of lofty mountains and the glory of sum-
mer woods, spoke to their hearts even more
eloquently than the voice of the preacher, or the
writing on their parchments." They loved all the

52 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

beauties of the natural world about them which
manifested the glory of the Creator of all things,
and they learned to know the invisible things of
God from the visible things that He had made.
They chose positions of great natural beauty as
the sites for their churches and monasteries.
Sometimes individual saints chose remote or in-
accessible places where they could live in uninter-
rupted communion with God and Nature, and
built their oratories on uninhabited islands off the
coast, or in lakes. St. Domangart had his cell on
the summit of Slieve Donard, and St. Brandon
lived for a time on the summit of Mount Brandon.
St. Finan had his hermitage on an island in Lough
Lee in Kerry, and St. Finbarr's first foundation
was at lone Gongane Barra. St. Finan founded
a monastery on the Skelligs, and Aran Mor was
known as 'Aran of the Saints.'

Akin to their love of nature was their love of
birds and animals. St. Patrick was in this, as in
so many other respects their exemplar. The Irish
life of the Saint tells that as he was going with
Daire to mark out the site of his church at
Armagh, they came upon a doe and her fawn lying
beneath a tree. The startled doe fled away, and
the king's attendants were about to kill the fawn,
but St. Patrick interfered and saved it. Taking
it gently upon his shoulders he bore it away, and
the little animal's mother followed the Saint to
a place of refuge. Tradition tells us that the
squirrels and doves nestled in the hands of St.
Columbanus and that the birds used to come to St,

THE IRISH SAINTS 53

Kevin and alight on his shoulders to sing him
their sweetest songs. St. Columcille had a pet
crane, which followed him on his walks about the
monastery, and another story tells of how a
wounded bird from Ireland was carried by the
tempest to lona; and of how the Saint cared and
tended it, and set it free to return homewards
when the storm had abated. St. Brendan had a
pet crow, and St. Colman had a tame flock of
ducks that came and went at his call. There is
a beautiful legend that St. Ciaran of Saighir
formed his first community of animals. On the
margin of an ancient manuscript from the
monastery of St. Gall there were found verses
which an Irish monk composed in praise of the
song of a blackbird which had interrupted him in
his task of glossing.

The love of little children is noted as a character-
istic of others of the Irish Saints. The Feilire of
Angus refers to St. Ultan, Bishop of Ardbraccan,
as " the great sinless prince, in whom the little
ones are flourishing: the children play greatly
round Ultan of Ardbraccan." It is also recorded
that during the Yellow Plague he brought to his
monastery a number of children whose fathers and
mothers had been carried off by the disease, and
fed and kept them. It is told of St. Fridolin
that he was especially fond of boys and joined in
their games and amusements.

An abundant literature of beautiful legends has
grown up round the lives of our Irish Saints. In
many cases the narrative of their deeds was

54 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

written two or three centuries after their own age,
and one can easily detect anachronisms and ex-
aggerations. They were often founded on vague
popular tradition which in course of time becomes
naturally amplified and distorted, and were some-
times written to excite veneration and zeal, and
with little regard for historical exactitude. Yet
when due allowance has been made for all this, and
when we entirely reject statements of a legendary
or doubtful character, there is sufficient testimony
of a thoroughly reliable nature to warrant the
claim made by Dr. Healy that the first centuries
of the faith in Ireland present a more beautiful
spectacle before men and angels than anything
seen in Christendom before or since. Pere Gou-
gaud who submits all his evidence to severe critical
tests, and who will not accept stories that have
any appearance of being legendary or imaginative,
describes the period in the following words : —
" Such an efflorescence of sanctity, lasting for
three or four centuries, is a spectacle that does
honour to human nature regenerated by grace, and
shows what Christianity is capable of accomplish-
ing."

Head of Celtic Pin.
Clonmacnois.

CHAPTER VI.

The Irish Mission

We owe our knowledge of the labours and
influence of the Irish monks in England and the
Continent almost entirely to foreign sources, and,
with a very few exceptions, our native annals are
almost silent concerning the missionaries who
went forth from Ireland in such great numbers.
So frequently were they to be met with on the
Continent that Walafried Strabo, a writer of the
ninth century, remarks that the custom of travel-
ling appeared to have become a part of the Irish-
man's nature.* St. Gildas notes that to voyage
over seas, and to journey over broad tracts of land
was to the Irish monks not so much a weariness
as a delight. "Most of them," he writes, " appear
to have been born under a wandering planet."
" The Celt," says Mr. Lane-Poole, " did not yield
to the Norsemen in his passion for travel/'*
Various reasons may be assigned to account for
the large number of Irish monks that went abroad,
and they certainly did not leave their native land
because of any idle curiosity to see foreign

•Consuetudo peregrinandi Jam paene in naturam Conversa
eat. " Monumenta Germanica," II. 30.

ID 355) 55 B

56 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

countries or through a desire to wander about on
the Continent. There was a multitude of monks
in Ireland, and an urgent and great need for
missionary effort in France and Germany. The
Irish Saints had a real vocation for the apostolate,
and many of them were impelled by the call to
a higher degree of the ascetic life. They fully
realised that charity began at home and they did
not go away until the faith was secure in Ireland.
An early canon attributed to the epoch of St.
Patrick states: — One's first work must be to in-
struct the people of one's own country, following
the example of Christ. It is only in the case when
no results can flow from such instruction that one
is permitted to abandon it following the example
of the Apostle.*

The Venerable Bede, a contemporary writer,
has described for us how devoted and zealous the
Irish missionaries were, and how they were always
the servants of God and despised the things of the
world. They possessed neither gold nor silver,
and all that they received from the rich passed
through their hands, into the hands of the poor.
Kings and nobles visited them from time to time,
only to pray in their churches, or to listen to their
sermons, and as long as they remained in their
cloisters they were content with the humble
food of the brethren. Wherever one of these
ecclesiastics or monks came, he was received by
all with joy; and whenever he was seen journey-

•Haddon and Stubbs: "Councils and Ecclesiastical Docu-
pents," II., p. 335.

THE IRISH MISSION 57

ing across the country the people streamed around
him to implore his benediction and hearken to his
words. The priests entered the village only to
preach or administer the sacraments ; and so free
were they from avarice, that it was only when
compelled by the rich and noble that they
accepted lands for the erection of monasteries. A
modern French writer* also notes the powerful
influence which they were able to exercise in every
country to which they went, and how men of all
ranks were attracted to them. :< They were won-
derful," he writes, " as the revivers of the intel-
lectual life and as drawers of souls. That strange
mixture of fervour and austerity, of independence
and respect for traditions, of simplicity and strong
sensibility, of imagination held under sway and
yet impetuous ; all these traits, which constituted
in their concert the religion of the ancient Celts,
exercised an irresistible charm over a wide area.
Noble strangers charmed by their ardent piety and
their superior knowledge ran after these island
masters, and would not afterwards leave them."

They excelled all nations in the ardour of their
faith. " The Scots," says Jonas, " differ from all
other nations in their laws, yet by their firm
adherence to the dogmas of Christianity they excel
all the neighbouring countries in their faith. "t
The Irish Church had been careful to preserve
carefully the tradition of the faith that had been
brought to her by St. Patrick from Rome, the

•Gougaud: " Les Chr6tient6s Celtiques."
t.Topas; "Vita 8, Columbani," cap. 6,

58 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

centre of Christendom, and she kept ever before
her his maxim :" 0 Church of the Scots — nay of
the Romans — as ye are Christians, be ye also
Romans." St. Columbanus in a letter to Pope
Boniface states " that although dwelling at the
extremity of the world, all the Irish were disciples
of Saints Peter and Paul, receiving no other than
the evangelical and apostolic doctrine; that no
heretic, or Jew, or schismatic, was to be found
among them, but they still clung to the Catholic
faith as it was first delivered to them by his (the
Pope's) predecessors; that is the successors of the
holy apostles ; that the Irish race were attached to
the Chair of St. Peter, and that although Rome
was great and renowned, it was only on account of
that Chair it was so with them. Through the two
Apostles of Christ you are almost celestial, and
Rome is the head of all churches, as well as of the
world."

The Irish missionaries were wholly absorbed by
the great mission which they had undertaken, and
in the execution of it they took but little thought
of their own welfare. They wandered about from
place to place, sometimes through trackless soli-
tudes, always trusting that God would provide for
their support. King Clothaire the Second, while
hunting the wild boar in the forest of Sequania,
met one of them, St. Deicola, and asked him what
w^ere his means of livelihood, and how his brethren
fared in such a wilderness as that. "It is written,"
said Deicola, " that they who fear God shall want
for nothing. We are poor, it is true, but we love

f
THE IRISH MISSION 59

and serve the Lord, and that is of more value than
great riches." Special hostelries had to be founded
for their support in many parts of the Frankish
realm by the charity of their fellow-countrymen.
In one of the capitularies of Charles the Bald
drawn up after the Council of Meaux, in 845, there
is mention made of the hostelries of the Scots,
which holy men of that nation built and endowed
with the gifts acquired by their sanctity.

It is to be remembered that the Irish monks had
been trained in a hard and severe school, where
it was the rule that the members of the community
were to support themselves by the labour of their
own hands. Mendicant orders whose members were
dependent chiefly on the offerings of the faithful
for subsistence did not exist in Ireland at this
time, and were not introduced until many centuries
later. The stronger brothers in the early
monasteries devoted themselves mainly to manual
labour, and all the brethren, including even the
scribes and artists, were required to work in the
fields. Thus everything that the little community
needed was produced by themselves, and it became
self-supporting. The companions of St. Colum-
banus by their incessant labour transformed one
of the wildest and most deserted regions in France
into fertile cornfields and vineyards. St. Fiacre
and his fellow monks changed the portion of La
Brieu, near Meux, from a wild forest into a
smiling garden. The biographer of St. Remi tells
us how he received certain pilgrims from Ireland
and settled them in suitable places near the Maine,

60 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

where they might visit and help one another.
" They did not," he says, " live only on the
charity of those to whom pious Rerni had com-
mended them, but also on their own industry and
the labour of their hands, in accordance with the
custom of the religious bodies in Ireland. This
life, united to wonderful holiness and constant
prayer, won for them a great love among the
natives of the country."

