Fraech was divinely
admonished
regarding Columba's approach, and he went forth in a friendly manner to salute our saint.
O'Hanlon - Lives of the Irish Saints - v6
O'Conor's "Rerum Hiber- nicarum Scriptores," tomus i.
"Prolego-
the son of 1 " is Domangart,
of the Scots. — the conversion King Afterwards, upon
of the Picts, —he received from their sovereign
in Caledonia that formal grant, of which mention is made by Venerable Bede. St. Columba was sent by Heaven as their apostle of peace and first teacher to the Scots and Picts. l8*
History
i. ,
l84 See Rev. Dr. " Gene- JeoffryKeating's
ral History of Ireland," at the reign of King Aedh, part ii. , p. 374. Duffy's edition.
the more powerful monarch The one, he sought to confirm in the
June 9. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. 369
Faith, which they had partially known, but heeded not ; to the other, he longed to teach those Divine truths, of which as yet they had hardly heard.
CHAPTER VIII.
PROPHECY OF ST. BRENDAN, ABEOT OF BIRR—THE ISLAND SELECTED FOR ST. COLUMBA'S PERMANENT HABITATION—HIS VOYAGE TO SCOTLAND—HIS CHOICE OF IONA FOR A MONASTIC ESTABLISHMENT—EUROPEAN AND BRITANIC SOCIETY BEFORE ST. COLUMBA'S EPOCH—HIS FIRST ERECTIONS, AT IONA, AND MODE OF LIVING THERE—ST. COLUMBA'S PROPHETIC ANNOUNCEMENT OF A BATTLE FOUGHT IN IRELAND.
In a beautiful but to him as yet a strange land, its future illustrious Apostle was about to seek a more arduous field ; and, among a more distant people, his missionary labours were henceforth to be exercised. However, it was not withour a pang, that he turned his back upon the monasteries he had founded,anduponthefriendsheloved. Beforesettingoutonhisvoluntary
—missionand
hesenta
messengeron
avisittoSt.
Brendan,
1 AbbotofBirr
exile,
—who had a reputation for possessing the spirit of wisdom in a marked degree
so that his counsel might be obtained, regarding that place, where Columba might rest. Then, for a while, Brendan remained in silent thought, and looking towards heaven, he directed the earth to be opened, beneath the feet of that messenger. There, a stone was found, and on it was inscribed a single character, to which attention was directed. 2 The vowel I was that letter, by which St. Brendan of Birr is said to have indicated to St. Columba the Island for his future sojourn. 3
original
I,
Y,or
tongue
8
Jona It is
name was 5
with an — In the Gaelic aspirate Hy.
At that period, however, it had no place in history.
4 -
Hy6
assumes different forms, in the historical records of the middle ages.
The
—it means "an island. "
or
The name of
10 11 written, however, almost indifferently Ii, Ia,9 Io, E0, Hi, Hie, Hu, Yi.
It is also written Hya,12 Hithe,13 Ych I4 and Aoii, as also Hoide Collum Cill. 15 In legal documents, the form most frequently used is I-Columkille or M the island of Columkille. " The modern name, Iona, has afforded a great
Chapter viii. of November.
3
—l
Venerated, at the 29th
torke," lib. vi. , fol. no.
9 The Annals of Tigernach and of Ulster
use this form.
The foregoing is found in a Vita S. Brendani Birrensis.
3 See Colgan's "Trias Thaumaturga,"
Secunda Appendix ad Acta S. Columbse,
See Ussher's Works, vol. vi. , Britan nicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates," cap. xv. , p. 240.
5 See Rev. Thomas Innes' "Civil and Ecclesiastical History of Scotland," book ii. , p. 170.
6 This is the denomination it receives from
Venerable Bede, but, in his ' ' Historia Eccle-
siastica Gentis Anglorum," lib. iii. , cap. iii. ,
p. 97, as published at Antwerp, a. d. , m. d. l. ,
in folio, wefind it "
printed Hydestinatus. "
i This name, which it obtained in later ages, is the one by which it is now popularly known.
8 As in Hector Boece's " Scotorum His-
10
St. Blaithmaic, it is thus written.
Pars Prima, num. xliv. , p. 462. 4"-
or Iona?
sometimes written
In Walafrid Strabo's metrical Life of
" Archbishop Ussher, citing the " Appa- ratus ad Histoiiam Scoticam," lib. i. , cap. xv. , num. v. , vi. , and xi. , observes: 'Ludi- brium enim omnibus Thomas Dempsterus debet, qui ex Hydestinati, Hu vel Hy et
—nominibus tres nobis
Jona: effingit "
insulas," &c. Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiqui-
tates," cap. xv. , p. 365.
" In Vita S. Edi, and Vita S. Fintani.
I3 In Vita S. Cainici.
I4
*S See Dermod O'Connor's Keating's
"General of Ireland," ii. , History part pp.
356, 374.
'
In Vita S. Ythse.
. 6 Tnus, n3 p is rendered into our verna- r'
cular letters as Yona.
