Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum Part 13

This pa.s.sage represents St. Patrick as meeting these two _Bishops_ in Munster, of whom there was previously heard nothing, and so far seems to confirm the statement in the Lives of these Saints that they were consecrated abroad, and not by St. Patrick.

Again, why should there not be bishops in Ireland before St. Patrick as well as priests and laymen? In his Confession, which has been always regarded as an authentic doc.u.ment, St. Patrick himself says:--"For your sake I faced many dangers, going even to the limits of the land where no one was before me, and whither no one had yet come to baptize, or ordain clerics, or confirm the faithful." This certainly seems to imply that in the less remote parts of the country there may have been priests, or even bishops, who did perform these functions before him.

The chief difficulty against the authenticity of the Lives of St. Ciaran, St. Declan, and St. Ailbe, is a chronological one. If they were bishops before St. Patrick, how could they have lived down to the first quarter or even to the middle of the sixth century, as some of them are said to have done? St. Ibar died, it seems, the earliest, about A.D. 500; but Ailbe's death is given in the _Annals of Ulster_ under date of A.D. 526, and again at A.D. 533 and 541, which shows that at least he must have lived through the first quarter of the sixth century. Ciaran of Saigher was at the School of Clonard, and is spoken of as the friend of his namesake of Clonmacnoise, and of the two Brendans, who were students in the same great seminary; and according to many authorities, Declan lived late into this same century, if not into the next. The authors of the Lives were not unconscious of this difficulty, and boldly meet it by giving to these saints lives of extraordinary duration, extending from 200 to 300, and even to 400 years. Statements of this kind cannot of course be accepted, and of themselves throw suspicion on the authenticity of those Lives. As a matter of fact, however, it is not at all necessary to a.s.sume that those saints lived so long in order to be contemporaries of St. Patrick, and even consecrated before him. St. Patrick, according to the common chronology, was about sixty years of age when he came to Ireland, so that Ibar or Ailbe might have been consecrated before him and still have outlived him some twenty or thirty years, if we only a.s.sume that they reached the same great age as St. Patrick himself. Our own opinion is that Ibar and Ailbe, if not also Ciaran and Declan, were not consecrated in Erin but abroad; that probably they had returned to their native country before St. Patrick, and were engaged in preaching the Gospel to their countrymen when he arrived in Ireland; but the great fame and success of St. Patrick eclipsed their labours; and then they also consented to become his disciples and recognise his superior authority and greater success.

IV.--ST. IBAR.

There is, however, in the Scholia on aengus a curious story which would seem to imply that Ibar, at least, was at first somewhat reluctant to yield to St. Patrick's authority. It is said that he had a great conflict with Patrick, and that "he left the roads full and the kitchens empty in Armagh." Patrick was thereupon angry with him, and this is what he said: "Thou shalt not be in Ireland," quoth Patrick. "Ireland (Eri) shall be the name of the place wherein I am," quoth Bishop Ibar. Whence, Beg-Eri (or Little Ireland) was so called, that is, the island which is in "Ui-Cenn-selaig and out on the sea it is."[145] It is stated in the same place that Bishop Ibar was 353 years when he died.

It seems to us highly probable that Ibar was a pre-Patrician bishop; although he afterwards yielded to St. Patrick, and in a certain sense became his disciple. He was of the race of the Hy-Eathach of Ulster, who have given their name to the barony of Iveagh in the Co. Down, not in Armagh as Todd seems to a.s.sert. Of his life only few notices are preserved besides those already referred to. Mella, his sister, was mother of St.