The Irish missionaries usually travelled in
groups as it would have been dangerous in that
age of violence to journey alone. The group con-
sisted generally of a dozen individuals and their
chief, who was to be the Abbot of the future
settlement. They set sail first for Great Britain,
and then passing through that country, re-em-
barked at some Kentish port for the Continent.
In Europe they travelled for the most part on foot,
and according to the rules of certain orders of
monks could not travel in any other way, as these
rules permitted only an Abbot to use a carriage
of any kind. They were clad in coarse woollen
garments, worn over a white tunic, their hair was
tonsured from ear to ear across the front of the
head and long flowing locks hung behind; they
carried long staves, and bore .at their sides leather
water bottles and wallets in which they kept their
food, writing tablets and manuscripts. They
appeared thus amidst the Franks and Allemani,
speaking to them with fiery eloquence, at first
through an interpreter, and afterwards in the
language of the country which they acquired.

THE IRISH MISSION 61

Wherever they settled down they erected little
wooden huts and a church within a large enclosure.
They supported life by cultivation of the land and
fishing and asked for nothing for themselves but
a space where they might found their settlement
and, at times, a little food. They laboured all day
to teach and civilise and sought to influence the
people who surrounded them by precept and
example. They won the people by their gentle-
ness, earnestness and humility, and both Franks
and Romans joined them, so that eventually
similar colonies were formed far and near from
the first settlement as a starting point.

They were men whose whole mind was devoted
to the great work in which they were engaged, to
the exclusion of all thoughts of their own personal
interests. When King Segebert offered gifts to
Columbanus, the Saint replied : — " We are fol-
lowers of Christ, who has plainly said, ' Whosoever
will be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up
the Cross and follow me.' The things which are in
your power to bestow do not attract us, for in these
things there is nothing to satisfy the heart of
myself and my companions. We seek not com-
forts, nor to dwell in fertile lands, nor to gratify
the flesh. We seek for solitude and some secluded
place wherein to live in penitence and devotion."
They took no thought of the dangers which they
might encounter in travelling to foreign and
hostile peoples. A story is told in King Alfred's
Chronicle of three Irish missionaries who were
washed on the shores of Cornwall. "They came,"

62 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

writes Alfred, "in a boat without oars from
Hibernia, whence they had stolen away, because
for the love of God they would be on pilgrimage — •
they cared not where. The boat in which they
fared was wrought of three hides and a half, and
they took with them enough meat for seven
nights." An old French chronicle tells of the
arrival about the year 589 of two Irishmen named
Caidoc and Fricor with twelve companions at the
little town of Quentonvic, at the mouth of the
Somme, and how they followed the great Roman
road into the country, preaching the gospel on
their way. They arrived at Centule (now St.
Biquier) and, as the chronicler puts it, "fought on,
perceiving that the inhabitants were blinded by
error and iniquity, and were subjected to the most
cruel slavery ; they laboured with all their strength
to redeem their souls and wash them in their
Saviour's blood." The people could not under-
stand the language of these missionaries, and
rebelled against their teaching. They asked
angrily what these adventurers, who had just
escaped out of a barbarous island, were in search
of, and by what right they sought to impose their
laws on them. Violence would have been used
towards the missionaries, were it not that a young
noble named Biquier interfered in their favour.
He took the strangers under his protection, and,
entertained them at his house. He learned from
them to love God above all things, and was filled
with sorrow for his past life which he had spent
as an unfruitful servant. He resigned all the

THE IRISH MISSION 63

splendour of his high rank, cut the long locks
which were a symbol of his nobility, and became
a servant of God. Henceforth his life was one of
prayer and mortification, and when he had taken
orders he became the founder of the celebrated
Abbey of St. Riquier, where Caidoc and Fricor
were buried, and where two Latin epitaphs written
by St. Angilbert commemorate their virtues and
the land of their nativity.

After landing in Europe they had to go amidst
people whose language was unknown to them, and
though themselves often of noble descent, they
found that they were poor and friendless in
a strange land. It is frequently recorded how
great were their sufferings from poverty, fatigue
and lack of equipment, and how many met their
death on the way. Yet in the service to which
they had devoted themselves they bore all their
trials with resignation and a stout heart. " They
were competent, cheerful, and self-supporting,
faced privation with indifference; caring nothing
for luxuries; and when other provisions failed
them, they gathered wild fruit, trapped animals,
and fished with great dexterity, and with any sort
of rude appliances. They were rough and some-
what uncouth in outward appearance, but beneath
all that they had solid sense and much learning.
Their simple ways, their unmistakeable piety, and
their intense earnestness in the cause of religion
attracted the people everywhere, so that they
made crowds of converts."*

•Joyce : " Social History of Ireland." Part I., p. 341.

64 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

Near the end of the seventh and at the beginning
of the eighth century the Irish monks had estab-
lished a series of monasteries which extended from
the mouth of the Meuse and Rhine to the Rhone.
Throughout the chronicles and the lives of the
Saints of this time references are often made to
them ; and names purely Irish are constantly found
such as Caidor, Furseus, Fullan Ultan, Frillan,
Livin. Thus in the life of St. Remi, mention is
made of his hospitable reception of ten pilgrims
from Ireland. " From that island, I say, seven
brothers started on a pilgrimage for the love of
Christ. They were men of great piety and virtue.
These were Gebrian, Helan, Tressan, Germanus,
Veranus, Hebranus, Petranus, and three sisters,
Franda or Francla, Portia and Possena." In the
life of St. Riquier it is recorded how a body of
Irishmen preached the faith in Picardy. In
Belgium they worked in Malines, Ghent and other
places. In the ninth 'century the number of
Irishmen travelling in France was so great as to
be almost burthensome and the Council of Chalons-
sur-Saone made canons against the wandering
Scots. There is also frequent mention made in
the histories of the time of ' episcopi vagi,' bishops
without any fixed diocese, who journeyed through
France, and of whom the great majority appear
to have been our countrymen. Many of the
missionary establishments in Germany were either
originally Irish or were the offsprings of Irish
foundations. In the tenth century we find a great
number of Irish monasteries in Germany. Otho I.

THE IRISH MISSION 65

of Germany consecrated a monastery in the
Ardennes which was to remain the property of the
Scots, and of which the Abbot was to be a monk
of that nation. Adalberon II. decreed that the
Abbey of St. Clement in Lorraine was only to
receive monks of Irish origin, while that nation
supplied sufficient recruits, and his biographer
states that he always held the Irish monks in the
highest esteem.* Cologne in the tenth century
possessed a large Irish colony, and the monastery
of St. Martin in that city was given to the Scots
in perpetuity by Archbishop Eberger in 975. From
this date to 1061 the Abbots were all Irishmen.
Desibod constructed the monastery of Desiboden-
berg near Treves, and St. Kilian was the Apostle
of Franconia. The monasteries of Honau on the
Rhine and Altomunster were of Irish origin and
Tirgilius became the Abbot of Salzburg. That
Irish monks were present in considerable numbers
in the North of Italy is evidenced by the fact that
a hostelry was built near Bobbio in 883 for their
reception.

In South Germany Marianus Scotus, a native of
the North of Ireland, settled atRatisbon on his way
to Rome and founded a monastery in 1076. In less
than forty years this monastery was not sufficiently
large to accommodate the Irish monks who were
labouring at Ratisbon, and a second house, the
monastery of St. James, was built. From Ratis-

*8ooti ot reliqui sancti peregrin! semper sibi dulcissimi
habebantur, Vita Alberoni II. " tlonumenta Qermanica,"
IV. p. 668.

66 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

bon twelve Irish monasteries were established in
various parts of South Germany, and at the time
.of its greatest prosperity the Abbot of Eatisbon
controlled the monasteries of Dels in Silesia,
Erfurt in Thuringia, Wurzburg, Nuremberg,
Eichstadt in Franconia, Memningen and
Constance in Swabia, and Vienna in Austria.
Johannes, one of the associates of Marianus, went
to Gottweich in Austria, where he died as an
Anchorite ; another of his monks went to Kief, and
a third went to Jerusalem. Frederick of Bar-
barossa found in Bulgaria a monastery governed
by an Irish Abbot, and there are letters still
extant from the Irish Abbot of Ratisbon petition-
ing King Wratislaw of Bohemia for an escort for
his messengers through that country on their way
to Poland. There is authentic evidence that these
Irish monks who went to Germany in the eleventh
and thirteenth centuries were worthy successors to
the Saints and Missionaries who laboured in
France at an earlier period. The houses which
they founded were closed to Germans, and almost
entirely recruited from Ireland, so that while in
France the second generation of monks was
largely composed of Frenchmen, the German
establishments continued to be thoroughly Irish
even in the constitution of their members.

It is difficult to exaggerate the influence which
the Irish Saints and Missionaries exercised at this
early period upon European civilisation. The
Continent was plunged in utter darkness, literary
as well as spiritual, and the advent of the Irish

THE IRISH MISSION 67

teachers, men full of piety and zeal, with superior
accomplishments and a genuine love of learning
marked the renaissance of religion and letters.
" There reigned," says Mr. Lane-Poole, " not
only amongst the professed, scholars of Ireland,
but also amongst the plain scholars whom she sent
forth to preach the gospel to the heathen, a love
of literature for its own sake, and a keen delight
in poetry. Apart from their written works, there
is a vein of poetry running through the lives of
these Irish confessors, a poetry of which the
stories of their acts are better witnesses than their
practical essays in verse-making. They brought
imagination, as they brought spiritual life into
a world well nigh sunk in materialism." Through
their Latin poetry, and especially through their
hymns, which were carried abroad over Europe and
sung in many schools and monasteries, they may be
considered to have exercised no small influence on
the literatures that were just then arising from
the smallest beginnings in the various nations. The
Romance languages which sprang from the Latin
would naturally be most directly affected, and two
well-known European scholars, Zeuss and Nigra,
have traced the introduction of rhyme to the Irish
monks who wrote in this language. Their skill
in music appears from the fact that Gertrude,
daughter of Pepin, sought for Irish monks to
(instruct her community at Nivelle in sacred
psalmody. St. Gall acquired its highest fame as
a school of music, as well as a seat of learning,
during the time that the Irishman Moengal pre-

68 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

sided over it, and Notker Balbulus, the most cele-
brated musician of the Middle Ages, was one of
his pupils.