I
37° LIVES OF THE IKISH SAINTS. [June 9.
subject of controversy to the etymologists.
coincidence.
striking
supposed, therefore,
be observed, that Iona is used by Adamnan, according to his custom, as an adjective and not as a substantive. 18 As found in its present form, the deno- mination of Iona probably originated in a mistaken reading of n for «. IQ It is one of the Hebrides, and peacefully reposing on the bosom of the Atlantic Ocean, it lies off the western point of the Island of Mull, in Argyleshire, Scotland. It seems somewhat strange, that the Island of Iona could have been mistaken as possibly applying to Hinba, by the learned Benedictines,20 Father John Mabillon and D'Achery, or that the geography of the Hebrides had not been better known, in the beginning of the last century. The first great interest of Iona, however,lies in the remoteage to which it takes us back. More than thirteen hundred years have now passed, since Columba first landed on
stantive; and,
ofui
—nto «—
adds
:
" Eo autem loco visitur de lapis quo
J 7
its shores. It is very easy to speak of such numbers, or to write them ; but, it is not quite so easy to have before us a definite idea, regarding the place
21
tion ; while they were told to prepare food for themselves, in a fashion quite irreconcilable with friendly hospitality. Then follows a story of sufficient extravagance to well merit its rejection. It is said, that Columba felt insulted
occupied by the last thirteen centuries, in the history of our world.
to one 22 received the of St. Molas- account, having injunction
According
sius to leave Ireland, our saint and twelve companions went on a visit to Cruimther-fraech 23 or Priest Froecus. On the way, they came to a certain place called Kill-Mudain 74> as night approached. It happened to be Friday, and at that place lived Mudan,25 who received his guests with scant cour- tesy. A barn was assigned for their dwelling, and it was in a filthy condi-
*l Fordun has been led to suppose, this Island had been called after its holy patron ; the Latin word Hy Columkille being translated into the Hebrew word, Yona. See William F. Skene's edition of the " Scoti- chronicon," vol. i. , lib. ii. , cap. x. , p. 43, lib. iii. , cap. xxiv, p. 109, cap. xxix. , p. 115, cap. xxxiv. , p. 120, lib. iv. , cap. viii. , p. 151, cap. xvi. , pp. 158, 159, eap. xxv. , pp. 167, 168. Edinburgh, 1871, 1872, 8\o. This explanation, however, though plausible and
ingenious, bable.
18
una est scriporum sententia. "—"Acta Sanc-
torum Ordinis S. Benedicti," tomus i. ,
P- 345-
" In " Good Words" for 1869, the Duke
of Argyll wrote papers on this celebrated
Island. These afterwards were committed
to the press and issued as a small volume,
"
cannot be
as regarded pro-
Quinta Vita S. Columbse, lib. ii. , cap. vi. , vii. , viii. , p. 410, and nn. 7, 8, p. 452.
23 His feast is said to have been on the 20th of December, according to the Martyr- ologies of Tallagh, of Marianus O'Gorman, of Maguire, and of Donegal. He was founder and patron of Cluain Church in
In the oldest and best manuscripts of his
" Life of St. Columba," Iona is nowhere to
be found, but always "Iona insula. " It was
the uniform practice of this writer, when Brechinia.
speaking of islands, to put the name in the form of an adjective, agreeing with "insula. "
it is a remarkable fact, that the
Iona, though it occurs sixty times in his work, never stands alone. In every instance, it is followed by "insula. "
19 The adjective Iona was formed by Adamnan from the original name I or Io. Afterwards, it came to be treated as a sub-
a
time, by change
from a clerical
24 This seems to have been so called from
the person with whose name it is associated
in this — legend.
25 Colgan wh—o classes him apparently among the saints says he is unable to pro- nounce if he be identical with St. Muadanus, Bishop of Carn-Furbhuidhe, in the county of Longford, and whose feast the Irish Martyrologies place, at the 6th of March.
26 to Prince who According O'Donnell,
Now,
word,
in course of arising probably
paulo post vir beatus navem cum duodecim name of Iona. See Rev. Dr. Reeves' sociis conscendit : quam mox portu solutam
error it gave place to the more euphonious
Adamnan's"LifeofSt. Columba,"pp. 258, 262.
et civitatem prretervectam, ingens subsecutus
est clamor populorum illius tractus vltra ck-
raque Euripum, lugentium et plorantium tanti Tatris et tutelaris abscessum. "
a? In the small "Life of St. Columb-
20 " These state :
Hinba insula est maris Hibernici, cuius de situ insula? sicut et alise (quam alii Hionam seu Ilionam vocant) nun
It suggests, at first sight, a very
The Hebrew word l6
to be identical with the name of St. Columba. It must
signifies
" a and it is dove,"
Iona. " See chap, i. , pp. 5, 6.
22 "
intitled,
See Colgan's "Trias Thaumaturga,
June 9 . ] LIVES OF THE 1RLSH SAINTS. 371
at the manner in which he and his company had been received, and that he left a malediction on the place when departing, on the day following, while he predicted, that it should not become a domicile for clerics, but rather a resort for wild beasts. The barn where they passed that night was found to be destroyed, when one of our saint's disciples returned for a Book of Gospels,
which had been left there. Prosecuting their journey, however, they came near to the house of Fraech on Saturday evening, when they heard bells
tolling for the celebration of Vespers before the following Sunday. Now, Columba would never travel on the Lord's day, unless urgency greatly re- quired it ; so that he told his companions, they should there remain until early on Monday morning. However, St.
Fraech was divinely admonished regarding Columba's approach, and he went forth in a friendly manner to salute our saint. Then, according to the narrative, in a severe manner Fraech began to upbraid his visitor, for having lately been the cause of so much
" I have not been the cause of that
but the wicked pertinacity of King Diermit, and his violation of ecclesiastical
:
immunities, have led to it. " Then said Fraech " Better should it be for a
bloodshed. The man holy
replied :
war,
religious
injury,
by
man to bear an
battle. " " returned Yes,"
than to resist it
St. Columba, " but a man conscious of right is not prone to restrain
indignation when provoked by injustice. " Conferring much on this sub- ject, both saints pledged a mutual friendship, when their leave-taking was decreed.
