Irish Monks and the Norsemen II

Concluding the paper by Henry Howorth on the Viking attacks on Ireland's monasteries. Whilst the author himself apologizes for the dry nature of the material, there are nevertheless some interesting snippets within it. He cites, for example, the prophecies about the attacks attributed to famous Irish saints. If nothing else, he certainly illustrates just how extensive these attacks were. Finally, I might add that most of the sources quoted by the author- Todd's Life of St Patrick, the Annals, the Chronicon Scottorum and the Tract on the War with the Foreigners are available through the Internet Archive.

In 833, according to the Chron. Scot., Nial, that is Nial Caille, the over-king of Ireland and Murchadh, defeated the foreigners in Daire Chalgaigh, i.e., Derry, or Londonderry ("Chron. Scot," 139 and 376). The Ulster Annals tell us, however, that the invaders succeeded in plundering Rath Luraigh, i. e., Lurach's fort, the ancient name of Maghera, in the county of Londonderry ("Annals of the Four Masters," 445)…

Besides ravaging this old foundation, we are told the pirates also plundered Connor, or Condere, in the county of Wicklow ("Annals of the Four Masters," 445). The Chron. Scot, also tells us that this year Clondolcan, near Dublin, was ravaged by them (op. cit., 139). This church was founded by Saint Mochua, who was its first abbot, and who flourished early in the seventh century. It subsequently rose to the rank of a bishop's see, and became a place of great celebrity. Of its original ecclesiastical edifices the tower alone remains (Petrie, op. cit., 393). This is, no doubt, of later date than the ninth century. A large granite cross, without ornament, which stands in the churchyard, was, however, probably there when the Norsemen made their attack. They also plundered Loch Bricren, i.e., the lake of Bricrum, so called from a chief of Ulster in heroic times. It is a small town, near a lake of the same name in the barony of Upper Inagh, in county Down. There Conghalach, son of Eachaidh, was taken prisoner and carried off by the foreigners to their ships, where he was killed ("Annals of the Four Masters,"447, 449, and note 2).

The next year, i. e., 834, we are told Dunachadh, son of Scanlan, king of the Ui Fidgheinte (who inhabited a district in Limerick round the town of Groom), defeated the invaders and killed many of them ("Chron. Scot," 141; "Annals of the Four Masters," 449).

The invasion of the great inlet of Limerick the outfall of the Shannon, which, dotted with its many islets, was a very paradise as a trysting-place for the fleets of the pirates, is told in greater detail in the Tract on the Danes in Ireland, where we read that they came into the harbour of Limerick, and that Corco Baiscinn (a district comprising the baronies of Moyarta, Clonderalaw, and Ibrickan, in the county of Clare), Tradraighe (a district in the same county, east of the river Fergus, whose name survives in the parish and rural deanery of Tradry), and the country of the Conaill Gabhra, or of the descendants of Conall Gabhra, who gave its name to the barony of Conelloe ("Wars of the Danes," xl., 9 and 31, note 7), which tribe, under their chief Donnchadh, or Donadhach, son of Scannlan (who was also head of the Ui Fidgheinte) together with Niall, the son of Cennfaeladh, the chieftain of Ui Cairbre, defeated them at a place called Senati, probably now represented by Shanagolden, in the barony of Lower Connello, in the county Limerick, where many of them were slain (" Chron. Scot.," 141; "Wars of the Danes/' xli., 9 and 224).

This battle is dated in the year 834 in the "Annals of Ulster," the " Chron. Scot.," and the "Four Masters." The "Chronicon Scotorum " tells us further that the same year Glen da Locha, or Glendalough, was plundered by the pirates… Having pillaged Glendalough, the Norsemen also ravaged Slane, in the county of Meath, where there was formerly a round tower; and Finnabhair, abha, i. e., Fennor, in the barony of Duleek, in Meath, the burial-place of St. Nechtan ("Annals of the Four Masters," 449; "Chron. Scot." 384 ; Petrie, 164).

The next year, i.e., in 835, we find them busy at their usual occupation of piracy at Fernamor (i.e., Ferns, in the county of Wexford), which was a foundation of St. Aidan, whose shrine was in the possession of Dr. Petrie (vide his volume, 201) Cluain mor Maedhoig (i. e., Clonmore, in the county of Carlow,) and other churches of Ir Mumban, i.e., Ormond (Chron. Scot.,141). The "Annals of the Four Masters" add the Church of Druimh Ing, a monastery of St. Fuintain, among the Ui Seaghain, a tribe and territory situated near Rath Ciule, in the barony of Ratoath and the county of Meath (op. cit.,45 1, and note d). The same year they made a descent upon Mungairid, now called Mungret, in far distant Limerick ("Chron. Scot.," 141; "Annals of the Four Masters," 45 1). A very ancient church, said to have been founded by St. Nessan, in St. Patrick's time, still survives there (Petrie, op. cit., 180). ”The wide range of these ravages," as Dr. Todd says, "proves they were committed by more than one body of invaders." The account for the most part is a mere dry list of names, as monotonous as the doings of the veritable Philistines which they record. In the Tract on the Wars of the Danes in Ireland, the attacks, as I have said, are not dated, but arranged in groups more or less geographical, but apparently very arbitrarily. Such a group includes the ravages just described, and adds some other names. Thus, after mentioning the expedition to Dunleer and Killessy (vide ante) we read that they returned again and plundered Swords of Columkille (i.e., Sord, near Dublin). It was a foundation of St. Columba's, and founded before the year 563 (Petrie, op. cit., 398). A famous round tower still remains there. This work also mentions Damliag of Cianan (vide ante), and Slane (id.), and Killossy or Kiluasile (id.), and Glendalough (id.), and Cluain Uamha i.e., Cloyne, in the county of Cork, but probably a mistake for the Clurain Mor already mentioned), and Mungairt, and the greater part of the churches of Erin.

…In 836 the Gentiles from Inbher Dea, i.e. the mouth of the river Vartry, in the county of Wicklow, where St. Patrick landed (Todd, "Life of St. Patrick," 338), and where the pirates doubtless had a trysting-place, attached Cildara, i. e. Kildare, and burnt half the church. From the following sentence in the Annals it is not improbable that the Norsemen were in alliance with Feidhlimdh, the King of Munster already named, for it is said he captured the oratory at Kildare against Foran, the abbot of Armagh, with the congregation of Patrick, and took them prisoners" with their submission?" Kildare, "the church of the oak," was so called from a famous oak which was much cherished by St. Brigid (Todd, op. cit. 21). St. Brigid was the founder of the monastery there, which became one of the most fertile mothers of monachism in Western Europe. Her establishment comprised both sexes. They were separated from each other in the cathedral by a partition, which explains the statement of the Annals that the Norsemen burnt half the church. While she and her successors presided over the abbey, a regularly constituted bishop had joint authority with her, and looked after matters episcopal. He had his episcopal throne, "cathedra episcopalis," she her virginal chair ("cathedra puellaris"). While the Bishop of Kildare was the senior bishop of Ireland, she was the senior abbess among the Scots. St. Brigid and the bishop she appointed were buried on the right and left of the high altar respectively; and their shrines, highly decorated with pendent crowns of gold, silver, and gems, were preserved there. He had been a patron of the arts; had imported vestments of variegated texture from the Continent, which were then deemed peculiarly magnificent, and we are told he was St. Brigid's chief artist; Dr. Todd adds that the ancient Irish ecclesiastics did not consider it beneath their dignity to work as artificers in the manufacture of shrines, reliquaries, bells, pastoral staves, crosiers, covers for sacred books, and other ornaments of the church and its ministers. "The ecclesiastics of that period seem to have been in fact the only artists, and several beautiful specimens of their work are still preserved, chiefly belonging to the century or two centuries before the English invasion of Ireland; for almost all the older monuments of this kind, especially if formed of the precious metals, appear to have been destroyed or melted by the Danes" (Todd, op. cit., II 26). From this account it will be seen that the Norsemen doubtless found a rich booty when they plundered Kildare in 836. They followed up their attack there by a second raid on Cluain mor Maedhoig, or Clonmore, in the county of Carlow, which they assailed on Christmas Eve, and whence they carried off a great number of prisoners, and then cruelly ravaged all Connaught ("Chron. Scot," 141). The oratory of Glen da Locha was also burnt by them.

The otherwise monotonous Annals have a curious notice this year, showing that nature was bountiful enough at these critical times; we read that there was abundance of nuts and acorns this year, and they were so plentiful that in some places where shallow brooks flowed under trees men might go dryshod, the waters were so full of them!

The sentence following is in grim contrast to this. "The Gentiles this year harried and spoiled all the province of Connaught"("Annals of the Four Masters," 453; "Chron. Scot," 141.) In the same year the Four Masters have an entry which would be very curious and interesting if well authenticated; we are there told that "Goffraith, son of Fergus, chief of Oirghialla, i.e., Oriel or Uriel, in Ulster, went to Alba, i.e., Scotland, to strengthen the Dal Riada, at the request of Cinaeth son of Ailpin," i.e., Kenneth McAlpin (op. cit., 453). This early use of the Norse name Gofifraith in Ireland is very interesting, but Mr. Skene, than whom it would not be easy to quote a better authority, considers it as of slight value, and that it has been taken from the unreliable genealogy of the McDonalds, Lords of the Isles, contained in the "Book of Ballymote”(letter to the author). I am not so sure, however, that he has not here been too sceptical, and the entry is deserving of more critical sifting. A second entry occurs in the " Annals of the Four Masters," which tells us Goffraith died in 851. He is then styled Chief of the Inis Gall, i.e., Lord of the Isles, and if genuine, is the first recorded of that long and picturesque line of chieftains.

The year 837 was also a terribly scarlet year in the Irish annals; we read how a formidable fleet of sixty ships appeared in the river Boyne, and a second fleet of sixty ships in the Liffey, and that these two fleets ravaged the districts of Magh Life (i. e. the plain of the Liffey in Kildare) and Magh Bregh the (plain of Bregia, between the Liffey and the Boyne, and extending from the sea into the county of Meath). The men of Bregh won a victory over them and killed six score of them ("Chron. Scot," 141).