St. Columba brought the poetry and learning of
Ireland to lona, and Oswald, King of North-
umbria, who had been educated there, summoned
the Irish monks to convert his country. In the
words of Bede: — " He sent to the seniors of the
Scots, among whom himself and his fellow soldiers
when in banishment had received the Sacrament
of Baptism, desiring they would send him a
bishop, by whose instruction and ministry the
Anglic nation which he governed might be taught
the advantages of faith in the Lord, and receive
its sacraments. Nor were they slow in granting
his request, but sent him Bishop Aidan, a man
of singular meekness, piety and moderation." St.
Aidan established himself at Lindisfarne, and the
Irish influence was extended from there until the
whole of Northumbria was supplied with monas-
teries and schools, and the love of study of letters
was awakened amongst the people by the
enthusiasm of their teachers. From the north
the Irish monks penetrated into Mercia and
East Anglia, and fresh bodies of missionaries
carne over from Ireland in a constant succes-
sion. The Irish learning found its way to
the South of England, and in Archbishop Theo-
dore's day the school of Canterbury was full of
Irish scholars. An Irishman, Maelduf, founded
a school, which afterwards grew into the famed
Abbey of Malmesbury, and amongst his scholars

THE IRISH MISSION

69

was St. Adhelin, who was pronounced by Alfred
two centuries afterwards to be the best of the
A.nglo-Saxon poets. Glastonbury became a special
centre of Irish learning and poetry, so that it may
be claimed that Dunstan, the chief figure in the
revival of English learning, derived from the Irish
scholars, who founded the school there, the spirit
which inspired the movement. "This," writes Mr.
Stopford Brooke, " was the Gaelic invasion of
England, and its imaginative and formative
powers ran through all the poetry of Northumbria,
and stimulated the desires of Wessex and Mercia
to know, and to feel after the unknown."

Moulding, Tuaim Grcine.

CHAPTER VII.

Some Famous Irish Missionaries

With a few exceptions, we have but few and
meagre details of the lives and works of individual
Irish missionaries who laboured in the various
countries of Europe. Of that large multitude of
devoted men, who went from Ireland in a con-
tinuous succession for three centuries — " the death
of one apostle being but the coming of another" —
the records are scanty and satisfactory, consisting
mainly of casual references made by contemporary
writers. The period in Europe was not favourable
to the cultivation of letters, and our native annals
generally do not make any reference to the Irish
ecclesiastics who went abroad except in a few
cases. Thus we find it recorded that Vergilius of
Salzburg died in 788, Dunchadh of Cologne died
A.D. 813, Gilla-na-naemh Laighen, Superior of
the monastery in Wursburg, died A.D. 1085; but
there is no mention made of Columbanus, Gall,
Cathaldus, Fiachra, Colman or Killian.

St. Vergilius, Archbishop of Salzburg, was born,
reared, and educated in Ireland, according to
the testimony of Alcuin, who was almost his con-
temporary, but the place and date of his birth

70

! 6ruxcuQ\ouin

QXCCC

Frontispiece to St. John's Gospel.
Convent of St. Arnoul, Metz.

SOME FAMOUS IRISH MISSIONARIES 71

cannot be ascertained with exactness. It appears
from a statement in the Annals of the Four
Masters that before leaving Ireland he was Abbot
of Aghaboe. He arrived in France about the
year 741 and spent two or three years at the Court
of Pepin-le-Bref, father of the renowned Charle-
magne. Pepin esteemed Vergilius highly on
account of his great learning, and when he was
leaving France, gave him letters of recommenda-
tion to Ottilo, Duke of Bavaria. Bavaria had at
this time been partially converted to the Christian
Faith by St. Boniface and the object of St.
Vergilius in going to the country was to help in
completing the work which St. Boniface had
begun. He settled at Salzburg, and his life there
was one of unceasing effort, not only for the con-
version of Bavaria, but of Carinthia and the
neighbouring provinces, which were still for the
most part pagan. The monks of the Benedictine
monastery of St. Peter at Salzburg chose him to
be their Abbot, and he rebuilt the monastery in
a style of great splendour. He was consecrated
Bishop of Salzburg about the year 744, and he
presided over the diocese for forty years. He sent
many missionaries to preach the gospel through-
out the country, and paid frequent visits to the
newly-established churches, so as to confirm the
people in the faith. He built a stately church in
honour of St. Stephen, and a great basilica dedi-
cated to St. Rudbert, the founder and first bishop
of the church of Salzburg. He died about 784
and was buried in the monastery of St. Peter.

(p 355) f

72 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

St. Vergilius was not only a great missionary
saint, but was also distinguished on account of
his learning, and as an astronomer he was far in
advance of his age, for he held the sphericity of
the earth and the existence of Antipodes long
before Copernicus startled Europe with his teach-
ing on this subject. In spite of opposition he
stoutly maintained that the earth was round, that
the sun passed beneath it, and that there must be
inhabitants on the other side. The doctrine and
other views of Vergilius were unpalatable to the
ecclesiastical authorities in Germany and charges
against him were brought before the Pope. He
was represented as holding astronomical doctrines
which were, in fact, different from those which he
really advocated, and his teaching was condemned.
Vergilius would appear to have explained his real
tenets to the satisfaction of the Pope, for no
punishment was inflicted, and he was shortly after-
wards promoted to the See of Salzburg.

St. Fursey, a famous Irish missionary in France,
was the son of a Munster prince named Fin tan.
He was trained in Connaught at a monastery on
the island of Inchiquin in Lough Corrib by St.
Brendan, an uncle of his father's, and by St.
Meldan, who succeeded St. Brendan as head of the
community. After spending some time in Eng-
land St. Fursey went to the north-east of Gaul,
and landed with twelve companions at the mouth
of the Somme, A.D. 638. He settled for a time at
Peronne, but afterwards went to Lagny-sur-Marne
at the request of King Clovis II., who was desirous

SOME FAMOUS IRISH MISSIONARIES 73

of having him near his court. From the records
that we possess of his life, he appears to have been
a man of a quiet and retiring character. Bede
describes him. as being renowned both for his
words and actions, as remarkable for great virtues^
and as being desirous to live a pilgrim for the
Lord, whenever an opportunity should offer. The
same writer tells us that by the example of his
virtues and the efficacy of his discourse, he con-
verted many unbelievers to Christ, and confirmed
in his faith and love those who already believed.

Though St. Fursey does not appear to have
possessed the learning for which his countrymen
were celebrated, there was a certain exaltation in
his nature which earns for him the epithet " sub-
lime" from the Venerable Bede. He wrote an
account of his ' Visions of Heaven and Hell' which
became well known in Europe, and which are the
most remarkable writings of their kind anterior to
the great epic poem of Dante. They show a great
spiritual insight, and are full of the most excellent
moral precepts. They reflect the profound
religious convictions of religious men of the period,
and no small amount of imaginative power is
shown in the treatment of the subject. It does
not seem unlikely that the great Florentine poet
was acquainted with St. Fursey's ' Visions/ and
derived inspiration from them in the writing of
the ' Divine Comedy.' The Venerable Bede, who
speaks with the greatest reverence of St. Fursey
and his " Visions," was one of the writers whom
Pante honoured in a special measure, and there are

74 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

parallelisms between certain of the speeches in the
" Inferno " and the words used by St. Fursey
which would support this conjecture.

St. Cathaldus was born about the year 615 A.D.
in Munster, and went to study at the great school
of Lismore. He eventually became a professor
there, and the fame of his learning and virtues
attracted many pupils to the school. In addition
to teaching, St. Cathaldus preached the Gospel and
founded churches in the country of the Desii. He
was consecrated Bishop of Rachan, a locality
which was probably in Munster, but which it is
difficult to ascertain. When he had presided over
the diocese of Rachan for some years he set out on
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem with his brother
Donatus and several companions. On their way.
homeward from Palestine the vessel in which they
sailed was wrecked in the Gulf of Taranto. St.
Cathaldus escaped from the wreck, and arrived at
the city of Taranto. He found the city practically
pagan and the effeminate and licentious inhabitants
were almost entirely addicted to pleasure and vice.
He preached to them in moving language, implor-
ing them to return to the rule and practices of
Christianity, and performed many striking mir-
acles in their sight. The bishopric of Taranto
happened to be vacant at the time, and the
Tarentines besought the Irish Saint to assume the
office, promising to follow his counsels. St.
Cathaldus assented, reluctantly, in the hope that
he might be able to win them back to the faith.
His labours amongst them were crowned with

SOME FAMOUS IRISH MISSIONARIES 75

success, Taranto became a Christian city in reality
as well as in name, and the inhabitants venerated
St. Cathaldus as their patron and apostle. His
remains are still preserved with great honour in
the cathedral, and the inscription on his tomb,
' Cathaldus Rachan' commemorates the debt which
Southern Italy owes to Southern Ireland.