When about to leave the city of Derry, which was so dear to him as a
place of residence, its situation and bracing air being delightful, St. Columba was attended to the shore by twenty Bishops, forty Priests and thirty Deacons, all celebrated for their piety and erudition. These lamented his departure, and would have preferred exile with him, rather than the comforts of their native home, deprived of his companionship. The ship which was destined to bear him away lay at anchor near a place called Glas a nionn-
26 whence a most beautiful view of and of be laid, Derry Lough Foyle might
obtained. On either shore, crowds of people had assembled, and all wept
on his bidding them farewell. Around the ship in which he sailed, the sea-
gulls and other water-fowl hovered. There is a popular tradition, that the
last spot St. Columba saw in Ireland, before he sailed to Scotland, was Kill-
shillach, below Lough Derg, and on the banks of Lough Foyle. Here he
could stay no longer than midnight, and this interval he spun out until the
2 cock crowed. ?
The holy missioner and his companions appear to have sailed in a single
which
vessel,
spirit, although with sorrowing heart, which found vent in a strain of exqui- site sentiment, conveyed in Irish metre, St. Columba broke asunder the ties
ofkindred,ofhome,andofcountry,whiledriftingoutontheopensea. The
probably
wasofconsiderablesizeand 28 Withdauntless tonnage.
kille, Patron of Ulster, and Apostle of the Pictish and Scotch Nations," attributed to Rev. Mr. Taaffe, the following miracle as- cribed to our saint, by the people of Tyr- connell, was communicated by Mr. James Loague, of Strahurly, in that country. " With reluctance he took his last farewell on chanticleer's
The English, by Mr. Loague :—
the cock, and thus sung in Irish
:
informed a by
person
of
of the —he cursed signal hour,
"And,"
continues Mr.
Loague, veracity,
" Achill-shillach, chill-shillach
:
moch angarrain Cuideach,
Goraibhancoileachganchean; is
chill-shillach gan coileach'
"
Nar
"
"I am that no cock ever since that time—was known to have
crowed in that 62. village. " Chap, xiv. , p.
2S Another opinion has been advanced, thatthevoyagerssailedinoneofthoselight skiffs, which are often described by ancient
Mayest thou Kilshillach, want a cock; and woe
Betide the cock that warns me thus to go. "
372 LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. [June 9.
Farewell of St. Columba to Erinn has been ever regarded, as one of the most
feeling and sweet poems in the ancient Gaelic language. Some pleasing and
musical 2^ from the of D. translate them into stanzas, pen Timothy Sullivan,
English, and they are here reproduced,3° as being at least appropriate to the 1
occasion. s Inhisfirstvoyage,ColumbafollowedthenorthernshorefromDerry to the mouth of the Bann, and thence across. 32 He sailed from the coast of Antrim, but he landed again on the shore of Dalaradia. It is said, that when departing from Ireland for Hy, Columba had met a boy near Coleraine, who joyfully went to embrace him, and afterwards he became a disciple. This was ColmanMacComgellain,33andhewasoftheIrishDalriads. 34 Oursaintaffection- ately returned his embrace with a kiss, and in the presence of all who were present, Columba predicted, that he should be exalted in the Lord's esteem, and that he should become learned in all ecclesiastical science. Furthermore, it was announced, that he should become the medium for ending inter- national disputes between the Irish and the Albanians.
We are informed, that the second year after the war of Culedreimne, St.
writers; and which were called by the Irish currachs. Their framework was gene- rally made of twisted oziers, and then covered over with hides or skins of animals. These currachs were furnished with oars ; but, a pole was also set up in the centre, and to this a sail was attached, to court the favouring breezes. In modern English, they
'*
ThepsalmsfromDurrow'squietdells, The tones of Arran's holy bells
Will sound no more for me.
With Erin's bards to sit again
And list their songs' enchanting flow ;
To hear their harps ring out a strain Fresh born from some high throbbing
brain,
And see their eyes aglow,
are styled "coracles. " See Rev. Dr. Reeves' "
Adamnan's LifeofSt. Columba,"p. 169, n. (k).
2' " Saint Columba in Exile. " Intituled, —
These stanzas thus run :
" To ours again ; we may not stay, For, ah ! on ocean's rim I see
When sunbeams pierce the cloudy
day
From those rude hills of Oronsay,
The isle so dear to me.
" And if once more we set our feet
On wild sea-crag or islet fair, There shall we make our calm retreat
And spend our lives, as it is meet, In penance and in pray'r.
" But yet, with such a love as mine For Erin and her noble race,
What wonder if my heart will pine And still fly back o'er leagues of
" To hear once more the soft winds
brine
To seek that
And bursting on the strand. " —"Green Leaves. " A volume of Irish Verses. By T. D. Sullivan. "Saint Columba in Exile," p. 97.
30 These stanzas first appeared in the
Along
the
holy ground.
33 He died a. d. to 625, according
"
be
Tigher- nach. See Rev. Dr. O'Conor's " Rerum Hi-
over from Scotia 35 or Ireland into
6 desirous Britain,3 being
The date for his depar-
Columkille
for the love of Christ, to go thither on a pilgrimage.
passed
happy place !