This victory, if victory it was, was compensated by a terrible reverse elsewhere, for we are immediately afterwards told that a battle was gained by the foreigners at Inbhear-na-Barc, i. e., the river or estuary of the barks or ships, which the learned editor of the " Annals of the Four Masters" identifies with the mouth of the river of Rath Inbhir, near Bray (op. cit., 455, note ), over all the O'Neills (i.e., all the southern O'Neills who lived in the ancient Meath), from the Shannon to the sea, in which such slaughter was effected as had never before been seen, but the chief kings escaped ("Chron. Scot," 141; "Annals of the Four Masters," 455,456). This was evidently a crushing disaster for the Irish, and it was followed by blow on blow of the heaviest kind, which are described in grim, short phrases by the chroniclers. By these blows the most famous religious establishments in Ireland were devastated, and all, too, apparently in one year. The list begins with Cluain-mac-Nois, assuredly a most famous monastic foundation, the most famous seat of religion and school of art in Ireland. It is situated on the eastern bank of the Shannon, in the barony of Garrycastle, in King's County….

The name Cluain-mac-Nois means the meadow of the son of Nois. The monastery there was founded by Saint Ciaran in 544. We are told that the king, Diarmaid Mac Cerbhall assisted Ciaran with his own hands to raise the humble edifice and the still humbler cell which adjoined it, the monarch being at the time himself an outcast, on whose life a price was fixed, and who was seeking shelter from his persecutors in the wilderness to which the saint had come for solitude and repose. The monastery afterwards became the cemetery of King Diarmaid and his successors, and was richly endowed by them. It gradually became the chief school in Ireland. In the eighth century Colcu, one of its lectors, was known abroad as the chief scribe and master of the Scoti. He was a correspondent of Alcuin, who sent him a present of some holy oil for consecration, shekels as a present from his master Charlemagne, and similar gifts from himself for the brotherhood at Clonmacnois, and other presents to be distributed elsewhere. Colcu was the author of a famous work called "Scuaip Chrabhaidh," i.e., the "Besom of Devotion." He died in the year 789 (Dunraven, op. cit., 96, 97). We shall revert to Clon-mac-Nois again, for it long survived this first attack of the Danes, and increased in wealth and splendour; but there is small doubt that even now the pirates found a rich booty there.

Besides Clon-mac-Nois, we are told they in this year burnt the churches of Loch Erne, near Enniskillen, in the county of Fermanagh, such as Daimhinis, (i. e., ox island, now Devenish Island) in that lake. The monastery there was founded by Saint Molaise, otherwise called Laisren, who died there. A beautiful and perfect round tower still remains to mark the spot of the monastery, and the oratory of St. Molaise survived until a few years ago (" Annals of the Four Masters," 203, note t; Petrie, op. cit., 355, 432). They also plundered the church of Cluain Eos, or Clones, in the county of Monaghan, where there was another famous monastery, and burnt the churches of Laictene, Inis Cealtra, and Cill Finchi. Laictene was so called after Saint Lactin, who died in 622, and who had churches dedicated to him at Freshford, in the county of Kilkenny; Muscraighe, in the county of Cork ; and Ballylongford, in the north of the county of Kerry ("Annals of the Four Masters," 244, note g ; and 456, note e). Inis Cealtra was an island in Loch Dergdheirc ("Chron. Scot," 389); there was an ancient church there built, by Saint Caimin in the seventh century, and rebuilt in the tenth by the famous Brian Borumha, the object of so much affection on the part of Irish patriots (Petrie, op. cit., 272, &c.); while Cill Finnchi was a church described in a gloss to the Feilire Aenguis as near a great hill called Dom Buidhe in Magh Raighne in Ossory. This has not been identified, however (" Annals of the Four Masters," 456, note f). We next have a very remarkable reference, since it preserves for us the first name of a leader of the pirates recorded in the Irish Annals. The phrase in the " Chronicon Scoticon" is "the killing of Saxolbh, lord of the foreigners, by the Ciannachta," i.e., the men of Duleek in eastern Meath ("Chron. Scot," 143). The name Saxolbh is a curious one. It is clearly the Anglo-Saxon name Saxulf, and is not a Norse name at all. This proves that the Norse folk at this time were accompanied by some English chiefs, a fact which will be shown to have more than a passing interest presently. We then read of a slaughter of Gentiles at Carn Feradhaigh, which is a mountain in the territory of Clin-Mail in the south of the county of Limerick ("Annals of the Four Masters," 457, 245, note h; "Chron. Scot.” loc. cit). They, however, gained a victory at Ferta, i.e., the graves, probably Fearta fear Feig, on the Boyne near Slane, in Meath (" Annals of the Four Masters," 457, and note h;"Chron. Scot," loc. cit.). This was balanced by a defeat at Eas-ruaidh, now Assarae, at Ballyshannon, in the county of Donegal ("Annals of the Four Masters” 456, 457, note i; "Chron. Scot." loc. cit.). Lastly, we have the short and pregnant phrase, " The first taking of Athcliath by the foreigners." Athcliath is short for Dubhlinn of Athcliath, i. e., "the black pool of the ford of hurdles," and was the ancient name of Dublin (" Wars of the Danes," &c., xlix., note 5; "Annals of the Four Masters," and " Chron. Scot.," loc. cit.).

Such is the calendar of destruction and ravage committed in the fatal year 837. The size of the fleet which then arrived, 120 ships, is enormous for a Norse armament, as all will confess who have studied the doings of the corsairs, and the record of its handiwork shows that it was a very powerful body of invaders, and no doubt therefore led by a famous chieftain. On turning to the Tract on the Wars of the Danes we recover his name, which was Turges, or Turgesius, which it has been suggested is a form of the Norse name Thorgils. As usual, in this account the story is confusedly told, and, as Dr. Todd has suggested, we seem to have the same story repeated in it in a different way. Confused as it is, we will now abstract the notice, which is no doubt very valuable.

After mentioning the descent on Limerick (ante) this account goes on to say, "There came after that a great royal fleet into the north of Erin with Turges. This Turges assumed the sovereignty of the foreigners of Erin. The north of Erin was plundered by them, and they took possession of Leth Cuin (i.e. the northern half of the island, called Leth Cuin or Cons half; op. cit., 8, note 7). "A fleet of them took possession of Loch Eathach, i.e. Loch Neagh; another fleet took possession of Louth, another of Loch Ree" (op. cit., 9, 224, and xlii., note i). Here it will be seen three fleets are mentioned, and not two, as in the Annals. Then we have some paragraphs which are apparently inserted out of their order, and to which we shall revert presently, after which follows an account of the ravages as follows. "There came after that threescore and five ships (sixty is the number named in the Annals as forming each of the two fleets), to Dublin of Ath Cliath, and Laigin (i. e., Leinster) was plundered by them to the sea, and Magh Bregh" i.e., Bregia, already mentioned) (op. cit., 13, 226). This story is clearly a condensed account of what we have already recited from the Annals; but at this point we get a very interesting additional phrase, for we are told that this fleet, after the plundering of Laigin and Bregia, went northwards with its left hand towards Erin, and the Dalriadans gave them battle. They were led by their king Eoghanan, the son of Angus (who according to O'Flaherty was the 31st of the Dalriadan kings of Scotland), who was killed, (" Wars of the Danes," 13, 226). The Ulster Annals tell us expressly the battle was fought in Fortrenn or Pictland, and besides Eoghan he tells us that Bran the son of Angus and Aid the son of Boareta, and an almost innumerable body of people, perished there ("Skene's Celtic Scotland," 307-8, note 7). These Annals date the fatal battle in 838, which answers to 839 of our era (Todd, loc. cit").

The fight here described was one of the most important battles in history. In Mr. Skene's words, "The Picts received so crushing a blow from the Danish pirates, that it seems to have almost exterminated the family connected with Fortrenn, and paved the way for the successful attempt of the son of Alpin the Scot to place himself on the throne of the Picts"(id., 307).

It was doubtless a consequence of this victory that, as we read in the " Chronicle of the Picts and Scots," the Danes devastated Pictland as far as Cluny and Dunkeld (id., 310, note 66).

It seems clear, from the petty doings of the Norsemen in Ireland in 838, that a large part of the royal fleet, after gorging itself with booty from Ireland, had gone to Scotland, as I have mentioned. In 838 we have but one entry about "the Gentiles," where we are told they defeated the people of Connaught, and that Maelduin, son of Murighes, son of Tomaltash, and others were killed ("Chron. Scot.” 143;"Annals of the Four Masters," 459).

In 839 we read that a marine fleet of the foreigners arrived in Loch Eathach (i.e. Loch Neagh), and the territories and churches of the north of Ireland were spoiled by them. The Annals of Clonmacnois say they built a fortress there. This was no doubt the fleet of Turges which had returned from the Scotch expedition, and explains the mention of the third fleet on Loch Neagh in the confused narrative of the "Tract on the Danes in Ireland."

The same year Ferns, in Wexford, and Cork were again ravaged ("Chron Scot.” 143; "Annals of the Four Masters," 459). This was probably by another section of the invaders.

In 840 the party who had settled on Loch Neagh attacked Louth, and made prisoners of many bishops and other wise and learned men, and carried them to their fortress, after having slain many others (" Annals of Ulster," quoted in " Annals of the Four Masters," 460, 461, and note d). This event is confused, by the " Tract on the Wars of the Danes in Ireland," with the previous capture of Armagh, when it was taken three times in one month, and no doubt by quite a different section of the pirates. The mistake has led to a misplacement of the paragraphs in that narrative, and to a confusion of the chronology of Turges' expedition in Dr. Todd's narrative. The notice to which I refer runs as follows: "Moreover Armagh was plundered by them three times in the same month, and Turges himself took the abbacy of Armagh, and Forannan, abbot of Armagh, was driven away and went to Munster, and the shrine of Patrick with him, and he was four years in Munster, while Turges was at Armagh, and the power of the north of Erin was with him" (op. cit., 9, 224).