St. Donatus was born of a noble family in Ire-
land, near the end of the eighth century, and was
educated at the monastic school of Inishcaltra in
Lough Derg. He became a priest, and obtained
high distinction as a professor and a man of learn-
ing. He taught in Ireland for a number of years,
and was raised to the dignity of a bishopric. He
left Ireland to make a pilgrimage to Rome,
accompanied by Andrew, a youth of a noble Irish
family, who was one of his favourite pupils.
They journeyed through France, visiting many
places of pilgrimage, and then made their way
through Switzerland and Northern Italy to Rome.
They received there the blessing of the Supreme
Pontiff, and, after staying for some time in the
city, set out towards Tuscany on their return
journey to Ireland. They arrived at Fiesole,
situated on the mountains overlooking Florence,
where there were at the time many churches and
memorials of Christian Saints and martyrs. They
stayed for a time at a monastery at Fiesole before
resuming their journey, and the monks and people
of the town became greatly attached to the two
Irishmen on account of their kindly simple ways
and great sanctity. Shortly after their arrival the

76 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

Bishop of Fiesole died, and the clergy and people
resolved that Donatus should be his successor.
They approached him on the subject, but Donatus
who was a man truly humble of spirit, declined
the office. He told them that he was only a poor
pilgrim from Ireland, and that he did not wish to
be their bishop as he was not fitted for the position
since he hardly knew their language or customs.
The clergy persisted in their request and at length
Donatus consented, and was consecrated Bishop
of Fiesole about 824 A.D. He became a great and
successful pastor, and laboured for thirty-seven
years at Fiesole, winning the love and reverence
of the people. He died in the year 861. His
name is still honoured at Fiesole, and his tomb
and other memories of him are held in high
veneration. There is extant a short Latin poeru
in which he recorded his love of his native land,
which he had left for ever, and celebrates the
beauty of its climate, the worth of the ancient race
that inhabited it, famed in the pursuits of war and
peace, and noted for their attachment to the faith.
Many legends have grown around the life
of. Saint Fridolin, the ' Wanderer.' He was
born in Connaught and gained a great reputa-
tion for learning. After travelling through
various parts of Ireland, he distributed his
possessions amongst the poor, and went to Gaul.
He entered the monastery of Saint Hilary of
Poitiers, where he remained for many years. His
brother monks loved and esteemed him, and elected
him as their Abbot. He left Poitiers and went to

SOME FAMOUS IRISH MISSIONARIES 77

the north-east towards the Moselle founding
churches on the way. Arriving at Strasburg he
founded a monastery there, which was for a long
time under the direction of Irish monks. Then he
went to a place called Seckingen a little to the
east of Basle, where he built a church, and lived
for a time. His wandering and restless spirit
would not allow him to remain anywhere for a
lengthened period, and we find him soon again
travelling through Switzerland, and converting
the people of Glarus, who still bear his figure on
their cantonal banner, in memory of his mis-
sionary labours in the country.

St. Aidan was the most celebrated of the
missionaries trained at St. Columcille's monastery
at lona. The son of Lugair, an Irish Saint of the
same lineage as St. Brigid, Aidan studied at Innis
Scattery under St. Senanus, and became a monk
at lona about 630. When King Oswald sent to
lona for missionaries, the first monks sent in
answer to his call obtained but little results. They
said on their return, after the failure of their
mission, that success was impossible amongst the
barbarous and stubborn people of Northumbria.
Aidan, who was listening, asked if the cause of
their failure was due to the stubbornness of the
people or to the severity of the monks. " Did you
forget God's word," he asked, " to give them the
milk first and then the meat?" All those
assembled thereupon considered Aidan as fittest to
undertake the abandoned mission, and he set out
in obedience to their election, and fixed his home

78 ICELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

at Lindisfarne. Thence from his monastery
preachers went forth in all directions through tha
kingdom of Northumbria and the North. One
group of missionaries went to the Valley of the
Tweed. Aidan himself went on foot preaching to
the people of Bernicia. King Oswald, who had
spent some time with the Irish monks at lona,
acted as interpreter to the Irish missionaries in
their effort to convert his thegns. The piety of
Aidan was seconded by the zeal of Oswald.
Churches were built and the Northumbrian people
came in great numbers to hear the new teachers.
Aidan lived the life that he preached to others.
The gifts which he received from the king and the
thegns were at once given to the poor, and his
time was spent in study and preaching. He
afterwards went as a missionary into the kingdom
Ueira, and there he exercised over King Oswini
the same influence which he had held over Oswald
in Northumbria. Aidan's mission in the North
succeeded splendidly where the previous mission
from Italy under Paulinus had failed, and Lindis-
farne became a focus and centre where some of the
highest art and best literary culture of the period
were cherished and cultivated. He found a school
in which boys of the Angles were to be taught the
Christian polity. One of his pupils, Eata, became
afterwards Abbot of Lindisfarne. Another was
the famous Bishop St. Chadd. A third was his
equally famous brother Bishop Cedda, and Diuma,
first Bishop of Mercia, was a fourth. St. Aidan
died in the year 651, and it is related that, when he

SOME FAMOUS IRISH MISSIONARIES 79

felt death approaching, he had a hut built against
the western wall of his church at Bamborough, and
expired there, leaning against a post which had
been erected to buttress the wall.

Frontispiece to St. Luke's Gospel.
Convent of St. Arnoul, Mels.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Irish Schools

In early Ireland religious training and the study
of letters were given at the same time. The Saints
and their disciples the monks were the founders
of the schools. The word ' sapiens' so frequently
employed in the early literature is applied to a
learned man who was versed at once in sacred and
profane literature. Other training was only con-
sidered useful as serving as an auxiliary to religious
education. The liberal arts, study of ancient
languages and all profane culture wTas intended to
prepare men for the study of the Divine mind con-
tained in the Scriptures and traditions.

The School of Armagh was the oldest and one of
the most celebrated of the schools of Ireland. It
was founded by St. Patrick between the years 450
and 457 A.D. at the same time as the See of
Armagh. A great number of students from other
countries came to Armagh, attracted by the fame
of its professors, and one of the wards into which
the city was divided was known as the Trian Saxon
or Saxon Third, because it was the residence of
English students. Later in the century St.
Bridget established her church and school at Kil-

80

tHE IRISH SCHOOLS 81

dare with St. Conlaeth as its first bishop and head,
and Kildare soon became one of the greatest centres
of religion and learning in Ireland. St. Finnian
founded the School of Clonard in 520 A.D. and
thither canie as his pupils the Saints who were
known as the Twelve Apostles of Erin — Ciaran of
Saighir, Ciaran of Clonmacuoise, Brendan of Birr,
Brendan of Clonfert, Colunicille, Columba of Tir-
da-Glass, Mobhi of Glasnevin, Rodan of Lorrha,
Laserian, Canice of Aghaboe, Senanus of Innis-
cathy and Ninnidh the Pious. St. Finnian is said
to have had as many as three thousand pupils at
Clonard. About twenty years after the foundation
of Clonard, another St. Finnian founded the School
of Moville. The great School of Bangor was
founded by St. Comgall about the same time, and
St. Bernard of Clairvaux describes it as a noble
institution that was inhabited by many thousands
of monks. Amongst the most illustrious of its
pupils were St. Columbanus, St. Gall, and Dungal
the Astronomer, and the great St. Malachy pre-
sided over it in the twelfth century. The School
of Clonmacnoise was founded by St. Ciaran in 544,
and took rank as one of the greatest centres of
learning in Europe. Alcuin, the foremost and
most representative man of letters of his time, was
a pupil there, and we have still a letter in which
he records his gratitude to one of his masters at
Clonmacnoise, and sends a gift from the Emperor
Charlemagne to the professors. The oldest of our
Jrish annals was written at Clonmacnoise by
Tighernach, and Suibhne, another of its teachers,

82 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

who is referred to in the Saxon Chronicle as the
greatest master of the Scots, assisted King Alfred
at the foundation of the University of Oxford.
St. Brendan founded the School of Clonfert in the
year 556, and presided over it for twenty years,
during which time he is said to have trained three
thousand monks. The School of Lismore was
founded by St. Carthach in the year €35 . St.
Cathaldus of Tarentum was a professor in Lis-
more and had under his care students from Eng-
land, Gaul, and Germany. There were also
celebrated schools at Aran, Durrow, Clonenagh,
Cork, Derry, Emly, Glendalough, Innisfallen,
Iniscaltra, Louth, Kells, Mayo, Mungret, Ross,
and Tuam.

In all the greater schools of Ireland there were
students from foreign lands, who were attracted
by the celebrity of the Irish teachers, and the
phrase ' Amandatus est ad disciplinan in Hibernia'
came to be the mark of a learned man on the
Continent. Bede tells us that in 664 many of the
nobility and the lower ranks of the British nation
forsook their native land and went to Ireland,
either for the sake of sacred study or of devoting
themselves to a monastic life. Some of these
became monks, while others chose rather to apply
themselves to study, going about from one master's
cell to another. The Irish willingly received
them all, and took care to supply them with daily
food without cost, and also to furnish them with
books for their study and teaching free of charge.*

•Bede : " Ecclesiastical History." III.. 37.

THE IRISH SCHOOLS 83

Adhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, writing forty years
later to his friend Eadfrid, Bishop of Lindisfarne,
who had himself been a student at one of the Irish
schools, states that the English went to Ireland in
crowds as numerous as bees, and asks, " why does
Ireland pride herself upon a sort of priority, in
that such numbers flock there from England, as
if here (i.e. in England) upon this fruitful soil
there were not an abundance of Argive or Roman
masters to be found, fully capable of solving the
deepest problems of religion, and satisfying the
most ambitious of pupils."

Of the most celebrated Anglo-Saxon scholars
and saints, many had studied in Ireland; among
these were St. Egbert, the author of the first
Anglo-Saxon mission to the Continent, and Willi-
brod, the Apostle of the Frieslanders, who had
resided twelve years in Ireland. From Ireland,
also, came two English priests, both named Ewald,
who in 690 went as missionaries to the German
Saxons, and were martyred in Germany. The
celebrated St. Chadd, regarded on account of his
virtue and holiness as one of the Fathers of the
Anglo-Saxon Church, was educated in Mayo; and
Oswald and Aldfrid, Kings of Northurnbria,
studied at the Irish schools. Dagobert II., King
of the Austrasian Franks, was educated at Slane,
and Bede tells us that Agilbert, who afterwards
became Archbishop of Paris, came from France
to Ireland and lived a long time there for the
purpose of studying the Scriptures.

It has been pointed out by Zirnnier and other

84 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

Continental scholars that the standard of learning
in the great Irish schools was much higher than
in Italy. It was derived without interruption
from the learning of the fourth century, from men
such as St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and St.
Augustine. The pupils had an opportunity of
free access to the works of the great Christian
writers, and were also well trained in classical
studies. In monasteries like Bangor the range of
instruction was a wide one, and it must have been
a thoroughly equipped and vigorous seat of learn-
ing in the latter half of the sixth century when
it could have despatched such a trained and even
elegant scholar as Colurnbanus to convert the
pagans of France. His learning and scholarship
are manifest to any student of his writings. He
has left us good Latin verses, full of quaint
metrical conceits in the classical and monastic
rhyming style, and allusions to pagan and
Christian antiquity are frequent in his poems.
It is sufficient, as M. d'Arbois de Jubainville says,
to glance at his writings, to recognise immediately
his superiority over Gregory of Tours and the
Gallo-Romans of his time. " He lived in close
converse with the classical authors, as later did
the learned men of the sixteenth century, whose
equal he certainly was not, but of whom he is the
precursor." He must, too, have acquired this
scholarship in Ireland, because his life on the
Continent was one of vigorous and all-absorbing
effort which left him no time for such studies, and
the country in which he worked was plunged in

THE IRISH SCHOOLS 85

literary and spiritual darkness, and could not
present any opportunities for culture.