" Dublin Illustrated Annual for
31 "Saint Columkille's farewell to the Isle
" No land is like it ; night and day The songs of birds are heard all
round, And clerics'
of Arran on setting out for Iona," has also been translated, by Aubrey de Vere. —See " The Month," for July, 1865.
as sweet as Float on the mellow winds that play
32 See " Trias Vita Thaumaturga," Quinta
songs,
they,
But far from Derry, far from Kells,
bernicarum Scriptores," tomus ii. , p. 187. 34 See Rev. Dr. Reeves' Adamnan's " Life
of St. Columba," p. 459.
And fair Raphoe, my steps must ;
1 '
Or when winds blow and watch, high
free,
From some bold cliff or jutting
land
The white gulls poising o'er the sea, The big waves rolling boisterously,
sigh
Through Irish woods ; or Irish
streams,
By banks and rocks go rushing by, With rippling notes that swell and
die
Like music heard in dreams
;
S. Columbse, lib. ii. , cap. x. , pp. 410, 411.
1872. "
June 9. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. 373
ture from Ireland has been varied as regards die year by different writers.
The " Annals of the Four Masters "37 state, that Colum Cille went to Scot-
s
land in the year 557,2 where he afterwards founded the church which was
namedfromhim. 39 AccordingtoFatherJohnColgan'scalculation, St. Columba
arrived in Britain, a. d. 562. 4° This he deduces, from the data, that Columba
was then in the of his 1 that he remained in Britain forty-second year age,*
for thirty-four years, and that he died, most probably a. d. 596. 42 The year 563 is generally regarded, however, as that of his departure from Ireland on this
enterprise. Toprovethis,thelearnedchronographerArchbishopUssherenters uponaclosecomparisonofdatesandoccurences. -^ Hisauthorityisfollowedby
45and —Rev. Dr. Reeves/6 The Lanigan, by
who lived among the high and solitary mountains, which separate them from
the southern regions, in the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 565, when Justin
Minor governed the Roman Empire after the time of Justinian. Moreover,
Columba came to Britain, in the ninth year of the reign of Bridius, son of
Meilochon, the mighty King of the Picts. 48 This calculation of Bede, has
beenfollowedbyFlorenceofWorcester,byHermannContract,* byHenry
of Huntingdon,50 by Fabius Ethelredus, and by John Capgrave. 51 Other
accounts have it at a. d. 566, such as those of Matthew of Paris, 52 and Matthew
ofWestminster. " AccordingtoJohnofTeignmouthandJohnCapgrave, St. Columba is said to have been forty-five years of age, when he left Scotia
as a missionary for Britain. 54 At this time, however, he is more generally said to have been forty-two years of age. 55 Such is the account agreed upon by most writers of his Acts, such as Adamnan,56 and O'Donnell,5? while it seems most reconcilable with the incidents of his career.
Roderick 44 Rev. Dr. 0'Flaherty, by
Venera
—ble Bede
that St. Columba whom he calls Colum-
47
banus left Ireland to preach the word of God among the Northern Picts,
distinctly states,
35 Thus, Adamnan says he passed from "Scotia ad Britanniam. "
36 The Venerable Bede remarks, " Venit
149, pp. 154, 157, 158.
46 See his Adamnan's "Life of St.
Columba. " ChronologicalSummaryofSt. Columba's Life, p. lxxv. , and additional
Notes L, p. 310.
47 See "Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum," lib. iii. , cap. 4, p. 168.
4^ See D. Petrus Lombardus, "De Regno Hibernise, Sanctorum Insula, Commenta-
de Hibe—rnia . . . . Columba Brit- "
taniam. " Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum," lib. hi. , cap. 4, p. 168, Cain- bridge edition.
37 See Dr. O'Donovan's edition, vol. L,
the war of
39 This was I-Columkille or Iona.
40 Supposing our saint to have died A. D. 596, and that he came there in the forty- second year of his age, the foregoing is his conclusion. See "Trias Thaumaturga," Quarta Appendix ad Acta S. Columbse, cap. 7, p. 486.
41 According to Adamnan's Preface to St.
Columba's Life, as also to lib. according iii. ,
cap. 22, and according to his Life by
pp. 196, 197.
38 As we have seen,
" edited Rev. Patrick F,
by Moran,
they place Cuil-Dreimhne at a. d. 555.
rius,
D. D. , cap. xv. , p. 81.
49 This learned man, born A. D. 1013, be-
came a monk of St. Gall, and he died Abbot
of Reichenau, A. D. 1054, having left behind him a valuable history, known as " Chroni- con desex yEtatibusMundi. "
5* In his Annals.
51 in nis vita S. Columbae, cap. i. , and in his Annals of the Anglo-Saxons.
sa At Anno Gratise Matthew of DLXVI. ,
Paris, meaning this saint, thus writes :
" Eodem anno Sanctus de Columbanus,
—Scotia veniens, in Britannia clarus habetur," "Chronica Majora," edited by Henry Richards Luard, M. A. , vol, i. , p. 247.
53 See " Flores Historiarum," p. 196.
54 See Colgan's "Trias Thaumaturga,' Vita Tertia S. Columbse, cap. ii. , p. 332.
44""" S5 —
See Ogygia, Scotise Regum Catalo- 'Navigatio Coluim-Cille ad insulum
Cumeneus, cap. 32, ters.