This proves that a confusion in the dates has arisen, for as Forannan returned in 845 and was absent four years, it seems to show that the capture of Armagh referred to was the later one, and not the earlier, which has been mixed up with it.

The capture of the famous old foundation of St. Patrick, and the eviction of his successor, are said to have been foretold by several of the old saints, and the Annals quotes from three of them prophecies which are very clearly ex post facto.

First that of St. Bercan:

" Gentiles shall come over the noble sea,
They shall spread over the land of Erin;
Of them shall be an abbot over every church,
Of them shall be power over Erin.
Seven years shall they be, not weak their power,
In the sovereignty of Erin,
In the abbacy of every church,
The Gentiles of the port of Dublin.
There shall be an abbot of them over this my church;
He shall not attend to matins;
Without pater, without creeds,
Without Latin, and only knowing a foreign language."

Then that of St. Columba:

" This fleet of Loch Ri
Has well exalted the foreign Gentiles.
Of them shall be an abbot of Ardmacha;
It shall be the rule of a usurper."

That of Bec ma De, a saint who is said to have lived in the sixth century:

"When the bell was rung in warm Tailtin,
The aged, wealthy Ciaran of Saighu
Promised to Erin three times,
Parties of Danes of the black ships."

This is explained in the context, as meaning that the Danish invasions were in punishment, first, of the banishment of St. Columba to Scotland ; secondly, the sacrilegious insult offered to Ciaran, of Clonmacnois, by King Diarmaid, in Tailtin, or Teltown, doubtless referring to the false oath sworn on the relics of his hand by Ambacuc in the year 544 (" Chron. Scot.," 49) ; and lastly, for the fasting of the saints of Erin against Diarmaid MacCerbhaill. This refers to the fact that Diarmaid was largely infected with Druidic notions, and was a patron of the Druids, and in consequence incurred the displeasure of St. Columba, who denounced him (see Todd's "Patrick," 118, &c.).

Let us now return once more to the Annals. Under the year 840 we are told that the foreigners who still remained at Loch Neagh built themselves a fortress at Linn Duachail, probably situated at the tidal opening of the Clyde and the Dee, in the county of Louth, where the village of Annagassan stands (" Wars of the Danes," Todd's note, Ixii., note i). Thence they plundered the churches and territories of Teabhtha, or Teffia, a territory comprising portions of the present counties of Longford and Westmeath. They also built a fortress at Dublin (doubtless where the castle still stands), whence they harried Leinster and the land of the southern O'Neills as far as Sliabh Bladhma (i.e., the Slieve Bloom Mountains in King's County, to which the land of the southern O'Neills extended) (" Annals of the Four Masters," 461, note g). They also plundered Cluain Edhnech, i.e., Clonenagh, the famous monastery of St. Fintan, in Queen's County (" Wars of the Danes," lxi., note g), and demolished Cluain Iraird, i.e., Clonard, in the county of Meath, the foundation of St. Finnian, called the foster-father of the saints of Ireland. His celebrated school at Clonard is said to have produced 3,000 disciples, and as Dr. Todd says, it became the alma mater of many eminent ecclesiastics. The famous saints known as the twelve apostles of Ireland were his disciples (Todd's "Life of St. Patrick," 98). St. Finnian died in 551.

Besides this seat of learning the invaders also laid low Cil Achaidh, or Cil Achaidh-Droma-forta (i.e., the church of the field of the long ridge), now Killeigh,in King's County, founded by Saint Sinchell, who died of the plague in 549. The next year was again a red year in the Annals. We are told the Gentiles were still at Dublin. Those at Linn Duachaill again plundered Clonmacnois and also Cennetigh, now called Kinithy, in King's County, where there was a monastery ("Chron. Scot," 145; "Annals of the Four Masters," 463, note j). Another fleet of them was stationed at Linn Ross, on the river Boyne. Linn Ross, or the pool of Ross, was that part of the river Boyne which was opposite Rosnarea, in the barony of Lower Duleek, in the county of Meath (" Annals of the Four Masters," 462, note q). Another fleet was at Linn Suileach, doubtless an ancient name of Loch Suilach, or Loch Swilly, in Donegal ("Annals of the Four Masters” 463, note 2). It was apparently from Dublin (" Annals of Ulster," quoted in "Annals of the Four Masters," 463, note s) that issued those who plundered Birra, a foundation of St. Brendan, who died in 565 or 571, now called Parsonstown and Saigher, i.e., Seir Keiran in Ballybritt, King's County, where was the principal church of St. Kiaran.

"Saigher," says Dr. Todd, "is said to have been the name of a well-venerated queen in pagan times, and a prophecy attributed to St. Patrick is cited as having directed Saint Kiaran to the place. He founded a church there, and began, we are told, by occupying a cell, where he lived as a hermit in the midst of a dense wood, and tamed some of the wild animals of the forest for his amusement; but his fame drew disciples, a monastery followed, and then a city, to which the name of Saigher, pronounced Seir, was given, from the name of the ancient well, and it was afterwards named Seir Keiran from the name of the saint." (Todd's St. Patrick, 201.)

Disert Diarmata (i.e., Saint Diarmaid's desert hermitage or wilderness) was also devastated, the body who plundered it coming from Kaeluisge (i. e., the narrow water, now Narrowwater), situated between Warren's Point and Newry in the barony of Upper Iseagh, in the county Down ("Annals of the Four Masters," 462, note p). "Disert Diarmata was the ancient Irish name of Castle Dermot, in the baronies of Kilkea and Moone, near the southern extremity of the county of Kildare, where Diarmaid, son of Aedh Roin, erected a monastery about A.D. 500. In the churchyard there are to be seen an ancient round tower and several curious crosses, which attest the antiquity and former importance of the place" (id., note o).

Three important victims of the pirates are mentioned by name this year; these were Caemhan, abbot of Linnduachaille, who we are told was mortally wounded and burnt by the Gentiles, the "Annals of Ulster" say by the Irish and Gentiles (" Annals of the Four Masters," 463, note s; "Chron. Scot.," 145). They also killed Moran mac Inreaghty, Bishop of Clogher (id.), and they captured Maldinn MacConal, king of Calatrom (i. e., Galtrim in Meath), who was killed three or four years later by the people of Leinster.

During the next two years the entries in the Annals about the Norsemen are very scanty, proving doubtless that a large part of their fleets were busy buccaneering elsewhere. This is a good halting-place. The pirates now began a series of much more important raids upon the fair lands of France, while their course in Ireland also took a new departure.

Much of this paper consists of arid detail, because the ground is largely new and untrodden, and we have to carve our way through a thicket which is dense and confused; but the very dryness of the details and their iteration proves the terrible way in which the culture and civilization of early Ireland was laid low at this time by the pirates.

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Volume VIII (1880), 281-330.

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Seventh-Century Ireland as a Study Abroad Destination

If you ever thought that the 'foreign exchange student' was a modern phenomenon, read on...

Seventh-Century Ireland as a Study Abroad Destination

Colin Ireland

Beaver College, Dublin, Ireland

As a modern-day International Educator you might easily believe that you are involved in a pioneering endeavor. Would it surprise you to learn that you had predecessors in Ireland thirteen hundred years ago?

Did you know that the Emerald Isle attracted swarms of eager foreign students, principally from England, to its monastic schools as early as the seventh century? Monastic schools were the universities of medieval Europe. In this article I will portray—from the scanty records that survive—scenes from the life of these "study abroad students" in Ireland's early medieval centers of learning.

Trying to reconstruct the society of the early Middle Ages from surviving records is a bit like putting together a jigsaw puzzle when 90% of the pieces are missing. Everyone stands around and argues about how the remaining 10% of the pieces fit, or even if they belong to the particular puzzle at all.

In order to reconstruct the life of “study abroad students” in seventh-century Ireland I rely primarily on three sources. The first two sources are the English churchmen Aldhelm and Bede. Aldhelm (d.709), abbot of Malmesbury and later bishop of Sherborne, was the first Anglo-Saxon man of letters. Fortunately, at least two letters by him to Anglo-Saxon students who studied in Ireland survive. Bede (d.735), a priest at Wearmouth-Jarrow, was the greatest of the Anglo-Saxon men of letters. He wrote a history of the Anglo-Saxon Church (Historia Ecclesiastica [HE]), cited frequently in this article, which often notes the relationships between the English and the Irish in the seventh century. As English clerical scholars, Aldhelm and Bede are eager to promote the Church of Rome and Anglo-Saxon England’s role in its growth. Nevertheless, they frequently acknowledge the Irish contribution to English Church history and Anglo-Saxon learned culture. Bede tells us, for example, that Irish schools provided English students with free books and free instruction. My third major source is the Hisperica Famina [1] "Western Sayings," a cryptic Latin text written in Ireland by, or about, foreign students sometime probably between c.650 and c.665. The Hisperica Famina are secular in tone and give us our most intimate glimpse into the life of "study abroad students" in early Ireland.

Nowadays many students find Ireland an attractive study abroad destination because it is an English-speaking country. We admire Anglo-Irish literature and such Irish writers as Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, and Shaw, all of whom wrote in English. Yet Ireland’s equally rich Gaelic heritage is often as obscure as the Latin Middle Ages. Many of Ireland’s literary treasures remain hidden because they were written either in Irish (Gaelic) or in Latin. The current worldwide importance of English has made it accepted as the language of higher education, just as Latin was during the Middle Ages. Because we live and work in an English-speaking world, a secondary purpose of mine has been to highlight, where appropriate, Irish influence on Early English (Anglo-Saxon) learned culture, even where that learning has been conveyed through Latin.

Ireland is the first Western European country to create an extensive literature using its own vernacular, Irish, in addition to using Latin. Literature in Irish placed as much emphasis on secular as on religious topics. [2] Nevertheless, Latin, as the language of the Church, was the primary intellectual language of the Middle Ages. During this period, Irish scholars studied and, in turn, taught those Christian Latin authors deemed most important by the Church, while they also created an extensive Hiberno-Latin literature of their own. [3] In other words, learned culture in medieval Ireland was, effectively, bilingual.