M. Darmesteter writes that " The classic tradi-
tion, to all appearances dead in Europe, burst out
in full flower in the Isle of Saints, and the Renais-
sance began in Ireland, 700 years before it was
known in Italy. During three centuries Ireland
was the asylum of the higher learning which took
sanctuary there from the uncultured States of
Europe. At one time, Armagh, the religious
capital of Christian Ireland, was the metropolis of
civilisation." The Irish schools did not confine
their courses to the study of sacred literature and
the classics. They sent forth St. Yirgilius, a great
geometer who taught the sphericity of the earth
and the existence of the Antipodes, Dicuil who
wrote a complete Geography of the World as then
known, and Dungal who gained fame as an
astronomer.

There were two classes of schools in Ireland,
ecclesiastical and lay. The ecclesiastical or
monastic schools were intended principally for the
study of the Sacred Scriptures, theology, and the
classics, while the lay schools were occupied with
the teaching of the language, literature, laws, and
antiquities of Ireland. Each of the two classes of
schools had its separate and distinct mission, yet
they worked together harmoniously, and many
laymen received their education in the monas-
teries. While the learned men were for the most
part ecclesiastics, we find that laymen had an
important role in education, and that nearly all

86 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

the poets, physicians, lawyers, artists and his-
torians were laymen. The lay schools succeeded
to the schools which had been governed by the
Druids before the introduction of Christianity to
Ireland, and the Christian Ollaves or doctors who
taught in them were the successors of the wise men
who directed the training and education of the
people of pagan Ireland.

The course of education was divided into seven
stages, or as they were called the " seven degrees
of wisdom," which corresponded with the term
periods in a modern university. A student who
had passed through the various degrees and at-
tained to the highest grade was known as an
' Ollave or Doctor.' In the Bardic schools the
course extended over twelve years, and an Ollave
poet had to possess a knowledge of seven kinds of
verse, and to be able to compose extemporaneously
in each. In addition he was required to know by
heart three hundred and fifty legendary poems for
recitation in public. He took rank at the head
of the learned professions and was considered to be
the equal of kings and bishops in social dignity
and importance. The profession of the poet was
highly esteemed and very popular, so much so that
Keating tells that in the middle of the sixth
century nearly a third of the men of Ireland be-
longed to the poetic order. The Ollave Brehon,
who corresponded to a Judge of the High Court in
our own day, had also to pass through a long and
severe course of study, and had to be conversant
with the intricate and complicated rules of the

THE IRISH SCHOOLS 87

Brehon Code, which regulated almost every rela-
tion of human life in Ireland, and extended to
many subjects with which modern systems of law
do not concern themselves.

There were laws framed to govern the various
systems of education, and when one considers how
admirable they were and how splendid was the
material that these teachers had, in a people who
had a great natural aptitude and love of learning,
it is but little wonder that the Irish schools became
famous in Europe. The greatest care was taken
that the masters in the various subjects should be
competent teachers. Nothing can be more beau-
tiful than the ideas which prevailed as to the rela-
tion between pupil and master. The master owed
the pupil " instruction without reservation and
correction without harshness" and to feed and
clothe him during the time he was at his learning.
In return the pupil was bound to help the master
against poverty, and to support him, if necessary,
in old age. Learning was held in the highest
esteem, and an Ollave sat next to the King at
table, and was privileged to wear the same number
of colours in his clothes as a monarch. Great
feasts were often arranged in honour of the men
of learning, and all the poets, brehons, and lawyers
were invited to be present.

Plain living and high thinking went together
in the schools. A few of the students resided in
the school itself, but the great majority of the
scholars resided in small houses in the neighbour-
hood built by themselves or by a former generation

IP 355) G

88 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

of students. Some of the poorer students lived in
the houses of people in the vicinity of the school,
and were maintained and educated without any
charge. Others lived in the houses with their
wealthier classfellows, and waited upon them,
receiving their food and clothing as a recompense.
Sometimes even rich and nobly born scholars chose
to do this by way of discipline and as a prepara-
tion for a life of austerity. A story is told of the
schooldays of Adamnan, the celebrated Abbot of
lona and the biographer of St. Columba, who was
connected with the noblest families in the North
of Ireland, which illustrates this feature of school
life and shows the Spartan simplicity in which the
students were trained. Some time before he suc-
ceeded to his kingdom, King Finaghta the Festive
was riding one day in the direction of the School
of Clonard with certain of his attendants, and
they overtook Adamnan, then a little boy, carry-
ing a jar of milk on his back. In attempting to
make way for the horsemen, the lad stumbled and
fell, spilling the milk and breaking the jar.
Finaghta rode on, without noticing the accident,
but the boy ran after him, greatly troubled and
bearing in his hand a fragment of the broken jar.
He succeeded in attracting the King's attention,
and Finaghta, amused by his troubled looks,
questioned him in a kindly way as to the cause.
The boy, not knowing his questioner, replied to
him, " Indeed, good man, I have great cause to be
troubled. There are living in one house near the
school three noble students, and three others tha,t

THE IRISH SCHOOLS

89

wait upon them, of whom I am one ; and the three
of us have in our turn to collect provisions in the
neighbourhood for the whole six. It was my turn
to-day ; and lo, what I had obtained has been lost ;
and this vessel which I borrowed has been broken,
and I have not the means to pay for it." Finaghta
consoled the lad, assuring him that his loss would
be made good, and promising that he would be
careful of his welfare in the future. When he
became King he was faithful to his promise, and
summoned Adamnan to his court, where he became
his friend and spiritual adviser.

Initial " I N." Book of Kells.

CHAPTER IX.

The Irish Learning

One of the most distinguished and learned of
Irish Archaeologists* has remarked that we must
draw from foreign depositories the materials on
which to rest the proofs that Ireland of old was
really entitled to that literary eminence which
natural feeling lays claim to. Nearly all our
domestic evidences of advanced learning have been
swept away and destroyed. Hence our real know-
ledge of Irish teachers and scholars who migrated
to the Continent, and became masters of foreign
monasteries abroad, is derived from foreign
chronicles, and their testimony is borne out by the
evidence of the numerous Irish manuscripts and
other relics of the period from the eighth to the
tenth century occurring in libraries throughout
Europe.

Irish manuscripts are at present to be found in
the Ambrosian Library at Milan, in Turin and
Naples, which are said to have been brought
originally from Bobbio. Such Irish foundations
as Bobbio were for many centuries fed from the
monasteries in Ireland, and in the ninth century

•Doctor Beeves.
90

THE IRISH LEARNING 91

and afterwards books were often brought abroad
from the Mother Country. We find that Dungal
made donations of books to Bobbio, and that when
an Irish bishop and his nephew visited the monas-
tery of St. Gall on their return from Rome in 841,
they decided to remain there till death, and be-
queathed their books to the monastery. At Schaff-
hausen there is a manuscript in perfect preserva-
tion of Adamnan's * Life of St. Columba' which
was brought from the Irish foundation at
Reichenau. Many Irish manuscripts were found
in Bavaria, and as Dr. Beeves observes, they might
be considered as a small instalment in discharge
of the old debt that the country owed to Ireland
for her missionary services. Vienna possesses
manuscripts from Ratisbon, and a copy of the
Epistles of St. Paul written by Marianus Scotus
" for his pilgrim brethren." In Treves there are
two Irish manuscripts brought from Honau. At
Cambrai there is a Codex finely ornamented in the
Celtic style, which contains canons of the Irish
Council held in A.D. 684, and in the monastery of
St. Autbert in that city is a ' Life of St. Brigid'
that came from Longford. In the public library
of Leyden there is a Priscian written by Dubthach
about 838, a fragment of the New Testament is
preserved in the University of Utrecht, and the
Royal Library in Brussels contains the large col-
lection of Irish manuscripts brought from Louvain.
The attainments of the Scots were considered
as astonishing for that age. They had, as M.

92 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

d'Arbois de Jubainville has shown,* a good know-
ledge of Greek, and they appear to have been the
only people then in Western Europe who possessed
this knowledge. They had Graeco - Latin
Glossaries, Greek Grammars, and the books of the
Bible in Greek accompanied by Latin translations.
One of them, John Scotus Erigena, was a disciple
of Plato, whose Timaus he appears to have read in
the original text, and he was the founder of a
system of philosophy derived from the doctrines
of the celebrated Greek philosopher. It was con-
sidered good taste amongst the Irish scholars and
the other learned men of this period to scatter
Greek words through the Latin text which they
composed, and this practice points to a certain
acquaintance with the language. John Scotus
Erigena went even further than this, and wrote
verses entirely in Greek. A manuscript in the
library of Laon, written by an Irish scribe between
the years 850 and 900, contains two glossaries of
the Greek and Latin languages, with occasional
passages in the Irish language, and also a Greek
Grammar. It is believed to have been included
in the library of Charles the Bald.

They were also famed for their subtlety in
argument and boldness in speculation. In these
qualities they were distinguished from the Saxon
scholars, who were invited to the Court of Charle-
magne, by the Emperor acting on the advice of
Alcuin. Cardinal Newman has remarked that as

•Introduction &, ]'6tnde de la Literature Celtique, Liyre
III., p. 379.

Home was the centre of authority in these ages,
so Ireland was the native home of speculation. In
this respect they were remarkably contrasted with
the English, as they are now — " the Englishman
was hard-working, plodding, bold, determined,
persevering, obedient to law and precedent, and if
he cultivated his mind, he was literary and
classical rather than scientific, for literature in-
volves in it the idea of prescription. On the other
hand, in Ireland the intellect seems rather to have
taken the line of science, and we have various in
stances to show how fully this was recognised in
these times, and with what success it was carried
out. ' Philosopher' is in these times almost the
name for an Irish monk." The monks of the
two nations were distinct, and even antagonistic
in talent, and there are evidences of jealousies and
rivalries — " the repugnance between the plain
solid English temperament and the more adven-
turous speculative genius of the Celt." The Irish
scholars were alluded to as " Egyptians" on
account of their leaning towards mysticism and
Neo-Platonism, as we learn from a letter from
Alcuin to Charlemagne in which he writes "Nescio
quis subintroduxit Aegyptos tibi."