42
and
succeeding chap-
By subtracting thirty-four years of exile from this, it is plain, Colgan thinks, the year of departure from Ireland must be 562.
the son of 1 " is Domangart,
of the Scots. — the conversion King Afterwards, upon
of the Picts, —he received from their sovereign
in Caledonia that formal grant, of which mention is made by Venerable Bede. St. Columba was sent by Heaven as their apostle of peace and first teacher to the Scots and Picts. l8*
History
i. ,
l84 See Rev. Dr. " Gene- JeoffryKeating's
ral History of Ireland," at the reign of King Aedh, part ii. , p. 374. Duffy's edition.
the more powerful monarch The one, he sought to confirm in the
June 9. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. 369
Faith, which they had partially known, but heeded not ; to the other, he longed to teach those Divine truths, of which as yet they had hardly heard.
CHAPTER VIII.
PROPHECY OF ST. BRENDAN, ABEOT OF BIRR—THE ISLAND SELECTED FOR ST. COLUMBA'S PERMANENT HABITATION—HIS VOYAGE TO SCOTLAND—HIS CHOICE OF IONA FOR A MONASTIC ESTABLISHMENT—EUROPEAN AND BRITANIC SOCIETY BEFORE ST. COLUMBA'S EPOCH—HIS FIRST ERECTIONS, AT IONA, AND MODE OF LIVING THERE—ST. COLUMBA'S PROPHETIC ANNOUNCEMENT OF A BATTLE FOUGHT IN IRELAND.
In a beautiful but to him as yet a strange land, its future illustrious Apostle was about to seek a more arduous field ; and, among a more distant people, his missionary labours were henceforth to be exercised. However, it was not withour a pang, that he turned his back upon the monasteries he had founded,anduponthefriendsheloved. Beforesettingoutonhisvoluntary
—missionand
hesenta
messengeron
avisittoSt.
Brendan,
1 AbbotofBirr
exile,
—who had a reputation for possessing the spirit of wisdom in a marked degree
so that his counsel might be obtained, regarding that place, where Columba might rest. Then, for a while, Brendan remained in silent thought, and looking towards heaven, he directed the earth to be opened, beneath the feet of that messenger. There, a stone was found, and on it was inscribed a single character, to which attention was directed. 2 The vowel I was that letter, by which St. Brendan of Birr is said to have indicated to St. Columba the Island for his future sojourn. 3
original
I,
Y,or
tongue
8
Jona It is
name was 5
with an — In the Gaelic aspirate Hy.
At that period, however, it had no place in history.
4 -
Hy6
assumes different forms, in the historical records of the middle ages.
The
—it means "an island. "
or
The name of
10 11 written, however, almost indifferently Ii, Ia,9 Io, E0, Hi, Hie, Hu, Yi.
It is also written Hya,12 Hithe,13 Ych I4 and Aoii, as also Hoide Collum Cill. 15 In legal documents, the form most frequently used is I-Columkille or M the island of Columkille. " The modern name, Iona, has afforded a great
Chapter viii. of November.
3
—l
Venerated, at the 29th
torke," lib. vi. , fol. no.
9 The Annals of Tigernach and of Ulster
use this form.
The foregoing is found in a Vita S. Brendani Birrensis.
3 See Colgan's "Trias Thaumaturga,"
Secunda Appendix ad Acta S. Columbse,
See Ussher's Works, vol. vi. , Britan nicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates," cap. xv. , p. 240.
5 See Rev. Thomas Innes' "Civil and Ecclesiastical History of Scotland," book ii. , p. 170.
6 This is the denomination it receives from
Venerable Bede, but, in his ' ' Historia Eccle-
siastica Gentis Anglorum," lib. iii. , cap. iii. ,
p. 97, as published at Antwerp, a. d. , m. d. l. ,
in folio, wefind it "
printed Hydestinatus. "
i This name, which it obtained in later ages, is the one by which it is now popularly known.
8 As in Hector Boece's " Scotorum His-
10
St. Blaithmaic, it is thus written.
Pars Prima, num. xliv. , p. 462. 4"-
or Iona?
sometimes written
In Walafrid Strabo's metrical Life of
" Archbishop Ussher, citing the " Appa- ratus ad Histoiiam Scoticam," lib. i. , cap. xv. , num. v. , vi. , and xi. , observes: 'Ludi- brium enim omnibus Thomas Dempsterus debet, qui ex Hydestinati, Hu vel Hy et
—nominibus tres nobis
Jona: effingit "
insulas," &c. Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiqui-
tates," cap. xv. , p. 365.
" In Vita S. Edi, and Vita S. Fintani.
I3 In Vita S. Cainici.
I4
*S See Dermod O'Connor's Keating's
"General of Ireland," ii. , History part pp.
356, 374.
'
In Vita S. Ythse.
. 6 Tnus, n3 p is rendered into our verna- r'
cular letters as Yona.