Throughout the medieval period the Church was the one institution which was both international in character and cross-cultural in scope. Missionaries brought to the peoples they evangelized both a new religion and a new literate, learned culture in Latin. The medieval Church, therefore, filled roles played by present-day international, educational and cultural organizations. The Church’s monastic schools were Europe’s universities.

They taught religious subjects such as Biblical exegesis and Holy Scripture, as well as secular subjects such as grammar, rhetoric, geometry and physics.

Later in this article I will survey some Irish clerics and scholars who worked outside of Ireland. But most importantly for present purposes, it is through the medieval Church that we can trace the interest of non-Irish “study abroad students” in Ireland’s medieval universities, its monastic schools.

Monastic Schools and Monastic Learning in Seventh-Century Ireland

Several Irish monasteries developed into important centers of learning during the seventh century. The sites of monasteries mentioned below can still be located on modern road maps. A few sites are merely ruined stone walls, but several have survived as thriving modern communities.

The monastic school at Armagh (Ard Machae), Co. (County) Armagh, actively produced seventh-century hagiographical works about St. Patrick. [4] Kildare (Cill Dara), Co. Kildare, promoted works about St. Brigit in the same century. [5] Kildare also contained an important scriptorium. The monastic scholar Laidcenn mac Baíth Bannaig (d.661) worked at Clonfert-Mulloe (Clúain Ferta Mo-lua), Co. Laois. [6] Cuimmíne Fota (d.662), another monastic scholar, worked in Clonfert (Clúain Ferta Brénainn), Co. Galway. [7] Glendalough (Glenn dá locha), in the mountains of Co. Wicklow, and Clonmacnoise (Clúain mac Nóis), Co. Offaly, on the banks of the River Shannon, are the homes of manuscript compilations of religious and secular texts.

Columba (d.597), the first great wandering Irish monk, was educated, among other places, at the monastic school at Clonard (Clúain Iraird), Co. Meath. Clonard produced the scholar Ailerán (d.665). [8] Subsequently, at least three scholars at the Carolingian palace schools on the continent made extensive use of Ailerán’s work. They include the Englishman Alcuin (d.804), Walahfrid Strabo (d.849), and Hrabanus Maurus (d.856).

The monastic school at Iona in Scotland, founded by Columba, had a profound influence on Anglo-Saxon Northumbria. Although Iona is not geographically in Ireland, at this time and for several centuries subsequently, much of Scotland was culturally and politically Irish. A significant body of literature, both in Latin and Irish, was produced in seventhcentury Iona. [9] Several Anglo-Saxon kings came under the influence of Iona. King Oswald (634-42), educated and baptized among the Irish, is commemorated in Irish records as ardrí Saxan sóerdae “noble high-king of the English.” [10] Oswald invited Irish missionaries from Iona into his kingdom and even acted as interpreter for them (HE iii 3). [11] Bede (d.735) stated that King Oswiu (642-70), brother of Oswald, having been educated among the Irish, thought that no learning could be better (HE iii 25). King Aldfrith (685-705), son of Oswiu, had an Irish mother and Bede stated that he was educated among the Irish. [12] Aldfrith was renowned among the Irish for his scholarship and may have written texts in the Irish language. [13]

The Irish pilgrim Columbanus (d.615) had studied grammar, rhetoric, geometry and Holy Scripture in the monastery at Bangor (Bennchuir), Co. Down, in the mid-sixth century before he set out for the continent. [14] Bangor was an important monastic literary center, using both Latin and the Irish language. Secular and religious texts were composed there. One of the most famous works is the so-called Antiphonary of Bangor, [15] compiled between 680 and 691. It is not a true antiphonary, but it contains many fine Hiberno-Latin religious poems. Several early vernacular texts are associated with Bangor. Most of these texts are secular, or at least non-religious, in nature. Examples include Immram Brain “The Voyage of Bran,” which deals with a voyage across the western ocean to the “otherworld,” and stories about the Ulster prince Mongán mac Fiachnai (d.625), in which some of the episodes take place in Anglo-Saxon England. [16] It has recently been argued that the Hisperica Famina “Western Sayings,” which will be discussed in greater detail presently, may have originated in Bangor. [17]

Evidence for Irish Monastic Schools from Anglo-Saxon Sources

The Anglo-Saxon scholars and churchmen Aldhelm (d.709 as bishop of Sherbourne) and Bede (d.735 at Wearmouth-Jarrow), provide our clearest pictures of seventh-century Irish monastic education from an out-sider’s perspective. Both Aldhelm and Bede grew up in an England that, only a generation before, had been pagan. The conversion of Ireland, on the other hand, had begun in the fifth century. The twelfth-century historian, William of Malmesbury, stated that Aldhelm had had an Irish teacher named Máeldub. This seems likely since Aldhelm had served as abbot of Malmesbury, and Bede (writing c.731) had referred to Malmesbury as Maildubi urbs “Máeldub’s city” (HE v 18).

Bede himself was born into an Anglo-Saxon Northumbria only recently converted by the Irish. When Bede was between the ages of 13 and 33, Northumbria was ruled by the Irish-educated King Aldfrith. Bede’s monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow had benefited from the royal patronage of Aldfrith. Both Aldhelm and Bede were ecclesiastics, and their primary concern with religious education is obvious in their remarks about Irish monastic schools.

The high-point of Anglo-Saxon education in the late seventh century was the school run by Theodore and Hadrian at Canterbury. Bede boasted that the school at Canterbury provided students with a knowledge of both Latin and Greek (HE iv 2, v 8, v 20, v 23). Bishop Aldhelm himself had spent a few years there.

Nevertheless, Aldhelm felt the need to defend the school at Canterbury against the prestige of Irish schools. Aldhelm complained of English students flocking to Ireland rather than staying in England for their educations. Aldhelm queried rhetorically: “Why, I ask, is Ireland, whither assemble the thronging students by the fleet-load, exalted with a sort of ineffable privilege?” [18]

Aldhelm admitted that the “opulent and verdant country of Ireland is adorned, so to speak, with a browsing crowd of scholars,” [19] but he also showed that the traffic in eager students crossed the Irish Sea in both directions. Aldhelm described Theodore as being “hemmed in by a mass of Irish students, like a savage wild boar checked by a snarling pack of hounds.” [20] The venerable Theodore, however, was able to counter the challenging students “with the filed tooth of the grammarian.” [21]

Aldhelm’s complaints, cited above, are found in a letter addressed to an Englishman named Ehfridus (Heahfrith) who had returned to England after six years of study in Ireland “bursting with praise for learning.” Aldhelm’s letter to Ehfridus implied that grammar, geometry, physics and Biblical exegesis were available to the English students in Irish monastic schools in the seventh century. [22]

Aldhelm intimated that Ehfridus had spent time at Mayo of the Saxons (Mag nÉo na Saxan), [23] a monastic site in the west of Ireland mentioned by Bede and populated primarily by Englishmen (HE iv 4). Approximately thirty English monks had accompanied the Irish bishop Colmán to found a monastery in 668 at Inishboffin (Inis Bó Finne), an island off the west coast of Ireland. This occurred after the decision at the Council of Whitby in 664 which saw the end to Irishmen holding the bishopric of Lindisfarne in Northumbria (HE iii 25).

Mayo of the Saxons continued to thrive and attract Englishmen for more than a century after its foundation. For example, we know that in 732 an Englishman, Gerald, died as pontifex “bishop” there. In the late eighth century, the English scholar Alcuin (d.804) addressed a letter to the English monks at Mayo of the Saxons and mentioned their growing numbers, proving that Englishmen continued to travel as “study abroad students” to the west of Ireland. [24] The monastery’s presumed location is in the town of Mayo in the county of that name.

Bede discussed many Anglo-Saxon missionaries to the continental Germanic pagans who were trained in Ireland, probably at a monastic school at Ráth Melsigi in Co. Carlow, near the River Barrow. [25] The location of this monastic school is now, unfortunately, destroyed by a gravel quarry. [26] Bede’s account emphasizes the importance of the Irish monastic schools to English ecclesiastical history and missionary efforts.

We know the names of many of these English “study abroad students” in Ireland. Willibrord was one such. After a successful mission he became archbishop of the Frisians in 696. He studied in Ireland between c.677-690 (HE iii 13). Another Englishman, Ecgberht, spent his entire adult life among the Irish. He lived to the venerable age of ninety (HE v 9). He evidently attended and worked at the school in Ráth Melsigi between c.664-716. In 716 he went to Iona where he stayed until his death in 729 (HE iii 27).

Yet another Englishman, Wihtberht, lived and studied for many years in Ireland, probably at the school in Ráth Melsigi. After two unsuccessful years on mission in Frisia, he returned to Ireland, where he achieved prominence in Irish ecclesiastical circles (HE v 9). Wihtberht’s reputation among the Irish was such that he was celebrated in the ninth century Irish martyrology, Félire Óengusso.

Two Englishmen, Black Hewald and White Hewald, trained at the school in Ráth Melsigi for their missions to the Old Saxons on the continent. Both suffered martyrdom at the hands of the continental pagans (HE v 10). Other Anglo-Saxons at Ráth Melsigi’s school include the brothers Æthelhun and Æthelwine (the latter became bishop of Lindsey in England; HE iii 27), and Chad, who became fifth bishop of the Mercians in England (HE iv 3).

Continentals, not just Englishmen, also studied at the Irish monastic schools. Bede related the story of Agilberht, a Gaul by birth, who became bishop of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Wessex (c.650 to 663). But before coming to England Agilberht “had spent a long time in Ireland for the purpose of studying the Scriptures” (HE iii 7). Political intrigues caused Agilberht eventually to leave Anglo-Saxon England and return to his native land, where for many years he served as bishop of Paris. Thus we see the career of a continental whose “study abroad” experience in Ireland prepared him for bishoprics in England and France.