In the ninth and tenth centuries Ireland
sent a great number of teachers to the Con-
tinental schools, and all the more because great as
was the fame of its earlier schools, it had then
few flourishing homes of learning of its own.
The names of many of these professors have not
been preserved, but the reputation which they

94 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

gained on the Continent is evidenced in many
ways. Thus we find that when the Emperor
Frederick the Second was about to set up the
University of Naples, he sent to Ireland for the
learned Peter to be its first Rector, that an Irish-
man, Clemens, succeeded Alcuin as the Rector of
the Studium at Paris, and that in the same age
the Irish John was sent by Charlemagne to found
the School of Pavia.

The chief representative of Ireland and
philosophy at the Carolovingian Court was John
Scotus Erigena. We know little of him until the
time that we find him an intimate of the palace of
Charles the Bald in 851, and the date of his birth
and place of education are matters of surmise.
He was at that time well known in France as a
distinguished scholar, so that he must have been
for some time resident there. Charles, who had
few of the great qualities of his famous grand-
father, Charlemagne, has at least the distinction
of being, like him, a noble patron of letters.
Stories are told of the terms of intimacy that
existed between Charles and John Scotus which
do equal credit to the kindliness of the one and the
wit and freedom of the other.

Certain reputed works of Dionysius the Areo-
p&gite had been sent by Pope Paul I. to Pepin-le-
Bref, and a splendid manuscript of the mystical
writings of the same author was subsequently
presented to Louis the Pious by the Byzantine
Emperor Michael. The works were in the Greek
language, and the greatest scholars of France were

THE IRISH LEARNING 95

unable to interpret their meaning. Amongst
others the task was entrusted to Hilduin, Abbot
of St. Denis, and the learned Abbot had to confess
his inability to produce a satisfactory version.
This was considered all the more regrettable as
Dionysius was regarded as the patron saint of
France, and the great Abbey of St. Denis had
been named after him. The task was finally
entrusted to John Scotus, and he produced a satis-
factory version, and it thus became the lot of an
Irishman to introduce the works of a Greek mystic
of the East to the knowledge of a Franco-Roman
King. The learned Anastasius, the Papal
librarian, on reading the version of John Scotus,
wrote to the King expressing his surprise " that
a barbarian who hailed from the extreme confines
of the world, and who might have been deemed to
be as ignorant of Greek as he was remote from
civilisation, could have proved capable of compre-
hending such mysteries and translating them into
another tongue." So much did the reputed writ-
ings of Dionysius puzzle all others, that the Irish-
man's faithful and literal rendering was regarded
as an interpretation which itself required an inter-
pretation.

John Scotus took a prominent part in the philo-
sophical and theological disputes of his time, and
always proved a formidable opponent. When the
Latin Fathers fail him in his arguments, he
appeals to the Greek writers, and when he cannot
have recourse to the Christian writers, he takes
refuge amidst the philosophers. He sometimes,

96 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

pityingly, ascribes the alleged mistakes or differ-
ences of his opponents to their ignorance of the
Greek language. The varied nature of his studies
was not without its effect on him, and he often
mingles divinity with platonic philosophy, and fell
into grave errors in his speculation. He was not,
of course, an ecclesiastic, nor was he a sound
theologian. His bold and inquiring mind had
come to consider that even the most sacred
mysteries were within his comprehension, and he
met with inevitable failure when he theorised con-
cerning the nature and attributes of the Deity,
grace and predestination, the future state of
reward and punishment and other subjects. " He
sailed," says Dr. Healy, " through unknown seas
where there was no chart to guide him. His
daring spirit essayed untravelled realms of
thought, and in the quest of truth he often followed
wandering fires ; yet, as he himself tells us, in the
light of God's revelation, and the strength of his
grace, the wearied spirit always found its home-
ward way again. He was, in reality, the first of
the schoolmen, and his very errors, like the
wanderings of every explorer in a new country,
served to guide those who came after him."

Few philosophers have obtained so high a
reputation for wisdom in their own age as John
Scotus Erigena. The strange legends which have
grown around his life tend to show the awe in
which his learning was held by his contemporaries.
He gained fame as a philosopher, a poet, and a
theologian, and men looked with wonder at this

THE IRISH LEARNING 97

prodigy, who could write Greek verses, and
expound the Scriptures in the Hebrew, who was
familiar with Aristotle and Plato, as well as with
the Fathers of the Church, who was Rector of the
Royal School of Paris, and also professor of
dialectics and mathematics. He was known in his
own time, and long after as " The Master," and
was looked upon as "a miracle of knowledge."
" That single mind that Ireland sent to Gaul sur-
passed all others in acuteness," said his friend
Prudentius, expressing the estimation which the
great Irishman gained amongst the learned. The
resemblance between the Greek mind and the Irish
has sometimes been observed, and it has been
noted that the scholars of both these nations were
characterised by quickness and subtlety, love of
speculation, and power of abstraction and general-
isation. John Scotus, who was in many respects
a typical Celt, had, by close study, imbued himself
with the spirit of the Neo-Platonistic philosophy, and
had thus, by nature and training, become intensely
Greek in his outlook and methods of thought. It
was this characteristic of his teaching and language
that made them appear so strange to the Latins, and
that induced them to father on him many errors
and ideas for which he was not in reality respon-
sible. Renan regards him as the most original
figure of his century, the greatest mind of the
period. In the breadth of his philosophic outlook,
his knowledge of philology, and his acquaintance
with the Greek language, which was such as no
member of the Latin racea outside Italy possessed

98 IRELAND : itS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

during the whole of the Middle Ages, he is a
unique exception to the men of his time, a strange
apparition for which nothing that has gone before
prepares us, and which remains isolated in the
history of the human intellect. It is true that the
position that he held as a philosopher has been
weakened, but, as Kenan points out, when one
considers his time, he is a still greater wonder as
a philologist than as a philosopher. He has, in
this regard, antecedents, and his antecedents are
to be found in the Irish schools. It was not
necessary for him to travel to Athens in order to
learn Greek, as his legend supposes, for he found
in his own country the best Hellenistic school that
the Latin Middle Ages had. He made grave
errors in philosophy, and they were justly cen-
sured, but they were not advanced in any recal-
citrant spirit, and unlike Abelard and others who
followed him, John the Irishman did not show
any ambition to become the leader of a small body
of sectaries. Unlike them, too, he wore his high
distinction with modesty, and one who knew him
intimately tells us that he was a holy and an
humble man filled with the Spirit of God. " He
was loved," writes Dr. Healy, " and honoured by
friends who knew him, and misjudged both
during his life and after his death by many who
knew neither the man himself nor his writings
. . . . For ages he was lost to view, but in
our own time he is seen shining again in the
literary heavens with even more than his ancient
splendour."

THE IRISH LEARNING 99

The monk, Dungal, who gained glory as a
theologian, an astronomer and a poet was, like
Columbanus, a pupil of the great school of Bangor.
The same obscurity surrounds his early years as in
the cases of Columbanus and John Scotus, and he
does not emerge into fame until we find him
already recognised as a notable personality in the
French schools. He appears to have gone to
France in the early years of the ninth century,
attracted by the reputation which Charlemagne
had gained as a patron of learning. In the year
811 he addressed a remarkable letter to Charle-
magne on two solar eclipses which had taken place
in the previous year. He seems at this time to
have been a member of the community of St.
Denis, and it may be inferred from the tone of his
letter to the Emperor that he was intimate
with him and was held in high esteem on
account of his learning. While Dungal's ex-
planation of the eclipses is not scientifically
correct in all points, it is, in the main, suffi-
ciently accurate, and, considering the time
at which it was written, it justifies the high
estimation in which he was held as an astronomer.
The letter also shows a wide acquaintance with the
classical authors who had treated this subject, and
proves that Dungal was one of the first Latinists
of his age. An eulogy of Charlemagne, and certain
smaller poems of Dungal that have been preserved
are evidence that he was possessed of a fine
classical taste.

He is principally remembered, however, op

100 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

account of his famous controversy with Claudius,
Bishop of Turin, on the subject of image worship.
The Council of Nice had defined the position of
the Church with regard to the use of images, but
many of the bishops of France held heterodox
views on the subject, and a controversy was
carried on with much heat in the Frankish empire
during the first quarter of the ninth century.
Foremost amongst those who held heterodox views
was Claudius of Turin, whose opinions concerning
the use of images were similar to those which
were afterwards held by the Calvinists and the
English Puritans of the seventeenth century.
Claudius went so far as to remove the crosses from
his cathedral, and to break the images of the
saints and the holy pictures on the walls. A
friend, the Abbot Theodomir, wrote to Claudius
reminding him how unworthy it was of a
Christian bishop to insult the Cross of Christ, and
to dishonour the images of the Saints and Martyrs.
This letter only provoked a furious reply from
Claudius, and it was the reply that induced
Dungal to appear as a champion of orthodoxy, and
to produce a treatise setting forth the doctrines of
the Church on the whole matter. He was at the
time residing at Pavia, and he tells us that many
times since his arrival in Italy, he had just cause
to complain when he saw the field of the Lord
overgrown with tares, yet he held his peace with
grief and pain. He could, however, do so no
longer when he saw the Church distracted and the
people seduced by deceivers, He sets out clearly

THE IRISH LEARNING 101

the points at issue, and then proceeded to demolish
the arguments of Claudius, and to prove the
Catholic doctrine and practice, " which for 820
years or more was followed by the blessed Fathers,
by most religious princes, and by all Christian
households."