Abban, and it is in the Life of this nephew of Ibar that we find the most important notices with reference to Ibar himself. We cannot say with certainty where Ibar received his early training; an abbot, St. Motta, is mentioned as his first instructor in sacred learning, but, if he be not St. Mochtae of Louth, nothing further is known concerning him. In Tirechan's Collections in the _Book of Armagh_, an ancient and venerable authority, we find the name of Iborus in the list of bishops consecrated by St. Patrick, and the name seems identical with Ibar.[146] At one time it is said the saint was placed by St. Patrick in charge of St. Brigid's community at Kildare, in which office he was succeeded by St. Conlaeth. He afterwards preached the Gospel in Leix and Hy-Kinselagh, converting many to the faith. At length he came to Wexford and resolved to retire from the active missionary life, and devote the remainder of his years to prayer and sacred study. For this purpose he took possession of the small island of Beg-Eri, or Begery, in the north-west of Wexford Harbour. Here he built his oratory and cell about the year A.D. 485, some fifteen years before his death. Like many other of our Irish Saints, he loved to rest within the hearing of the great Sea, and we are told that he had previously spent some time in one of the islands off the wild west coast of Ireland--perhaps in Aran.

A man so famed for sanct.i.ty and learning could not thus escape from his disciples. They soon discovered his retreat, and crowded round him in his island home. It was easy enough to build their cells of stone or wattles; fish abounded in the channels around the island, and countless flocks of wild fowl covered the pools, so that it would not be difficult to find food for the scholars, even in this small island of twenty-one acres.

Amongst the rest was his own nephew, St. Abban the Elder, who became one of his most distinguished scholars, and was the spiritual father and first teacher of the great St. Finnian of Clonard.

We are told in the _Life of St. Abban_ that "at this time innumerable holy monks and nuns in various parts of Ireland lived under the direction of Ibar, so that in the Litany of aengus are invoked three thousand father confessors, who gathered together under Bishop Ibar to consider certain questions. He lived, however, chiefly in his celebrated monastery of Beg-Eri, because he loved that place more than any other. It is situated in a small island off the southern part of Hy-Kinselagh, ramparted by the sea; and in that same island the remains of the holy prelate rest, and the place itself is greatly honoured by all the Irish on account of their veneration for St. Ibar, and the wondrous miracles performed there through his intercession."

We are also told that Abban was only twelve years old when he came to the School of Beg-Eri, and that he made great progress there under the direction of Ibar in the study of the Sacred Scriptures and of all the liberal arts, so that his companions wondered much at his great learning and eloquence. Ibar wis.h.i.+ng to go to Rome on a pilgrimage, resolved to leave the charge of his monastic school to Abban during his absence.

Abban, however, ardently desiring to see the Holy City of the Apostles, earnestly besought his uncle to allow him to go in the same s.h.i.+p; but all in vain, until with the aid of an angel he was borne over the waves, and thus reaching the vessel, he was allowed to come on board. Thus both the pilgrims visited Rome, pa.s.sing through Britain on their way, and after many wonderful incidents returned in safety to Lough Garman. Then Abban himself went through Erin preaching the Gospel, and founding monasteries in various parts of the country. So it came to pa.s.s that the learning and discipline of the School of Beg-Eri were carried to other parts of Ireland, and that seed was scattered, which in the next century produced such marvellous fruit throughout all the land. St. Ibar died on the 23rd of April, A.D. 500, in his beloved island retreat; and there he was buried, where the prayers of his children and the voices of the sea would murmur round his grave for ages.

Not for ever--for Beg-Eri was one of the first of our religious schools to feel the destroying presence of the Danes around our coasts. So early as A.D. 819 it was plundered by the Danes. In A.D. 884 is recorded the death of its abbot, Diarmaid, and of Cruinmeal in A.D. 964. The citizens of Wexford kept it as a place of refuge and security for their Norman prisoners, when the town was besieged by Strongbow in A.D. 1172. The veracious Gerald Barry tells us that St. Ibar had expelled the rats from his island, so that not one of them could live there, or even be born in it afterwards.

For ages, however, it continued to be regarded as a very holy shrine, and the men of Wexford made frequent pilgrimages to the grave of its holy founder.

Colonel Solomon Richards, a Cromwellian adventurer, who settled in Wexford, published, in A.D. 1682, an interesting, but bigoted account of the Barony of Forth.[147] He tells us that in "the little chapel (of Beg-Eri) there was a wooden image of the Saint (whom he calls Iberian), and people go there to wors.h.i.+p him, and settle any cases of controversy that may arise amongst them by oath before the image of the Saint.