I
37° LIVES OF THE IKISH SAINTS. [June 9.
subject of controversy to the etymologists.
coincidence.
striking
supposed, therefore,
be observed, that Iona is used by Adamnan, according to his custom, as an adjective and not as a substantive. 18 As found in its present form, the deno- mination of Iona probably originated in a mistaken reading of n for «. IQ It is one of the Hebrides, and peacefully reposing on the bosom of the Atlantic Ocean, it lies off the western point of the Island of Mull, in Argyleshire, Scotland. It seems somewhat strange, that the Island of Iona could have been mistaken as possibly applying to Hinba, by the learned Benedictines,20 Father John Mabillon and D'Achery, or that the geography of the Hebrides had not been better known, in the beginning of the last century. The first great interest of Iona, however,lies in the remoteage to which it takes us back. More than thirteen hundred years have now passed, since Columba first landed on
stantive; and,
ofui
—nto «—
adds
:
" Eo autem loco visitur de lapis quo
J 7
its shores. It is very easy to speak of such numbers, or to write them ; but, it is not quite so easy to have before us a definite idea, regarding the place
21
tion ; while they were told to prepare food for themselves, in a fashion quite irreconcilable with friendly hospitality. Then follows a story of sufficient extravagance to well merit its rejection. It is said, that Columba felt insulted
occupied by the last thirteen centuries, in the history of our world.
to one 22 received the of St. Molas- account, having injunction
According
sius to leave Ireland, our saint and twelve companions went on a visit to Cruimther-fraech 23 or Priest Froecus. On the way, they came to a certain place called Kill-Mudain 74> as night approached. It happened to be Friday, and at that place lived Mudan,25 who received his guests with scant cour- tesy. A barn was assigned for their dwelling, and it was in a filthy condi-
*l Fordun has been led to suppose, this Island had been called after its holy patron ; the Latin word Hy Columkille being translated into the Hebrew word, Yona. See William F. Skene's edition of the " Scoti- chronicon," vol. i. , lib. ii. , cap. x. , p. 43, lib. iii. , cap. xxiv, p. 109, cap. xxix. , p. 115, cap. xxxiv. , p. 120, lib. iv. , cap. viii. , p. 151, cap. xvi. , pp. 158, 159, eap. xxv. , pp. 167, 168. Edinburgh, 1871, 1872, 8\o. This explanation, however, though plausible and
ingenious, bable.
18
una est scriporum sententia. "—"Acta Sanc-
torum Ordinis S. Benedicti," tomus i. ,
P- 345-
" In " Good Words" for 1869, the Duke
of Argyll wrote papers on this celebrated
Island. These afterwards were committed
to the press and issued as a small volume,
"
cannot be
as regarded pro-
Quinta Vita S. Columbse, lib. ii. , cap. vi. , vii. , viii. , p. 410, and nn. 7, 8, p. 452.
23 His feast is said to have been on the 20th of December, according to the Martyr- ologies of Tallagh, of Marianus O'Gorman, of Maguire, and of Donegal. He was founder and patron of Cluain Church in
In the oldest and best manuscripts of his
" Life of St. Columba," Iona is nowhere to
be found, but always "Iona insula. " It was
the uniform practice of this writer, when Brechinia.
speaking of islands, to put the name in the form of an adjective, agreeing with "insula. "
it is a remarkable fact, that the
Iona, though it occurs sixty times in his work, never stands alone. In every instance, it is followed by "insula. "
19 The adjective Iona was formed by Adamnan from the original name I or Io. Afterwards, it came to be treated as a sub-
a
time, by change
from a clerical
24 This seems to have been so called from
the person with whose name it is associated
in this — legend.
25 Colgan wh—o classes him apparently among the saints says he is unable to pro- nounce if he be identical with St. Muadanus, Bishop of Carn-Furbhuidhe, in the county of Longford, and whose feast the Irish Martyrologies place, at the 6th of March.
26 to Prince who According O'Donnell,
Now,
word,
in course of arising probably
paulo post vir beatus navem cum duodecim name of Iona. See Rev. Dr. Reeves' sociis conscendit : quam mox portu solutam
error it gave place to the more euphonious
Adamnan's"LifeofSt. Columba,"pp. 258, 262.
et civitatem prretervectam, ingens subsecutus
est clamor populorum illius tractus vltra ck-
raque Euripum, lugentium et plorantium tanti Tatris et tutelaris abscessum. "
a? In the small "Life of St. Columb-
20 " These state :
Hinba insula est maris Hibernici, cuius de situ insula? sicut et alise (quam alii Hionam seu Ilionam vocant) nun
It suggests, at first sight, a very
The Hebrew word l6
to be identical with the name of St. Columba. It must
signifies
" a and it is dove,"
Iona. " See chap, i. , pp. 5, 6.
22 "
intitled,
See Colgan's "Trias Thaumaturga,
June 9 . ] LIVES OF THE 1RLSH SAINTS. 371
at the manner in which he and his company had been received, and that he left a malediction on the place when departing, on the day following, while he predicted, that it should not become a domicile for clerics, but rather a resort for wild beasts. The barn where they passed that night was found to be destroyed, when one of our saint's disciples returned for a Book of Gospels,
which had been left there. Prosecuting their journey, however, they came near to the house of Fraech on Saturday evening, when they heard bells
tolling for the celebration of Vespers before the following Sunday. Now, Columba would never travel on the Lord's day, unless urgency greatly re- quired it ; so that he told his companions, they should there remain until early on Monday morning. However, St.
Fraech was divinely admonished regarding Columba's approach, and he went forth in a friendly manner to salute our saint. Then, according to the narrative, in a severe manner Fraech began to upbraid his visitor, for having lately been the cause of so much
" I have not been the cause of that
but the wicked pertinacity of King Diermit, and his violation of ecclesiastical
:
immunities, have led to it. " Then said Fraech " Better should it be for a
bloodshed. The man holy
replied :
war,
religious
injury,
by
man to bear an
battle. " " returned Yes,"
than to resist it
St. Columba, " but a man conscious of right is not prone to restrain
indignation when provoked by injustice. " Conferring much on this sub- ject, both saints pledged a mutual friendship, when their leave-taking was decreed.