We also know that one of the Merovingian monarchs, Dagobert II (d.679), “studied abroad” in Ireland. Dagobert, in his youth, was brought from France to Ireland as a political exile. Tradition has it that he received an education fit for a king, probably at the abbey in Slane (Sláine), Co. Meath. Slane was a wealthy monastery at this time. Its contacts extended throughout Ireland and onto the continent, specifically to St. Fursa’s Irish monastery of Péronne in France. [28]

Secular Learning in Irish Monastic Schools

Bede and Aldhelm confirm that Irish monastic schools also produced secular learning despite their priorities of promoting religious study and ecclesiastical education. For example, Bede related an anecdote, attributed to the Englishman Willibrord, of “a scholar of Irish race who was well-read in literature but utterly uninterested and careless in the matter of his eternal salvation” (HE iii 13). In other words, Bede made it clear that a student at an Irish monastic school might be more concerned with the life of the mind than with the salvation of his soul.

Aldhelm had written a letter (sometime between 673 and 706) to an Englishman named Wihtfrith who intended to study in Ireland. Aldhelm warned Wihtfrith against the temptations of prostitutes. He also encouraged Wihtfrith to avoid the teachings about the Classical pagan deities, which he implied Wihtfrith would find abundantly in Irish schools instead of scriptural studies. [29] The Hisperica Famina “Western Sayings” confirm that seventh-century Irish monastic scholars were acquainted with Classical deities and myths. [30]

We have no clear evidence of what secular topics were actively taught at Irish monastic schools. We do, however, have texts which suggest the secular topics that intrigued seventh-century monastic students. The Hisperica Famina has been mentioned and will be discussed presently. It was probably produced at the monastic school in Bangor. Other texts which may also have originated in Bangor include the Irish Immram Brain, “The Voyage of Bran,” about a journey across the Western Ocean, and the stories about Mongán (d.625), a sort of Irish culture hero. [31] Táin Bó Fraích, “The Cattle Raid of Fróech,” is another Irish language text from this period. Fróech was a legendary hero who wooed the daughter of King Ailill and Queen Medb (Maeve). In order to win their daughter, Fróech promised to accompany Ailill and Medb’s military expedition against the province of Ulster. [32] The story of this expedition is told in the greatest of the early Irish epics, the Táin Bó Cúailnge “The Cattle Raid of Cooley.” [33] This epic tells how the Ulster hero, Cú Chulainn, withstood the invasion through a series of extraordinary single combats.

A ‘Study Abroad’ Student’s Life in Seventh-Century Ireland

Bede (writing c.731) stated that during the decades of the 650s and 660s, Englishmen of all social classes, “both nobles and commons,” left England in order to study abroad in Ireland (HE iii 27). Following his ecclesiastical predilections, Bede stated that these Englishmen came to pursue religious studies. However, he admitted that some of these Englishmen preferred to travel throughout Ireland, studying under various teachers rather than submitting to a strict monastic regime. Bede said that the “Irish welcomed them all gladly, gave them their daily food, and also provided them with books to read and with instruction, without asking for any payment” (HE iii 27). Bede’s words read like an international educator’s fondest dream—easy access to higher education in a foreign country without financial strain for the student, regardless of social class.

Many lines in the Hisperica Famina support Bede’s statements and describe how foreign students were to be found among the Irish population. The Hisperica Famina are seventh-century texts written in an obscure and artificial Latin. Much of the vocabulary has been derived from Greek, Semitic, or Celtic language sources and provided with Latinate inflexional endings. Critics are not fully agreed on their purpose, but they would appear to be advanced school exercises in which the rhetorician describes a scene or phenomenon by deliberately using the most abstruse vocabulary possible. Many of these descriptions end in phrases which suggest that the rhetoricians are competing among themselves and composing under an imposed time limit.

The Hisperica Famina derive from a learned monastic milieu and mention God, prayer and a chapel. They are not religious writings, however, but rather are secular in tone and topic. They survive in several versions. The A-text, edited and translated by Michael Herren, [34] is the most accessible version, and will be cited in translation for this discussion.

The most relevant section of the A-text is called the Lex Diei, “The Rule of the Day.” Its opening describes the birds at sunrise in their search for food and proceeds with a pastoral scene including cattle, sheep, swine, horses and even dolphins. The humans described are the rural peasants who undertake herding and field labors. The students we first encounter are housed in large halls or dormitories among the peasants and not, apparently, in a monastic enclosure.

Like students everywhere, they claim to have been “burning the midnight oil” and complain of being awakened. They ask rhetorically, “Why do you oppress us with a thunderous crash of words and perturb the inner caverns of our ears with turgid speech? For we have devoted an entire measure of moonlight to studious wakefulness … wherefore a feeling of drowsiness now overcomes us.” [35] The students nevertheless rise, wipe their eyes, and begin study of their vellum books: “… cleanse away nocturnal scum with fountain water. Remove the speckled volumes from the curved satchels and heed your rhetoric assignment.” [36]

That the wandering students were foreigners and not Irish seems borne out by the following lines which precede their begging for food: “Who will ask these possessors to grant us their sweet abundance? For an Ausonian chain binds me; hence I do not utter good Irish speech.” [37] The editor would interpret the phrase “Ausonian chain” (ausonica catena) as the Latin language which the foreign students were able to use as a lingua franca in the confines of the monastic schools. But once they dispersed among the local population to beg food (as mendicants) they had to rely on the Irish language which they did not know, or knew only poorly, in order to communicate their needs. [38]

Bede’s claim that the Irish provided foreign students with their daily food without asking for payment is supported by statements in the Lex Diei. For example, a rhetorician is made to say, “I have penetrated the remote farms of this region, and I seek out the charming inhabitants who feed the choirs of wandering scholars.” [39] The hospitality of the locals is stressed: “The charming townspeople apologize for having such meager supplies at hand. Cleave the victuals given to us with sharp knives, and set the wooden tables with heaps of food ….”[40] Later in the text, a bombastic rhetorician expresses his appreciation by saying: “I hope from the deepest recess of my heart that the inhabitants may enjoy a prolonged and worthy life who have bestowed on us their honeyed abundance and have given us mounds of delicious food.” [41]

A scholar’s articles, like book satchels and wax writing tablets, are also noted in the text. For example, the students at one point are exhorted to “Hang your white booksacks on the wall, set your lovely satchels in a straight line, so that they will be deemed a grand sight by the rustics…” [42] One section, De Taberna “On the Book Container,” describes a book satchel, how it is made of sheepskin, and how a craftsman stretches the hide and shapes the leather container. [43] A seventh-century Irish poem, which may have been composed by Adomnán (d.704), abbot of Iona, begins “A maccucáin, sruith in tíag” “Young boy, venerable is the satchel (that you take upon your back).” [44] The Irish poem appears to describe such a book satchel and the contents, both concrete and ideal, that a young monastic scholar would find within it.

Another section, De Tabula “About the Writing Tablet,” describes a waxen writing tablet which has carved and painted designs along its borders. The tablet, according to the Hisperica Famina, “contains the mysteries of rhetoric in waxen spheres.” [45] Seventh-century wax tablets have been recovered from a bog in Co. Antrim which still preserve verses of the Psalms inscribed on them. [46]

Other archaeological evidence concurs with the descriptions from the Hisperica Famina. The section De Oratorio “About the Chapel” describes a wooden chapel with a square foundation, vaulted ceilings and ornamented roof which contains an altar where the priests say mass. [47] Both literary and archaeological evidence prove that seventh-century Irish churches tended to be timber constructions with square or rectangular foundations. [48] On the other hand, the dwellings of the local inhabitants are always described as being round, tugoria turrita. [49] Again, literary and archaeological evidence proves that typical seventh-century Irish dwellings were round. [50]

Certain Irish social customs are also recounted in the Hisperica Famina. The early Irish bathed frequently and made provision for the bathing of guests as an act of hospitality. The A-text describes the custom of cleaning the feet of travelers: “Fill the steady hand basin with water and wash your dirty feet with flowing draughts; wipe clean your muddy soles with the clear liquid,” [51] and again: “pour a clear draught from the wooden tank and wash your dirty feet.” [52] The early Irish had a highly developed vocabulary for bathing, with separate words for washing the feet, the hands, hair, or immersing the entire body. [53] Osaic was the Old Irish word for washing the feet. As can be seen, the Hisperica Famina accurately portrayed the seventh-century world of these “study abroad students” in Ireland.

Irish Scholars and Clerics Beyond Ireland’s Shores

One of the best ways to gauge the excellent quality of the Irish monastic schools is to survey some of the Irish clerics and intellectuals who were educated in them but exercised their talents abroad. Many Irish clerics went to the Merovingian (pre-800) kingdoms on the continent as missionaries to convert pagans or to strengthen the Church’s organizations, including monastic schools. Irish scholars that we find in the Carolingian (post-800) courts are often intellectuals seeking the stimulation of the court schools. The presence of these Irish clerics and scholars can be traced through Scotland, England, Wales, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Austria and beyond.

The frequency with which these Irish churchmen undertook voluntary exile shows that what is known as the Irish “Diaspora” of recent centuries is not a new phenomenon. All but one of the following ultimately settled somewhere on the continent.

Columba is the first of the great wandering Irish monks. Tradition states that he left Ireland as a form of penance. He crossed the sea to Scotland where he established the island monastery of Iona c.563. Legend has it that Columba trained as a poet before becoming a cleric. [54] The Life of Columba, written by Adomnán, abbot of Iona from 679-704, is an important primary source for the period. [55] Iona evangelized Anglo-Saxon Northumbria beginning in the decade of the 630s. As has been mentioned, the Northumbrian kings Oswald, Oswiu, and Aldfrith received their educations at Iona or under its sphere of influence. Their reigns helped lay the foundations for a “Northumbrian Golden Age” in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Columba died in 597.