Moreover, if any false charge were made against a man, the parties take boat to the island, the suspected man swears that the charge is false, and this oath before the Saint is at once readily accepted as satisfactory proof of innocence. Once or twice, 'idle fellows who love not wooden G.o.ds,' stole away St. Iberian, and burned him, but the image was miraculously restored, as the silly people believe, once more to its place." It is well known that similar wooden images of the patron saints have been preserved in the islands of Innismurray and Inisgloria down to our own time.

Beg-Eri is no longer an island. The slob-lands of the harbour have been reclaimed, and this most interesting spot has become part and parcel of the main-land. It was discovered during the process of the reclamation works that Beg-Eri was in ancient times connected by a causeway or _togher_ with the adjoining 'Great Island.' The remains of the _togher_, consisting of two rows of oak piles, were still found _in situ_; an ancient wharf also stood at the northern extremity of the island, close to the Bunatroe Channel, which ran between the island and the sh.o.r.e, but it has now disappeared. The old church of Ard Colum and a holy well are on the main-land due west of Beg-Eri; to the south was another old church and well dedicated to St. Coemhan, brother of the saint of Glendalough, and popularly called Ard-Cavan. The ancient oratory of Ibar on Beg-Eri has entirely disappeared, but the remains of a much more modern church are still to be seen surrounded by a grave-yard, with numerous ancient head-stones. Two of these flags--one red and the other green--are inscribed with ancient crosses, but no names are to be found. Taking into account its antiquity and history, we must regard Beg-Eri as one of the most interesting spots in Ireland, and we cannot but regret that its insular character has been effaced by modern improvements.

V.--EARLY SCHOOLS IN THE WEST OF IRELAND.

Neither was the West of Ireland without its own schools even so early as the latter part of the fifth century. The first school in the West seems to have been established by St. Benignus at his own monastery of Kilbannon, about three miles to the north of Tuam. His sister Mathona was, as we have seen, one of the first nuns veiled in Erin, and settled down at Tawnagh, in the county Sligo, where she founded a church and convent under the guidance of Bishop Cairell, a disciple of St. Patrick.

Benignus belonged to the race of Cian of Cashel, son of Oilioll Olum.[148]

Two offshoots of this family established themselves, one in the barony of Keenaght, in the County Derry, to which they gave their name, and the other in Bregia, to which the family of St. Benignus belonged. It is stated indeed in the _Leabhar Breac_, and in the _Book of Rights_, that he belonged to the Cianachta of Gleann Geimhin (Glengiven), but that is clearly a mistake, except the name be taken to include both the families of Meath and of Derry, which is not unlikely.

A third branch of the same family had settled down in the barony of Leyney (Luighne), county Sligo; and that Luigh, from whom they took their name, was according to the genealogies, a first cousin of the father of Benignus. This would, no doubt, help to explain why the virgin Mathona founded her convent at Tawnagh, near her cousins, in the county Sligo, and would also help to explain the special preference which Benignus himself manifested in favour of the western province.

He had been commissioned, it is said, by St. Patrick to preach especially in those districts, which he himself had not visited. Accordingly we are told that Benen preached in Kerry, in Clare, and in South Connaught, the very localities which St. Patrick did not find time to visit. He blessed Connaught, too, with a special blessing from Bundrowes, near Bundoran, to Limerick, and the grateful natives paid to him and his successors a yearly tribute of milk and b.u.t.ter, calves and lambs, as well as first fruits of the rest of their produce.

Now Kilbannon,[149] in South Connaught, was Benen's princ.i.p.al church, and continued to be for many centuries a very important religious foundation, as its ruined round tower still proves. But Benen was above all things a scholar and a psalm-singer, so he founded a school for young ecclesiastics in his monastery, of the history of which unfortunately we know little or nothing.