When about to leave the city of Derry, which was so dear to him as a
place of residence, its situation and bracing air being delightful, St. Columba was attended to the shore by twenty Bishops, forty Priests and thirty Deacons, all celebrated for their piety and erudition. These lamented his departure, and would have preferred exile with him, rather than the comforts of their native home, deprived of his companionship. The ship which was destined to bear him away lay at anchor near a place called Glas a nionn-
26 whence a most beautiful view of and of be laid, Derry Lough Foyle might
obtained. On either shore, crowds of people had assembled, and all wept
on his bidding them farewell. Around the ship in which he sailed, the sea-
gulls and other water-fowl hovered. There is a popular tradition, that the
last spot St. Columba saw in Ireland, before he sailed to Scotland, was Kill-
shillach, below Lough Derg, and on the banks of Lough Foyle. Here he
could stay no longer than midnight, and this interval he spun out until the
2 cock crowed. ?
The holy missioner and his companions appear to have sailed in a single
which
vessel,
spirit, although with sorrowing heart, which found vent in a strain of exqui- site sentiment, conveyed in Irish metre, St. Columba broke asunder the ties
ofkindred,ofhome,andofcountry,whiledriftingoutontheopensea. The
probably
wasofconsiderablesizeand 28 Withdauntless tonnage.
kille, Patron of Ulster, and Apostle of the Pictish and Scotch Nations," attributed to Rev. Mr. Taaffe, the following miracle as- cribed to our saint, by the people of Tyr- connell, was communicated by Mr. James Loague, of Strahurly, in that country. " With reluctance he took his last farewell on chanticleer's
The English, by Mr. Loague :—
the cock, and thus sung in Irish
:
informed a by
person
of
of the —he cursed signal hour,
"And,"
continues Mr.
Loague, veracity,
" Achill-shillach, chill-shillach
:
moch angarrain Cuideach,
Goraibhancoileachganchean; is
chill-shillach gan coileach'
"
Nar
"
"I am that no cock ever since that time—was known to have
crowed in that 62. village. " Chap, xiv. , p.
2S Another opinion has been advanced, thatthevoyagerssailedinoneofthoselight skiffs, which are often described by ancient
Mayest thou Kilshillach, want a cock; and woe
Betide the cock that warns me thus to go. "
372 LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. [June 9.
Farewell of St. Columba to Erinn has been ever regarded, as one of the most
feeling and sweet poems in the ancient Gaelic language. Some pleasing and
musical 2^ from the of D. translate them into stanzas, pen Timothy Sullivan,
English, and they are here reproduced,3° as being at least appropriate to the 1
occasion. s Inhisfirstvoyage,ColumbafollowedthenorthernshorefromDerry to the mouth of the Bann, and thence across. 32 He sailed from the coast of Antrim, but he landed again on the shore of Dalaradia. It is said, that when departing from Ireland for Hy, Columba had met a boy near Coleraine, who joyfully went to embrace him, and afterwards he became a disciple. This was ColmanMacComgellain,33andhewasoftheIrishDalriads. 34 Oursaintaffection- ately returned his embrace with a kiss, and in the presence of all who were present, Columba predicted, that he should be exalted in the Lord's esteem, and that he should become learned in all ecclesiastical science. Furthermore, it was announced, that he should become the medium for ending inter- national disputes between the Irish and the Albanians.
We are informed, that the second year after the war of Culedreimne, St.
writers; and which were called by the Irish currachs. Their framework was gene- rally made of twisted oziers, and then covered over with hides or skins of animals. These currachs were furnished with oars ; but, a pole was also set up in the centre, and to this a sail was attached, to court the favouring breezes. In modern English, they
'*
ThepsalmsfromDurrow'squietdells, The tones of Arran's holy bells
Will sound no more for me.
With Erin's bards to sit again
And list their songs' enchanting flow ;
To hear their harps ring out a strain Fresh born from some high throbbing
brain,
And see their eyes aglow,
are styled "coracles. " See Rev. Dr. Reeves' "
Adamnan's LifeofSt. Columba,"p. 169, n. (k).
2' " Saint Columba in Exile. " Intituled, —
These stanzas thus run :
" To ours again ; we may not stay, For, ah ! on ocean's rim I see
When sunbeams pierce the cloudy
day
From those rude hills of Oronsay,
The isle so dear to me.
" And if once more we set our feet
On wild sea-crag or islet fair, There shall we make our calm retreat
And spend our lives, as it is meet, In penance and in pray'r.
" But yet, with such a love as mine For Erin and her noble race,
What wonder if my heart will pine And still fly back o'er leagues of
" To hear once more the soft winds
brine
To seek that
And bursting on the strand. " —"Green Leaves. " A volume of Irish Verses. By T. D. Sullivan. "Saint Columba in Exile," p. 97.
30 These stanzas first appeared in the
Along
the
holy ground.
33 He died a. d. to 625, according
"
be
Tigher- nach. See Rev. Dr. O'Conor's " Rerum Hi-
over from Scotia 35 or Ireland into
6 desirous Britain,3 being
The date for his depar-
Columkille
for the love of Christ, to go thither on a pilgrimage.
passed
happy place !