Columbanus, who trained at the monastery of Bangor, Co. Down in Northern Ireland, is the first of the great pilgrims to the continent. He left Bangor c.590 and travelled with twelve companions to the Merovingian kingdoms in the region of Burgundy, France, where he founded monasteries at Annagray, Fontaines, and Luxeuil. His most famous foundation was Bobbio in northern Italy. Bobbio served as a stopover for pilgrimages to Rome, and continued to be a center of Irish influence for several centuries. [56] Columbanus left a surprisingly large body of writings, which include letters (some to popes), monastic rules, penitentials and poems. [57] An Italian monk named Jonas wrote a Life of Columbanus c.640. [58] Columbanus died in 615.

Gall was one of Columbanus’ companions to the continent, but he was unable to continue the journey to Italy with Columbanus because of illness. Gall, therefore, remained behind and went on to found the monastery of St. Gallen near Lake Constance in Switzerland. His impact can be gauged by the fact that several Lives were written about him. Among his biographers are such noted ninth-century intellectuals as Walahfrid Strabo (c.833) and Nokter Balbulus (c.885). [59] Gall died c.630.

Fursa is another Irish cleric to go to the continent, but first he established a monastery among the Anglo-Saxons of East Anglia c.632. Within a few years he left England and founded a monastery in Picardy, north of Paris. It was known as Perrona Scottorum “Péronne of the Irish,” and became, like Columbanus’ Bobbio in northern Italy, a European center of Irish influence. Like Columbanus, Fursa travelled with Irish companions, several of whom became famous in their own right. Cellán (d.706), an Irish abbot of Péronne, and Aldhelm (d.709), the Anglo-Saxon scholar and churchman, corresponded with each other. [60] The medieval writings about Fursa are also extensive. [61] Anglo-Saxon authors who wrote about Fursa include Bede (c.731; HE iii 19) and Ælfric (d.c.1012). Fursa died c.650.

Kilian is the most successful of the Irish missionaries to Germany. He is especially revered at Würzburg. Interlinear Irish glosses in Latin manuscripts preserved at Würzburg helped nineteenth-century philologists reconstruct the Old Irish language. We know that Kilian spent approximately two years in Rome, probably around 686/7. He was martyred shortly after his return from Rome to Würzburg c.689. [62]

In 743 the Merovingian king Pippin sent the Irishman Virgil to Bavaria after putting down an insurrection there. Virgil worked in the region with other Irishmen, and by 755 he was consecrated bishop at Salzburg, Austria. Virgil is remembered for the conflict between himself and the English missionary Boniface. The latter evidently accused Virgil to the Pope of belief in the doctrine of the antipodes, “that there are another world and other men under the earth, and another sun and moon.” No action was ever taken against Virgil for this charge. The Englishman Alcuin (d.804), who was famous in the Carolingian palace schools, wrote a poem about Virgil, who died in 784. [63]

Dicuil is one of the Irishmen who had the greatest intimacy with the Carolingian court. We know little about his background other than that he was active in the court schools by 814. [64] In 825 his most famous work, De Mensura Orbis Terrae, “On the Measurement of the Earth,” appeared. [65] In this early treatise on world geography he related the account of an Irish pilgrim to the Holy Land which included a description of the “barns of Joseph” on the Nile, that is, the pyramids in Egypt. He discussed the Irish hermits who sailed to isolated islands in the North Atlantic and used eyewitness accounts of these same Irish hermits in Iceland (before the arrival of the Norse) to describe the midnight sun. We have no firm date for Dicuil’s death.

Sedulius Scottus is one of the most widely known of the Irish scholars in the Carolingian courts. Modern scholars usually speak of “the Circle of Sedulius” since Sedulius, like all of the Irish mentioned, travelled as part of a group. [66] We know practically nothing of Sedulius until he reached the continent. By 848 he had arrived at Liège, Belgium. It has been suggested that he was a member of an embassy sent from the Irish high-king, Máel Sechlainn, to the court of Charles the Bald. The entourage may have stopped off in Wales at the court of King Rhodri Mawr. Sedulius’ most famous work is De Rectoribus Christianis, “On Christian Rulers.”[67] It belongs to the genre known as specula prin-cipum,“mirrors for princes,” intended as instruction for rulers. One of its main tenants is that the ruler is appointed by God to protect and assist the Church. The Anglo-Saxon homilist, Wulfstan (d.1023), relied on Sedulius’ work in writing his own “Institutes of Polity.” By 874 Sedulius disappeared from history.

Johannes Scottus Eriugena is the most widely respected as an original thinker of the Irish scholars in Carolingian France. He was a contemporary of Sedulius Scottus. Bertrand Russell called Johannes “the most astonishing person of the ninth century” and went on to say that “he was an Irishman, a Neo-platonist, an accomplished Greek scholar, a Pelagian, a pantheist.” [68]  Like Sedulius, we know practically nothing of Johannes, except through the works he produced on the continent. The name he is known by is tautological. “Scottus” means “an Irishman” and “Eriugena” means “born in Ireland.” He must have arrived at the palace school of Laon, northeast of Paris, by 845. By 851 he produced his De Praedestinatione, “On Predestination,” in which he defended free will, but he relied primarily on philosophy rather than divine revelation for its defense. [69] His most famous work is De Divisione Naturae, “On the Division of Nature.” [70] It is the first great philosophical production of medieval Western Europe. His knowledge of Greek, and his reliance on Greek texts in the original, is unsurpassed by any of his contemporaries. The source of his knowledge has yet to be satisfactorily explained. After about 870 we hear nothing more of Johannes.

The above brief survey shows that Irish clerics and scholars who trained in Ireland left their marks well beyond Ireland’s shores. These native Irishmen studied at the same Irish monastic schools that accepted “study abroad students.”

Eclecticism and Being At Home Abroad

The dynamic eclecticism of early Irish learned culture should be evident from this survey. Irish scholars were famed at home and abroad throughout the Middle Ages. Those Irishmen who went abroad brought with them, in essence, a bit of Ireland. Irish monastic schools also took in foreign scholars from abroad. The majority of “study abroad students” in medieval Ireland, for whom we have clear records, came from Anglo-Saxon England.

Modern Ireland is again active in the international exchange of students and scholars. Foreign students studying abroad in Ireland today, whether they come from North America, Europe, or elsewhere, still find a hospitable Irish welcome. They also find the same literary dynamism and eclecticism as existed in medieval Ireland. In this century alone James Joyce’s Ulysses has proven to be one of the most influential novels ever written. His Finnegan’s Wake provides abundant proof of continuing eclecticism. Ireland has also produced four Nobel Literary Prize winners this century: W.B. Yeats (1923), George Bernard Shaw (1925), Samuel Beckett (1969), and Seamus Heaney (1995).

Like many medieval Irish scholars, each of these five modern Irish writers has spent extended periods outside of Ireland, sometimes writing in other languages, and often earning their living as teachers. Since these modern writers all write in English, their influence has been worldwide. Nevertheless, they remain distinctly Irish while displaying universality. Likewise, medieval Irish scholars helped disseminate a unified culture through the Latin of the Church, while at the same time maintaining a special Irish essence.

Notes

1 For purposes of this article I rely exclusively on the edition by Michael W. Herren, ed. and trans., The Hisperica Famina: I. The A-Text, a New Critical Edition with English Translation and Philological Commentary (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974).

2 For a good overview, see J.E. Caerwyn Williams and Patrick F. Ford, The Irish Literary Tradition (Cardiff: U of Wales P; Belmont, MA: Ford & Bailie, 1992) and Robin Flower, The Irish Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1947). The intellectual life of medieval Ireland has recently captured the popular imagination. See the simplistic but entertaining bestseller by Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization, the Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe (New York: Doubleday; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995).

3 Two works by Helen Waddell are backed by solid scholarship yet provide the non-specialist with an excellent introduction to this period. See The Wandering Scholars (London: Constable, 1927) and Medieval Latin Lyrics 4th ed. (1933; London: Constable, 1947).

4 Tírechán and Muirchú are Patrician hagiographers who wrote in the last quarter of the seventh century. See Ludwig Bieler, ed. and trans., The Patrician Texts in the Book of Armagh, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae X (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1979). Michael Lapidge and Richard Sharpe, A Bibliography of Celtic-Latin Literature 400-1200 (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1985) 83 § 301 (Tírechán), 84 § 303 (Muirchú).

5 For a translation and evaluation of Brigit’s earliest surviving Life, see Sean Connolly, “Cogitosus’s Life of St Brigit, Content and Value,” Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 117 (1987): 5-27. Lapidge and Sharpe 84 § 302.

6 Colin Ireland, “Aldfrith of Northumbria and the Learning of a Sapiens,” in A Celtic Florilegium, Studies in Memory of Brendan O Hehir, ed. Kathryn A. Klar, Eve E. Sweetser and Claire Thomas (Lawrence, Mass.: Celtic Studies Publications, 1996) 63-77, at pp. 64-5. Lapidge and Sharpe 80-81 §§ 293-4.

7 Ireland, “Aldfrith and Learning” 65-6. Lapidge and Sharpe 79-80 § 292.

8 Aidan Breen, ed. and trans., Ailerani Interpretatio Mystica et Moralis Progenitorvm Domini Iesv Christi (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1995). Ireland, “Aldfrith and Learning” 67. Lapidge and Sharpe 82-3 §§ 299300.

9 For a sense of the variety of texts produced at Iona during the seventh century, see Thomas Owen Clancy and Gilbert Márkus, ed. and trans., Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery (Edinburgh: U. Edinburgh Press, 1995).

10 Whitley Stokes, ed., Félire Óengusso Céli Dé: The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee (1905; Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1984) 174.

11 One of our best sources for Britain and Ireland in this period is Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (hereafter referred to as HE). The best edition is Bertram Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, ed., Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969).

12 Colin Ireland, “Aldfrith of Northumbria and the Irish Genealogies,” Celtica 22 (1991): 64-78.

13 Ireland, “Aldfrith and Learning,” 73-6. See my forthcoming edition of Old Irish maxims attributed to Aldfrith under his Irish name Flann Fína: Old Irish Wisdom Attributed to Aldfrith of Northumbria, an Edition of Bríathra Flainn Fhína maic Ossu, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies CCV (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1999).