He had at least one ill.u.s.trious disciple, and that was St. Jarlath, afterwards Bishop of Tuam. It has been said that Jarlath could not have been a disciple of Benignus before A.D. 455, when the latter was transferred to Armagh. We answer that Jarlath was an old man in A.D. 512, when St. Brendan of Clonfert became his disciple at Cluainfois, near Tuam, and hence there is nothing to prevent Jarlath being a disciple of Benignus, if he were about the same age that Benignus himself was, when he became a disciple of St. Patrick.

St. Jarlath founded his own college at Cluainfois towards the end of the fifth century. Colgan fixes the date at A.D. 510; but there are pa.s.sages in the _Life of St. Brendan_, which go to show that it must have been founded at an earlier date, probably about the year A.D. 500. Of this college at Cluainfois, and of St. Jarlath's School at Tuam, we shall have something more to say hereafter.

Lanigan, quoting the _Tripart.i.te Life of St. Patrick_, says that there was an episcopal seminary at Elphin, in the County Roscommon, governed by St.

Asicus, even at this early period. In truth all that we know of St. Asicus is derived from the _Tripart.i.te_. The beautiful site on which the monastery was built got its name, _Ailfind_, from the white stone that was raised out of the well, which was made by Patrick in the green, and "that stone stands on the brink of the well," says the author of the _Tripart.i.te_, "and it is called from the water"--that is, Elphin means the stone of the clear stream. That clear and bountiful spring still flows through the street of Elphin before the site of the monastery of Asicus, literally in the green, and it is only a short time since the stone itself was carried off by some profane hands. It is now, we believe, somewhere at or near the Protestant Church in the town of Elphin.

Patrick blessed Ono the converted Druid, who gave him that beautiful site overlooking to the south, the fertile and far-reaching plain of Magh Aei, and added, moreover:--"Thy seed shall be blessed, and there shall be victory of laymen and clerics from thee for ever, and they shall have the inheritance of this place."

Then Patrick placed over the infant Church of Elphin Asicus, and Bite or Biteus, the son of Asicus, and Cipia, mother of Bite the Bishop. The family was, doubtless, of the race of Ono the Druid, and it seems they were held in high repute in the neighbourhood. Asicus himself must have been advanced in years, but he was an expert artificer in metal-work; and we are told that he made altars, patens or altar-stones (_mia.s.sa_), and square book-covers for Patrick, and these patens were so highly prized that one was taken to Armagh, another was kept in Elphin, and a third was taken far westward to the Church of Domnach Mor Maige Seolai, and placed on the altar of Bishop Felart. It is very probable that these square _mia.s.sa_ were stone or metal altar-flags, and were used to place over the rude altars of the churches during the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, a practice still common in the country where duly consecrated altars are not to be had.

No doubt St. Asicus attended to these duties, whilst his son, Bishop Biteus, took care of his infant monastery and school. It was the very infancy of the Church in Ireland, for Elphin was one of St. Patrick's earliest foundations, dating from the year A.D. 434 or 435. It has always continued to hold a distinguished position amongst the episcopal sees of the West; and although the Bishop dwells there no longer, it still gives t.i.tle to the most ancient of the Western Sees.

Asicus himself--in shame because of a lie told either by him, or as others say of him--fled into Donegal, and for seven years abode in the island of Rathlin O'Birne. Then his monks sought him out, and after much labour found him in the mountain glens, and tried to bring him home to his own monastery at Elphin. But he fell sick by the way, and died with them in the wilderness. So they buried the venerable old man in the churchyard of Rath Cunga--now Rac.o.o.n, in the barony of Tirhugh, County Donegal. The old churchyard is there still, though now disused, on the summit of a round hillock close to the left of the road from Ballyshannon to Donegal, about a mile to the south of the village of Ballintra. We sought in vain for any trace of an inscribed stone in the old churchyard. He fled from men during life, and, like Moses, his grave is hidden from them in death.

The artistic spirit, however, remained in Elphin; and, as we shall see hereafter, some of the most beautiful works of the twelfth century were designed and executed by the spiritual sons of St. Asicus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ISLANDS OF ARAN GALWAY BAY.]