In his treatise Dungal shows a great knowledge
of Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers of the
Church. It is composed in a Latin style, which
is not excelled by any writer of the age, and
Muratori says that it is remarkable both on account
of the width of learning it discloses, and of the
manner in which it is written. It fully achieved
its purpose, and after Dungal's vigorous refutation
of Claudius, the Iconoclastic party in the Church
were not afterwards heard of. By his able
advocacy of the truth, Dungal rendered a signal
service to the Church, and it is doubtful whether
any ecclesiastic of his day could have discharged
the task so well and so successfully. Cardinal
Newman pays him a well-deserved tribute in his
description of the work which Irishmen did in
passing on the tradition of civilisation to France.
" When," he writes, " the heretical Claudius of
Turin exulted over the ignorance of the devastated
churches of the Continent, and called the Synod
of Bishops who summoned him to appear before
them 'a congregation of asses,' it was no other than
the Irish Dungal, a monk of St. Denis, who met
and overthrew the presumptuous railer."

Towards the end of his life, Dungal retired to'
the monastery that was founded by St. Colum-

102 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

banus at Bobbio, and to this monastery he be-
queathed his books at his death. They were
transferred to Milan by Cardinal Borromeo, and
now form part of the Ambrosian Library. Amongst
them is an Antiphonary which appears to have
been in use in Bangor.

Another famous man of learning, Dicuil the
Geographer, has left us in his treatise De Mensura
Orbis Terrarum one of the most interesting and
valuable monuments of Irish scholarship in the
ninth century, a book which is in itself a sufficient
proof of the culture of our native schools at that
period. From a few incidental references which
he makes to himself in this treatise he appears to
have been trained at the great school of Clonmac-
noise at the time when Suibhne was professor
there, and to have subsequently visited the Irish
foundations at lona and the islands on the West
of Scotland. He shows an acquaintance with the
best authorities on his subject, including the Re-
port of the Commissioners who were sent to survey
the Eoman Empire by the Emperor Theodosius,
the Natural History of Plinius Secundus, the
Geography of Caius Julius Solinus, and a little
known work of Priscian. When writing of the
Nile he tells us that he derived his knowledge of
the canalisation of this river from the narrative of
certain Irish clerics and laymen who had sailed
up it for a long way on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem
He gives the measurement of one of the Egyptian
Pyramids which was supplied to him by his
countryman Brother Fidelis. He also gives an

THE IRISH LEARNING 103

interesting description of Iceland, and shows that
it was known to Irish monks more than fifty years
before the Danes or Norwegians discovered the
island, a fact that is now admitted by scholars
familiar with Icelandic literature and history.
"A certain trustworthy monk" told him of the
existence of the Faroe Islands, and how he had
reached one of them by sailing for two summer
days and one summer night in a vessel with two
benches of rowers, and discovered that for almost
a century there had dwelt on these islands hermits
from Ireland. Dicuil goes on to say that he had
never found these islands mentioned by any pre-
vious writer.

It is, as Dr. Healy notes, an interesting fact
that we should find an Irish monk, in the begin-
ning of the ninth century, collating and criticising
the various works on geography that had been
written by the best known Latin writers who had
preceded him in treating of the subject. The in-
formation which he gives us, derived from his own
personal knowledge, or gathered from the narra-
tions of his countrymen, is also valuable as proving
how far the Irish monks travelled in their mis-
sionary efforts.

Another Irish scholar who gained distinction as
a man of learning was Sedulius Scotus, the Com-
mentator on Scripture. A Greek psalter written
by him which has been preserved at Montfancon
shows his acquaintance with the Greek language.
He was also an accomplished Latin poet, and in
his writings on the Sacred Scriptures shows a

(D 355) H

104 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

wonderful knowledge of the writings of the
Fathers of the Church. A treatise on Politics
written by him was discovered some time ago in
the Vatican library and published by Cardinal
Mai. He is said, in addition, to have written
grammatical commentaries on Priscian and
Donatus, which were used in the Irish schools.

Initial letter "E." Book of Relic.

Portion of Illuminated Monogram.
Book of Kells.

CHAPTER X.

Early Christian Art in Ireland

Christian Art in Ireland attained its highest
excellence in four branches : the writing and
ornamentation of manuscripts, metal-work, stone-
carving, and building. It should be remembered
that there was a native art in Ireland even before
Christianity came to the country, and that the
pagan Irish had highly developed the art of work-
ing in bronze, silver, gold, and enamel before St.
Patrick's time. From the pagan period we have
torques, brooches, gorgets, and combs with char-
acteristic ornamentation, and the delicate crafts-
manship and purity of taste displayed in the early
Celtic ornaments has often been noted. A well-
known authority* stated that two of the fragments
of a bronze ornament of the pre-Christian period
might challenge comparison for beauty of design
and execution with any specimens of cast bronze
work that it had ever been his fortune to see. The
character of the arts introduced into Ireland with
Christianity was therefore grafted upon and modi-
fied by the arts as already practised by the people,
and new variations of design were introduced from

•Mr. Kemble.
105

106 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

the Continent by the missionaries and the foreign
artists who came in their train. The arts, too,
were assiduously cultivated by the' people, and
Ferdinand Keller's remarks on the manner in
which the excellence of the Irish school of cali-
graphy was obtained are also applicable to the
other arts. They attained a high degree of culti-
vation, which certainly did not result from the
genius of single individuals, but from the emula-
tion of numerous schools, and the improvements
of several generations.

The position which the artist and the crafts-
man held in society, is an indication of how
the arts were loved and esteemed in Ireland.
The title of scribe is frequently used in our
ancient literature to enhance the dignity of a
bishop, and we find that St. Conlaeth, the
first Bishop of Kildare, was a skilled worker
in metals. St. Dega was also a celebrated artificer
and scribe; one of St. Patrick's three smiths was
Fortchern, son of Laery, King of Ireland; and
it is stated in the Trepartite Life that the holy
Bishop Assicus was his coppersmith. A builder
of churches was entitled under the Brehon Laws
to the same compensation for any injury done to
his person as the lower rank of nobles, and the
artist who worked for a king could claim half the
amount payable to the king himself in a similar
case. The greatest care was taken that the
workers in the various arts should be competent
craftsmen, and they had to possess a certificate of
proficiency from the Ollave or Chief Artist.

EARLY CHRISTIAN ART IN IRELAND 107

Under such conditions a native art was developed
in Ireland to a high degree of perfection and its
characteristics have been described as " the union
of primitive rhythmical designs with a style which
accords with the highest laws of the arts of design,
the exhibition of a fine architectural feeling in the
distribution of parts, and such delicate and perfect
execution, whatever the material in which the art
was treated, as must command respect for the con-
scientious artist by whom the work was carried
out."* The conversion of the island to Christianity
gave a new energy and inspiration to the
imaginative powers of the race, and a new impulse
that was felt in all branches of the national life,
more especially in the cultivation of the arts.

The art of illumination was the first to be culti-
vated in Christian Ireland, and it was brought to
a higher degree of perfection than any of the other
arts. It reached its highest excellence at the close
of the seventh and at the beginning of the eighth
century. The designs and ornamentation used are
not entirely of native origin, but the Irish school
is distinguished from Celtic work elsewhere by
a fine judgment displayed in the use of ornamenta-
tion, a -delicate and refined taste, and a knowledge
of architectural design. The interlaced patterns
were probably introduced from Northern Italy and
Southern Gaul; the spirals, zigzags and other
designs belong to the pre-Christian Art of Ireland ;
and they were gradually grafted on the style intro-
duced by the Christian missionaries. The writing

•Stokes: "Early Christian Art in Ireland," Preface.

108 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS ANfc SCHOLARS

was done with the quills of birds, and the inks
used were of various colours, blended together with
great artistic effect. Sixty-one remarkable scribes
are mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters
as having flourished in Ireland before the year
900. The distinctively Irish art of illumination
has often been confused with Anglo-Saxon Art
from the fact that many manuscripts written in
Anglo-Saxon were illuminated by Irish artists, or
by monks who had learned the art in Ireland . The
Irish monks who went to lona, Melrose, Lindis-
farne and other places in Great Britain had been
trained in this art, and taught it to the peoples
amongst whom they lived. An Anglo-Saxon
monk, Ethelwulf, tells of an Irish missionary
named Ultan, who worked in England in the
eighth century, and who was unrivalled in the art
of illumination, and the influence of Irish artists
is plainly discernible in many of the manuscripts
preserved in the British Museum and the Univer-
sities of Oxford and Cambridge.

The art of working in metal attained its highest
excellence in the period from the ninth to the
twelfth century. The designs employed are
similar to those used in the illumination of
manuscripts, and while we find that the artists
sometimes followed foreign models, they un-
doubtedly achieved their best work in the examples
whiph we still possess that are Irish both in form
and design. The best work in stone-carving
appears to have been done about the tenth century,
as the Annalists do not refer to the High Crosses

109

until that time. The builder's art in Ireland
reached its perfection about the twelfth century,
when from very rude and simple buildings there
was developed the beautiful style of architecture
known as the Irish Romanesque.

The first art, that of the scribe, was carried to
a state of perfection in Christian Ireland that has
never been surpassed. Writing was one of the
most important occupations of the Irish monks.
They had to supply the numerous churches which
sprang into existence with books for the various
religious services, and they bestowed great labour
on the ornamentation of the sacred writings,
which are wonderful monuments of their concep-
tions, skill, and patience. The symmetry of their
hand-writing is remarkable, and the shading and
tinting of the letters is managed with the greatest
skill and taste. A distinguished German critic,
Ferdinand Keller, states that there is not a single
letter of the entire alphabet which does not give
evidence, both in its general form and its minuter
parts, of the sound judgment and taste of the pen-
man.

The art of illumination originated in Byzantium,
and penetrated through the North of Italy to Gaul
and Ireland. In the ancient literature of Ireland
there are to be met with fragments that appear to
be translations from certain versions of the rules,
and manuals, which the Byzantine artists drew up
for the guidance of their disciples. Though the
Irish scribes did not originate this art, they made
it characteristically their own, and brought it to

llO IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

a much higher grade of perfection than it reached
in Byzantium, Italy, or Gaul. They combined
the Byzantine interlacing.? with the native de-
signs, producing new and varied patterns, and
developing novel and intricate forms of great
beauty and symmetry'. Their work is now known
as the ' Opus Hibernicum,' and splendid specimens
of it are found in Ireland itself, and in the Con-
tinental libraries. One of the finest specimens
that have been preserved for us is the Book of
Kells, a vellum manuscript of the Four Gospels
in Latin dating from the seventh or eighth
century, and, probably, the most beautiful book
ever written. Miss Margaret Stokes says of it:
" No effort hitherto made to transcribe any one
page has the perfection of execution and rich
harmony of colour which belongs to this wonderful
book ... as with the skeleton of a leaf or with
any microscopic work of nature, the stronger the
magnifying power brought to bear upon it the
more is this perfection revealed." Professor
Westwood of Oxford described it as the most
astonishing book of the Four Gospels that exists
in the world. " I know," he writes, " pretty
well all the libraries in Europe, where such books
as this occur, but there is no such book in any of
them . . . there is nothing like it in all the
books which were written for Charlemagne and
his immediate successors."