" Dublin Illustrated Annual for
31 "Saint Columkille's farewell to the Isle
" No land is like it ; night and day The songs of birds are heard all
round, And clerics'
of Arran on setting out for Iona," has also been translated, by Aubrey de Vere. —See " The Month," for July, 1865.
as sweet as Float on the mellow winds that play
32 See " Trias Vita Thaumaturga," Quinta
songs,
they,
But far from Derry, far from Kells,
bernicarum Scriptores," tomus ii. , p. 187. 34 See Rev. Dr. Reeves' Adamnan's " Life
of St. Columba," p. 459.
And fair Raphoe, my steps must ;
1 '
Or when winds blow and watch, high
free,
From some bold cliff or jutting
land
The white gulls poising o'er the sea, The big waves rolling boisterously,
sigh
Through Irish woods ; or Irish
streams,
By banks and rocks go rushing by, With rippling notes that swell and
die
Like music heard in dreams
;
S. Columbse, lib. ii. , cap. x. , pp. 410, 411.
1872. "
June 9. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. 373
ture from Ireland has been varied as regards die year by different writers.
The " Annals of the Four Masters "37 state, that Colum Cille went to Scot-
s
land in the year 557,2 where he afterwards founded the church which was
namedfromhim. 39 AccordingtoFatherJohnColgan'scalculation, St. Columba
arrived in Britain, a. d. 562. 4° This he deduces, from the data, that Columba
was then in the of his 1 that he remained in Britain forty-second year age,*
for thirty-four years, and that he died, most probably a. d. 596. 42 The year 563 is generally regarded, however, as that of his departure from Ireland on this
enterprise. Toprovethis,thelearnedchronographerArchbishopUssherenters uponaclosecomparisonofdatesandoccurences. -^ Hisauthorityisfollowedby
45and —Rev. Dr. Reeves/6 The Lanigan, by
who lived among the high and solitary mountains, which separate them from
the southern regions, in the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 565, when Justin
Minor governed the Roman Empire after the time of Justinian. Moreover,
Columba came to Britain, in the ninth year of the reign of Bridius, son of
Meilochon, the mighty King of the Picts. 48 This calculation of Bede, has
beenfollowedbyFlorenceofWorcester,byHermannContract,* byHenry
of Huntingdon,50 by Fabius Ethelredus, and by John Capgrave. 51 Other
accounts have it at a. d. 566, such as those of Matthew of Paris, 52 and Matthew
ofWestminster. " AccordingtoJohnofTeignmouthandJohnCapgrave, St. Columba is said to have been forty-five years of age, when he left Scotia
as a missionary for Britain. 54 At this time, however, he is more generally said to have been forty-two years of age. 55 Such is the account agreed upon by most writers of his Acts, such as Adamnan,56 and O'Donnell,5? while it seems most reconcilable with the incidents of his career.
Roderick 44 Rev. Dr. 0'Flaherty, by
Venera
—ble Bede
that St. Columba whom he calls Colum-
47
banus left Ireland to preach the word of God among the Northern Picts,
distinctly states,
35 Thus, Adamnan says he passed from "Scotia ad Britanniam. "
36 The Venerable Bede remarks, " Venit
149, pp. 154, 157, 158.
46 See his Adamnan's "Life of St.
Columba. " ChronologicalSummaryofSt. Columba's Life, p. lxxv. , and additional
Notes L, p. 310.
47 See "Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum," lib. iii. , cap. 4, p. 168.
4^ See D. Petrus Lombardus, "De Regno Hibernise, Sanctorum Insula, Commenta-
de Hibe—rnia . . . . Columba Brit- "
taniam. " Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum," lib. hi. , cap. 4, p. 168, Cain- bridge edition.
37 See Dr. O'Donovan's edition, vol. L,
the war of
39 This was I-Columkille or Iona.
40 Supposing our saint to have died A. D. 596, and that he came there in the forty- second year of his age, the foregoing is his conclusion. See "Trias Thaumaturga," Quarta Appendix ad Acta S. Columbse, cap. 7, p. 486.
41 According to Adamnan's Preface to St.
Columba's Life, as also to lib. according iii. ,
cap. 22, and according to his Life by
pp. 196, 197.
38 As we have seen,
" edited Rev. Patrick F,
by Moran,
they place Cuil-Dreimhne at a. d. 555.
rius,
D. D. , cap. xv. , p. 81.
49 This learned man, born A. D. 1013, be-
came a monk of St. Gall, and he died Abbot
of Reichenau, A. D. 1054, having left behind him a valuable history, known as " Chroni- con desex yEtatibusMundi. "
5* In his Annals.
51 in nis vita S. Columbae, cap. i. , and in his Annals of the Anglo-Saxons.
sa At Anno Gratise Matthew of DLXVI. ,
Paris, meaning this saint, thus writes :
" Eodem anno Sanctus de Columbanus,
—Scotia veniens, in Britannia clarus habetur," "Chronica Majora," edited by Henry Richards Luard, M. A. , vol, i. , p. 247.
53 See " Flores Historiarum," p. 196.
54 See Colgan's "Trias Thaumaturga,' Vita Tertia S. Columbse, cap. ii. , p. 332.
44""" S5 —
See Ogygia, Scotise Regum Catalo- 'Navigatio Coluim-Cille ad insulum
Cumeneus, cap. 32, ters.
42
and
succeeding chap-
By subtracting thirty-four years of exile from this, it is plain, Colgan thinks, the year of departure from Ireland must be 562.