CHAPTER VIII.

IRISH SCHOOLS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.

THE MONASTIC SCHOOL OF ST. ENDA OF ARAN.

"You'll see the homes of holy men Far west upon the sh.o.r.eless main-- In sheltered vale, on cloudy Ben, Where saints still pray, and scribes still pen The sacred page, despising gain."

--M'Gee: _Iona to Ireland_.

I.--LIFE OF ST. ENDA OF ARAN.

If we accept the authority of the Catalogue of the Three Orders of Irish Saints, those of the fifth century were mainly missionaries; those of the sixth century were cen.o.bites; and the Third Order were for the most part anchorites, or Culdees as they afterwards came to be called. To a certain extent this is true. The Church of the sixth century partook very much of the monastic character; as Skene says, "There was episcopacy in the Church, but it was not diocesan episcopacy."[150] We should be inclined to accept this statement, if the learned writer had inserted one word, and said that it was not _always_ diocesan episcopacy. In Iona, and doubtless in other great monasteries also, there was generally a resident prelate, subject in jurisdiction to the presbyter-abbot; but Venerable Bede says expressly[151] that it was an unusual arrangement--inusitato ordine--and his authority settles the question; it was unusual even in the Celtic Churches.

There is no doubt that monastic influence predominated in the Irish Church of the sixth century, and that the head of the monastery was not always, though he certainly was very frequently, a bishop. This arose partly from the ardour of the Celtic character in its efforts to reach perfection, partly from the unsettled state of the country, and to some extent from the influence and example of the great Columba himself. It was by accident he was not consecrated a bishop, and his successors would not pretend to be greater than their holy founder. But the system at least produced one excellent effect--it was under G.o.d the means of establis.h.i.+ng those wonderful monastic schools so famed in every Christian land.

It is certain, as we have seen, that there were in Ireland from the very first conversion of the people both monks and nuns, and therefore monasteries also. But the founders of these religious houses could give very little time to regulate their const.i.tution and government, much less to undertake the management of such inst.i.tutions themselves. St. Patrick and his fellow labourers were 'the founders of churches' rather than of monasteries--their work was to preach, to ordain, to baptize. It was the next generation of monks that undertook to found monasteries properly so called; men who themselves were trained in religious houses elsewhere, and thus becoming acquainted with religious life and discipline were fitted to found similar inst.i.tutions at home. The earliest of these monasteries properly so called date from the beginning of the sixth century; and perhaps the two most celebrated fathers of Irish monastic life, in this sense of the word, were St. Enda of Aran, and St. Finnian of Clonard. We shall first speak of St. Enda.

Aran, under St. Enda, may be called the novitiate of the Irish saints of the Second Order, as Clonard may be considered their college; and hence we shall trace as carefully as we can the history of these two famous foundations of sanct.i.ty and learning, to which the ancient Church of Ireland owed so much.

St. Enda, or Endeus, was of royal blood--one of "the sons of the Kings of the Scots," who embraced the monastic state even during the lifetime of St. Patrick himself. His father, Conall Derg, was king of Oriel--a wide territory extending from Lough Erne to the sea at Dundalk, and nearly conterminous with the modern diocese of Clogher. His mother was Evin (Aebhfhinn) grand-daughter of Ronan, king of the Ards of Down. He had a sister called Fanchea, a devout maiden, who is said by some to have received the veil from the hands of St. Patrick, and to whom her brother owed his conversion to the religious life. The young prince succeeded his father as chieftain of the men of Oriel, and although high-minded and pure-hearted, he took a chieftain's share in the wild work of mutual pillage and slaughter to which these Irish chieftains were always too much p.r.o.ne. His pious sister had founded a convent of nuns at a place called Ross Oirthir, which is in all probability identical with the old church and cemetery of Rossory, in the parish of the same name by the sh.o.r.es of the River Erne, on its left bank near Enniskillen, and not far from the famous Franciscan Abbey of Lisgoole. The old church has disappeared with the progress of modern 'improvements;' but the home of the dead is still untouched. Here St. Fanchea had her oratory and nunnery, when it happened that her brother led the clansmen past the convent to attack their enemies. Shortly after a wild song of joy told the terrified maidens that they were returning home triumphant, having conquered their foes and slain the leader.