Besides the Book of Kells we have as specimens
of the exquisite Irish art of illumination the Book
of Burrow, the Book of Armagh, the Stowe Missal,

EARLY CHRISTIAN ART IN IRELAND 111

the Book of MacDurnan, the Garland of Howth,
the Book of Dimna, and the Book of St. Moling.
The Book of Durrow shows fewer varieties of
design than the Book of Kells, but those which it
does display belong to the most ancient and char-
acteristic style of Irish Art. The ornamental
portions of the Book of Armagh equal, if they do
not in some points surpass, the grace and delicate
execution of the Book of Kells. It was written
by a scribe named Ferdomnach, and the recdrd of
his death in the ' Annals of the Four Masters '
points to the fact that even at the finest period of
this art in Ireland, he was recognised as an artist
of superior power. His death is recorded as
follows: — " A.D. 844, Ferdomnach, a sage and
choice scribe of the Church of Armagh, died."
In the 'Garland of Howth' the art of decoration is
larger and bolder than we usually meet in Irish
manuscripts.

The designs and ornaments used by the artists
who worked in metal in Ireland after the intro-
duction of Christianity were similar to those used
in the manuscripts, and they showed the same
exquisite .skill and taste. The most beautiful
specimens of their art that have been preserved are
the Tara Brooch, the Ardagh Chalice, and the
Cross of Cong. " The Tara Brooch," says Dr.
Petrie, " is superior to any hitherto found in the
variety of its ornaments and in the exquisite
delicacy and perfection of its execution." The
Ardagh Chalice is an almost unique example of
the two-handled chalice used in the earliest

112 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

Christian time. A few two-handled chalices have
been found on the Continent, but no example has
been hitherto found in Great Britain of the same
type as this beautiful chalice. The chalice is
richly ornamented, and the ornamental designs
upon the cup belong to the period when Celtic Art
had reached its highest perfection. There are
about forty different varieties of design on the
chalice, all of which " show a freedom of inventive
power and play of fancy only to be equalled by the
work on the Tara Brooch." We do not know the
name of the artist who executed either of these
beautiful objects, nor the name of the king or
ecclesiastic for whom they were wrought, and we
owe the discovery of both to accident. A child
playing on the sea-shore near Drogheda found the
Tara Brooch, and a boy digging potatoes near
the old Bath of Ardagh in Limerick found the
Ardagh Chalice. In the case of the Cross of Cong,
a series of inscriptions along the sides of the cross
gives its history. From these we learn that it was
made to the order of Turlogh O'Connor, King of
Connaught for the Church of Tuam, then governed
by Archbishop Muredach O'Duffy, and that the
artist was Maelisa Mac Braddan O'Hechan. The
cross which is two feet six inches high, and
measures one foot six inches across the arms, is
made of oak covered with plates, and is elaborately
ornamented. Along the edges thirteen jewels
were disposed at regular intervals, and nine jewels
adorned the face of the shaft and arms. The shaft
terminates below in the grotesque head of an

The West Side of the Cross at Monasterboice.

EARLY CHRISTIAN ART IN IRELAND 113

animal beneath which is a sperically ornamented
ball in which was inserted the pole for carrying
the cross.

The Irish artists who worked in metal have also
left us many beautiful crosiers elaborately
wrought, shrines for the lives and relics of
venerated saints, and other articles which show
that they had attained a complete mastery of
material. The Shrine of St. Manchan was con-
sidered to be one of the most beautiful productions
of Celtic Art. The Crosier of Lismore is a magni-
ficent example of the work of our goldsmiths, and
the cases made to contain the Gospels of St. Molaise
and the Stowe Missal, show the high standard
that had been attained in ornamental and decora-
tive designs in the eleventh century.

The skill of the Irish Artists in stone-carving
is principally shown in the great stone crosses, of
which about forty-five remain. The earliest work
of this kind in Ireland were the lapidary inscrip-
tions in Roman lettering placed over the tombs of
the dead in the first years of Christianity, and it
dates from a time before the Irish artists in stone
had time to form a style of their own. They seem,
as Miss Stokes points out, to be rather the occa-
sional and tentative efforts of men who derived
their knowledge of letters from various sources
abroad. At a later period we find that Ireland
became the home of pilgrims and students of
various nationalities who sought refuge there from
the disorders and lawlessness that prevailed in
Europe. It is to these foreign influences that we

114 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

may trace the fine relief work on the High Crosses,
\vhich shows an acquaintance with the early
Christian Art of the Roman and Byzantine
Schools and their systems of iconography. The
art was practised by the Scotch, the Anglo-Saxons
and the Welsh, and while we find the same orna-
mental material used by the stone-workers of these
countries, it only requires a comparison of the
existing monuments to show how much superior
the Irish artists were to the contemporary artists
of England, Scotland, and Wales. The beautiful
results attained in Ireland were due to the fact that
the people possessed a fine artistic instinct. They
knew how to use their decoration in the right
place, and so that it should add to the effect of the
fundamental form to be adorned, and they held it
in subordination to the primary idea which they
wished to express in their art.

Examples of this art are found throughout
Ireland. The celebrated High Cross of Tuam was
considered by Dr. Petrie to rank as the finest
monument of its class and age remaining in Ire-
land. The beautiful stone cross at Clonmacnoise
was erected to commemorate the foundation of the
greatest of the churches there, and to mark the
sepulchre of King Flann its pious founder. The
scupltures on the west side of the shaft represent
St. Kevin and King Diarmuid in the act of the
erection of the small Church of St. Kevin, and on
the opposite side several events in the life of Our
Saviour are represented in relief. On one of the
two crosses at Monasterboioe the panels represent the

EARLY CHRISTIAN ART IN IRELAND 115

Fall of Man, the Expulsion from Eden, the Death
of Abel, the Crucifixion, and the Last Judgment.
There are three sculptured crosses at Kells and
there are also fine specimens at Durrow and Cashel.
The form in each case is that of the Latin Cross
with the circle, a characteristically Irish feature,
surrounding . the arms of the cross. The panels
are enclosed with ornaments similar to those in the
manuscripts, and these' are reproduced in stone
with a delicacy and a lightness of touch that show
the highest artistic skill. There are forty-five
high crosses still remaining in Ireland, and
thirty-two of these are richly ornamental. They
date from a period extending from the tenth to the
thirteenth century, and in their system of repre-
sentation of Biblical scenes the types appear to
have been drawn from the Byzantine and Latin
guides which were written for the purpose of
assisting Christian artists in their selection and
treatment of sacred subjects. Sometimes we find
associated with religious subjects, scenes from
royal processions, hunting scenes, trumpeters and
harpers, and other types taken from the ordinary
life of the people.

The first Christian architecture in Ireland
was developed from the style of buildings
that had been used by the pagan inhabitants
of the country. The Christian missionaries
adopted the same style of building that was
practised by the natives at the time of their
coming, and gradually made such modifications as
their different purposes required. They built their

116 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

small oratories and round bee-hive huts within the
boundaries of the stone fort or cashel. The
oratories of the period were angular oblong
structures with the walls sloping in a curve to-
wards the roof. They measure on the average
fourteen feet long, nine feet wide, and twelve feet
high. A good example of the early type of
oratory is found at Gallerus in Kerry.

The earliest buildings were made without
cement, and with undressed masonry, and the
transition to the cemented walls and dressed stones
of the later buildings took place in the period
dating from the sixth to the eighth century. The
doorway of the churches built at this time was
constructed of very large stones, which inclined
inwards towards the top, with a great horizontal
lintel stone. They had a round-headed or arched
eastern window, the arch being scooped out of the
stone, or a pointed window. They consisted at
first of a single chamber, but as time went on a
chancel was often added at the east end, and the
churches became gradually larger and more orna-
mental.

Native architecture in Ireland reached its
highest development in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, in the style known as Irish Romanesque.
We learn from the remains of many of the
churches which were built before this period that
a distinct style of building prevailed in the
country at the time when the Romanesque archi-
tecture was introduced from Normandy. " Rude,"

Doorway of St. Farannan's Church, Donaghmore.

EARLY CHRISTIAN ART IN IRELAND 117

says Miss Stokes, " as many of its examples are,
this primitive architecture still had sufficient char-
acter and vitality to modify the incoming
Romanesque, and to live on manifesting itself,
notwithstanding the fresh forms grafted upon it."
The Irish Romanesque therefore exhibits native
traditions handed down from earlier native build-
ings, pagan and Christian, and is characterised by
the horizontal lintel of the entablature, the reten-
tion of the inclined jambs of the primitive door-
ways, rich and delicate decoration, and the con-
stant use of certain ornamental designs character-
istic of the late Celtic period. The churches are
small and have a simple ground plan. A splendid
example of Irish Romanesque Architecture is
found in King Cormac's chapel at Cashel.

Much has been written about the origin and date
of the round towers which are such a distinctive
feature in our native architecture. Dr. Petrie has
fixed the date of their erection from a period ranging
from the sixth to the thirteenth century, and he
has firmly established their ecclesiastical character.
They were used as belfries, and as places where the
inhabitants of a monastery might retire with their
most treasured possessions in case of a sudden
attack. The Irish ecclesiastic had possessed his
church in comparative peace until the invasion of
the Northmen, but when they first commenced to
make their inroads into the country, and to show
their bitterest hatred towards everything that
sprung from Christianity, the monks found it

118 IRELAND : ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

necessary to protect their churches and cells by
means of this lofty tower. Its great height, and
its small doorway, generally about fourteen feet
from the ground, enabled them to resist the attacks
of an enemy chiefly armed with bows and arrows.

Cormac's Chapel, Rock of Cashel.

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