14 John Ryan SJ, Irish Monasticism, Origins and Early Development 2nd ed. (1972; Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1992) 378; G.S.M. Walker, ed. and trans., Sancti Columbani Opera, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae II (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1957) lxvi-lxxii.

15 An antiphonary is a collection of antiphons, short verses sung by one side of a choir in response to those sung by the other. They are usually based on, or in response to, Biblical verses such as Psalms, canticles, etc.

16 Kuno Meyer, The Voyage of Bran Son of Febal to the Land of the Living (1895; Felinfach: Llanerch, 1994).

17 Jane Stevenson, “Bangor and the Hisperica Famina,” Peritia 6-7 (1987-88): 202-216.

18 Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren, trans., Aldhelm, the Prose Works (Ipswich: D.S. Brewer; Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1979) 163.

19 Lapidge and Herren 163.

20 Lapidge and Herren 163.

21 Lapidge and Herren 163.

22 Lapidge and Herren 161-2.

23 Lapidge and Herren 145, 161.

24 See Stephen Allott, Alcuin of York c. A.D. 732 to 804 — His Life and Letters (York: William Sessions, 1974) 44-5 § 33.

25 See Michael Richter, “Die irische Hintergrund der angelsächsischen Mission,” in Die Iren und Europa im früheren Mittelalter, ed. Heinz Löwe, 2 vol. (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1982) 120-37.

26 Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, “Rath Melsigi, Willibrord, and the Earliest Echternach Manuscripts,” Peritia 3 (1984): 17-49.

27 Colin Ireland, “Some Analogues of the O.E. Seafarer from Hiberno-Latin Sources,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 92.1 (1991): 9 and notes 38, 39.

28 J. M. Picard, “Church and Politics in the Seventh Century: The Irish Exile of King Dagobert II,” in Ireland and Northern France A.D. 600850, ed. Jean-Michel Picard (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1991) 27-52.

29 Lapidge and Herren 154-5.

30 Herren 39-44.

31 For Immram Brain and the Mongán stories, see Meyer, Voyage of Bran.

32 For a translation of this tale, see Jeffrey Gantz, trans., Early Irish Myths and Sagas (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1981) 113-26 “The Cattle Raid of Fróech.” The standard edition is by Wolfgang Meid, ed., Táin Bó Fraích (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1967).

33 For a translation, see Thomas Kinsella, trans., The Tain, Translated from the Irish Epic Tain Bo Cuailnge (London and New York: Oxford UP, 1970). The standard editions are by Cecile O’Rahilly, ed. and trans., Táin Bó Cúailnge, Recension I (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976); and idem, ed. and trans., Táin Bó Cúalnge from the Book of Leinster (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1967).

34 See note 1. See also Lapidge and Sharpe 93-6 §§ 325-38.

35 Herren 78-81 lines 205-09.

36 Herren 80-81 lines 212-14.

37 Herren 84-5 lines 271-4.

38 Herren 34-5.

39 Herren 80-81 lines 229-31.

40 Herren 84-5 lines 276-9.

41 Herren 90-91 lines 338-41.

42 Herren 84-5 lines 262-4.

43 Herren 104-07 lines 513-30.

44 James Carney, “A maccucáin, sruith in tíag,” Celtica 15 (1983): 25-41.

45 Herren 106-07 line 544.

46 For an illustration of one of these tablets, see Timothy O’Neill, The Irish Hand, Scribes and their Manuscripts from the Earliest Times (Portlaoise: Dolmen Press, 1984) 57. See also, Nancy Edwards, The Archaeology of Early Medieval Ireland (London: B. T. Batsford, 1990) 148.

47 Herren 108-09 lines 547-60.

48 Edwards 122-4.

49 Herren 164 for discussion.

50 Edwards 22-7.

51 Herren 82-3 lines 259-61.

52 Herren 88-9 lines 326-7.

53 A. T. Lucas, “Washing and Bathing in Ancient Ireland,” Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 95 (1965): 65-114.

54 To appreciate how a body of literature can accrue to the reputation of a great saint such as Columba, see James F. Kenney, The Sources for the Early History of Ireland: Ecclesiastical, an Introduction and Guide (1929; Dublin: Pádraic Ó Táilliúir, 1979) 264-5 § 91, 422-42 esp. pp. 436-40 § 220.

55 Alan Orr Anderson and Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson, ed. and trans., Adomnan’s Life of Columba, rev. ed., (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). Lapidge and Sharpe 86 § 305.

56 For an overview, see Pierre Riché, Education and Culture in the Barbarian West, trans. John J. Contreni (Columbia: U. of S. Carolina Press, 1976) 324-36.

57 Walker, Sancti Columbani Opera. Lapidge and Sharpe 165-8 §§ 639-42. The attribution of several poems to Columbanus is no longer accepted.

58 Kenney 203-5 § 48; Walker ix-xxxiv.

59 Kenney 206-8 § 50.

60 Lapidge and Herren 149, 167. Lapidge and Sharpe 168 § 643.

61 Kenney 500-510, esp. 501-03 § 296.

62 Kenney 511-13.

63 Kenney 523-6. For writings by Virgil, see Lapidge and Sharpe 169-70 § 647.

64 Kenney 545-8. See also Lapidge and Sharpe 174-5 §§ 660-64.

65 J. J. Tierney, ed. and trans., Dicuili Liber de Mensura Orbis Terrae, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae VI (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1967).

66 Kenney 553-5.

67 Kenney 564-5 § 372. See also Lapidge and Sharpe 177-80 §§ 672-86.

68 Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philoshopy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945) 400. For a more recent assessment, see Dermot Moran, “Nature, Man and God in the Philosophy of John Scottus Eriugena,” in The Irish Mind, Exploring Intellectual Traditions, ed. Richard Kearny (Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1985) 91-106.

69 Kenney 575-7 § 381.

70 Kenney 583-5 § 391. See also Lapidge and Sharpe 183-92 §§ 695-713.

Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, Volume 5

Ancient Irish Schools

This article, published in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record in 1885, lays out the view of Ireland as an island of saints and scholars which kept the flame of learning burning during the Dark Ages. It is a thesis that has had a more recent outing in Thomas Cahill's popular book How the Irish Saved Civilization, but is one from which modern scholarship has moved away. There is currently much debate on just how dark the Dark Ages really were and on how exceptional Ireland really was. Although this article reflects the romantic view of scholar saints, artistic Celts and sighing oaks, it nevertheless contains some worthwhile information. 

The Irish Ecclesiastical Record was founded in 1865 and in its early years published many articles on Irish saints and the early Irish church. I intend to make a selection of these available through the blog, but to access the footnotes, please consult the original volumes at the Internet Archive.

ANCIENT IRISH SCHOOLS.

AT the beginning of the sixth century the dying civilizations of Greece and Rome had almost entirely disappeared. The Goth had glutted his ire. Barbarian horses neighed among the urns of the Caesars; barbarian kings, with few exceptions, reigned from the ruins of Carthage to the walls of China; barbarian soldiers plundered the villas by the Rhine and Garonne, and laid waste the rich provinces watered by the Po and Adige. The hum of industry had ceased, the busy cities were mute, the lamp of the scholar burned no longer. Man, Cardinal Newman tells us, ceased from the earth and his works with him. In such a sad dark time the Irish schools arose and became centres of light.

" While the vigour of Christianity in Italy, Gaul and Spain was exhausted," says Green, “in a bare struggle for life, Ireland, which remained unscourged by invaders drew from its conversion an energy such as it has never known since. Christianity had been received there with a burst of popular enthusiasm, and letters and arts sprung up rapidly in its train. The science and biblical knowledge which fled from the continent took refuge in famous schools which made Durrow and Armagh the universities of the West." " As early as the sixth century," says Hallam, "a little glimmer of light was perceptible in the Irish monasteries, and in the next when France and Italy had sunk in deeper ignorance they stood not quite where national prejudice has sometimes placed them, but certainly in a very respectable position." And Montalembert says "that from the fifth to the eighth century Ireland became one of the principal centres of Christianity in the world, and not only of Christian holiness and virtue, but also of knowledge, literature, and that intellectual life with which the new faith was about to endow Europe."

According to Gorres the church had migrated to Ireland to take up her winter quarters there, and lavished all her blessings on the people who gave her so hospitable a reception. He tells us moreover that monasteries and schools sprang up on every side the monasteries remarkable for their austere piety and the schools for their cultivation of science. " When we look into the ecclesiastical life of this people," continues the distinguished German, " we are almost tempted to believe that some potent spirit had transplanted over the sea the cells of the valley of the Nile with all their hermits, its monasteries with all their inmates, and had settled them down in the Western Isle." Even Froude admits that " the religion of the Irish Celt burned like a star in Western Europe." And the following are the words of one of our most distinguished antiquarians, Sir James Ware. " It is evident from ancient writers of undeniable credit that there were formerly in Ireland several eminent schools, or as we now call them universities, to which the Irish and Britons, and at length the Gauls and Saxons flocked as to marts of good literature."

The Irish Schools were very numerous. According to Ware, 164 monasteries of note were built during the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, and all the larger monasteries had schools attached to them. There were also many secular schools. It is uncertain when the secular schools were first established. Some say they were in existence seven centuries before Ireland bowed to the cross. Towards the close of the third century the monarch Cormac founded three colleges at Tara. After the Synod of Dromceata, the monarch Hugh also established schools for the education of the bards.

The most famous of the monastic schools were Armagh and Bangor in Ulster ; Clonard, Clonmacnoise and Durrow in Leinster ; Lismore, Mungret and Ross in Munster ; and in Connaught the schools of Arran, Mayo and Clonfert.

About the year 455, or according to Usher, ten years later, St. Patrick founded on the hill of the golden-haired Macha the Monastery and School of Armagh. And Archdall says that Armagh continued for many ages one of the most celebrated ecclesiastical foundations in the world.