The young prince stopped to see his sister at the convent gate, but she forbade him to approach, stained as he was, with the blood of his fellow creatures. Enda said it was his duty to defend his people and conquer their enemies--"I have not killed any man," he said, "nor yet have I ever sinned with women"--and then it seems he asked his sister to allow him to take to be his wife one of the young ladies under her care who was remarkable for her beauty. Fanchea knew she was powerless to resist, if her warrior brother persisted in his purpose. So she bade him stay where he was, and going into the convent called the maiden before her, and said, "My sister, a choice is given you to-day--wouldst thou love the Spouse whom I love, or rather a carnal spouse?" "I will always love thy Spouse,"

said the maiden. Then Fanchea brought her to an inner chamber, and bade her lie down on the bed. She did so, and soon after fell quietly asleep in the Lord. Then Fanchea put a veil on the face of the dead, and bringing in her brother, she said, taking the veil suddenly off, "Come and see her whom thou lovest." He started at the sight, but not thinking her dead, he only said--"She is awfully pale and ghastly." "It is the paleness of death," said his sister; "and so shall you soon be if you repent not your sins." The young man retired conscience-stricken, and Fanchea so used the auspicious moment to remind him of the torments of h.e.l.l and the joys of heaven, that he at once resolved to renounce his princ.i.p.ality and become a monk.

Enda now gave striking proof of the sincerity of his conversion. The convent and oratory of his sister Fanchea were still unprotected by a rampart of any kind; and what had just taken place clearly showed the want of some enclosure in those turbulent days. Enda resolved to accomplish the work with his own hands, and doubtless with the aid of some of his tribesmen. He dug a deep fosse and raised a large '_mur_' or rampart of earth all round the sacred enclosure, so that in future one or two faithful attendants could defend the narrow entrance of the fort against sudden attack. It is interesting to know that a portion of this earthen rampart raised by Enda himself is still to be seen on the western side of the rath levelled low by time, but still some thirteen yards in thickness and several feet in height.

From Rossory Enda went to Killany, in the co. Louth, and there within the bounds of his own princ.i.p.ality he set about the construction of a monastery for himself and such religious men as might join him in the service of G.o.d. Here also he directed the workmen in the construction of the buildings, and it seems that his sister, too, had a second religious house not far distant, where she appears to have spent a portion of her time. A party of freebooters once pa.s.sed by laden with booty where Enda and his men were working. The tribesmen seized their weapons to attack the marauders, and Enda himself caught up one of the poles sunk in the soil for a rampart to join in the fray. Just then his sister, who happened to be present, told him to put his hand to his head and remember whose soldier he was. Enda did so, and feeling the tonsure that he wore, he remembered that he was the soldier of Christ, and cast aside at once both his weapon and the spirit of strife that was excited within him. So his sister Fanchea was, as it were, his good angel, and he was always obedient to her instructions.

Enda, however, was still only a novice in the religious life, and, therefore, not well qualified to be a guide for others. So his sister said to him, "Go thou to Britain, to the monastery of Rosnat, and there become the humble disciple of Mancenus, the head of that monastery."[152] This monastery of Rosnat is by some writers placed in the valley of Rosina, in Wales, where a certain St. Manchen is said to have founded a religious house. We are inclined to agree with Skene that it was rather the celebrated monastery known as Candida Casa, or Whithern, founded by St.

Ninian at the extremity of the peninsula of Galloway. This religious house was also known as the Magnum Monasterium, and sometimes as the monastery of Rosnat. It was dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, and hence it is sometimes called the House of Martin. We are here on firm ground, for we have the express testimony of Bede that Ninian, or Ninias, "had been regularly instructed in Rome in the faith and the mysteries of the truth,"