Bangor was founded by St. Comgall in 558. St. Bernard speaks of it as a place truly holy, and says that the schools of those educated there so filled both Ireland and Scotland that the verses of David seem to have predicted those very times; viz., ''Thou hast visited the earth and hast plentifully watered it, Thou hast many ways enriched it."

In 527 Clonard was founded by St. Finnian on the left bank of the Boyne ; Durrow in 549 by St. Columba among the oaks of King's County, and on the eastern bank of the Shannon, about seven miles from Athlone, St. Kieran founded Clonmacnoise in 548. Speaking of Clonard, Sir William Wilde says : "From this sanctuary and abode of wisdom undoubtedly sprang much of the learning both of Britain and the continent." Bede calls Durrow a noble monastery ; and Eugene O'Curry says that Clonmacnoise continued to be the seat of learning and sanctity, the retreat of devotion and solitude for a thousand years after the founder's time. To this day its ornamental crosses and foreign inscriptions and ruins hoary with age proclaim " In chronicles of clay and stone, how true, how deep, Was Eire's fame." 

Lismore, founded in 633 by St. Carthage, was the best known of the Munster schools. In the opinion of Dr. Lanigan this school was for a very long time equal at least to any other in Ireland. Ware quaintly remarks that there great numbers made profession of true philosophy.

Early in the sixth century Mungret was founded by St. Nessan ; and about the middle of the same century St. Fachnan founded Ross. According to the Psalter of Cashel Mungret had within its walls six churches, and 15,000 monks, 500 lecturers, 500 psalmists, and 500 employed in spiritual exercises.

The ancient writers speak most favour ably "of the school of Clonfert, founded by St. Brendan about the year 558. A 100 years later the Abbot Colman founded a monastery and school in Mayo. The school of Arran was founded by St. Enda in 480.

There were also many other eminent schools: the school of Kildare called the Stranger's Home ; ivy-wreathed Clonenagh called the Gallic school; the schools of Birr and Old Leighlen, to which students from the Danube and Loire flocked ; Moville, Taghmon and wildly picturesque Glendalough, where the Celt heard explained in his native tongue the Ptolemaic system and the Alexandrine cycle. There was a school on an island in Lough Erne, and a school on an island in Lough Derg ; schools on the islands of Innisfallen and Inniscatthy. The city of Cork has grown round Finnbarr's school, amid the town of Roscrea round the school of St. Cronan. There were schools in the midst of quaking marshes, in the heart of far extending oak woods, and by the margin of many a lake.

Five hundred students, and sometimes three times that number, attended a flourishing school. In an ancient life of St. Comgall we are told that 3,000 attended the school of Bangor; in the life of St. Brendan the same is said of Clonfert. " And if we may venture to give credit to Florence Carty," says Ware, " who reports it out of some manuscript in Oxford, to which I am a stranger, the roll of the students of the University of Armagh at one and the same time formerly exceeded 7,000. At first sight such numbers appear incredible. However, we should remember that the younger monks attended the lectures and are called students ; also that a distinguished professor drew round him all the youth of his clan, and many of the men under forty. Moreover many foreigners came to our schools. Aldhelm says that the English went to Ireland " numerous as bees." Bede tells us that many nobles and gentry from among the Anglo-Saxons came to the Irish schools for the sake of divine study, or to lead stricter lives. "All of them," he says, "the Scots most freely admitted supplied them gratis with daily sustenance, with books, with masters." In the metrical life of Cataldus, by Bonaventure Moroni, multitudes are described as coming from the most distant parts of Europe to the school of Lismore. Petrie proves from monumental inscriptions, from the lives of the early saints, and from the Litany of Aengus, that foreigners from England, France, Italy, and even Egypt, flocked to Ireland in the fifth and sixth centuries. Willibrord studied there for twelve years, Agilbert, afterwards Bishop of Paris, for a considerable time. Merovingian princes and Northumbrian kings came to be instructed by Irish teachers.

Indeed for three centuries Ireland was the light of the West. She filled the empty years with her schools, her missionaries, her men of letters. But evil times came. The Runic rhyme broke the peace of her cloisters. The Saga's chant was heard in her schools. Her emblems of piety were broken and her manuscripts destroyed by the grim worshippers of Odin.

The Danes first landed in Ireland in 797. They plundered Armagh in 831, and in 838 Turgesius expelled the religious and scholars. In 869 Amlave burned the schools and churches. The schools were again plundered 890, 919, 931 and 941. And the history of Armagh, with little change, is the history of the other schools. During the 9th, 10th, and llth centuries, they were several times plundered. During the reigns of Malachy and Brian some were rebuilt, and it looked as if the bright days of the Eierans,the Carthages and the Colombas were to return. But the Normans came, and the growing light faded. Many of the old schools indeed lived on. Towards the close of the 13th century Franciscan and Dominican schools were also opened in some of the cities and large towns. And in 1320 Archbishop de Bicknore published a document for the establishment of a university. The university was established and annexed to St. Patrick's Cathedral. However, for want of sufficient funds, it slowly declined. Hence, in 1475, the four mendicant orders addressed a memorial to Pope Sixtus IV. for authority to establish another university. The different schools, and perhaps the two universities, struggled on till the Reformation, but strangers came to our schools no more, and the Irish student sighed in vain for the wisdom of the days of old.

Our knowledge of the literary course pursued in our ancient schools is rather meagre. We are told that St. Finian taught scripture for seven years ; that St. Gaul studied grammar and poetry; that St. Camin collated parts of the Vulgate with the Hebrew version of the Scriptures. In his letter on the Paschal controversy St. Cummian shows a thorough knowledge of the various cycles for the computation of Easter. " I enquired diligently," he says, "what were the sentiments of the Hebrews, Greeks, Latins, and Egyptians, concerning the time of observing Easter." Tighernach of Clonmacnoise, quotes Eusebius, Orosius, Africanus, Bede, Josephus, St. Jerome, and many other historic writers. He also collates the Hebrew text with the Septuagint version of the Scriptures. Aldhelm was taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in the school of Mailduff; and Cadroe, theology, philosophy, the Sacred Scriptures, oratory, astronomy, and the natural sciences, in the University of Armagh. Speaking of Dunstan, Dr. Moran says, "that the details which have been handed down to us regarding his studies at Glastonbury, gives us some idea of the literary course pursued in the Irish monasteries at the period. He was first of all instructed in the Scriptures and writings of the Fathers of the Church. The ancient poets and historians next engaged his attention. But he showed a special taste for arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music." Mr. Lecky says that the knowledge of Greek had been kept up in the Irish monasteries some time after it had disappeared from the other seminaries of Europe. It is almost certain, too, that Virgil and parts of Ovid and Horace were read in the same monasteries when they were unknown elsewhere. Perhaps the oldest manuscript of Horace in existence is one at present in the library of Berne, written in Celtic characters with notes in the Irish language.

Jowett, Westwood, Wyatt, Waagen, and Keller, admit that the art of illumination attained a wonderful perfection in our ancient schools. Jowett tells us in the Art Journal " that the early Irish designs exhibit a great inventive power, a stricter adherence to sound principles of art, and a more masterly execution than those of any other contemporaneous people." Westwood, who gives in his series of Bible illustrations eight specimens of illustrated Irish manuscripts, says that, "the copy of the Gospels traditionally asserted to have belonged to St. Columba, is unquestionably the most elaborately executed manuscript of early art now in existence." Matthew Arnold acknowledges that in this art the Celt has done just enough to show his delicacy of taste ; and a writer in a recent number of Longman's Magazine, believes that purely Irish decoration is, take it altogether, the most elegant and ingenious style of decoration which the world has ever seen.

But to form a just estimate of the great work of the Irish schools, we should follow Irishmen to other countries. According to White, Ireland sent into Germany 115 missionaries, 45 into France, 44 into England, 36 into Belgium, 25 into Scotland, 13 into Italy. Their sound went out into all lands, and their words to the ends of the world. Their osier cells were among the marshes of Holland, and by the waters of Constance. Their images were over the altars of Leige, Ratisbon, and Lecca. They lectured in the schools of Paris, Pavia, and Verona. Their manuscripts are precious relics in the libraries of Louvain and St. Isidore, Wurzburg and Milan, Cambray and Carlsruhe. More than five centuries before the birth of Dante, an Irish saint related the visions in which we have in its chrysalis form the Florentine's immortal poem; eight hundred years before Copernicus published his great work on Astronomy, an Irish saint held, that the earth was a sphere; two hundred and fifty years before Leo placed the imperial crown upon the head of Charlemagne, an Irish saint consecrated Aidan king. The influence of Irish saints was felt from Fingal's cave to the vineyards of Italy. The memory of Fridolin is still a power by the windings of the Rhine, the daughters of Tarentum kneel before the shrine of Cataldus. Glasgow has sprung up round the cell of Kentigern ; Wurzburg round Killian's grave. Edinburgh owes its name to St. Enda, and a canton of Switzerland to St. Gall ; Malmesbury and St. Beeves to Mailduli and Bega. The names of Irish saints are read on Norwegian Runes, and on Pictish tombstones in lonely highland glens. Their names consecrate the hills of Cambria and the crumbling ruins of Cornwall, and cleave to solitary rock and windswept promontory

" Where the Northern Ocean in vast whirls

Boils round the naked melancholy isles

Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge

Pours in among the stormy Hebrides."

And abroad as at home, the cell of the Irish saint became a centre of learning. In his Celtic Scotland, Skene tells us that wherever Columba or his companions planted a monastery, there was kindled, not only the warmth of the new faith, but some light of knowledge contained in the Scriptures and other books which the Columbian monks spent much of their time in transcribing. In his highly interesting work The Making of England, Green relates how Irish teachers gathered round these scholars in the midst of solitary woodlands and desolate fens. With Ealdhelm, Mailduf's pupil, he says, "began the whole literature of the south." And speaking of Bede, he says, "the tradition of the elder Irish teachers still lingered to direct the young scholar into that path of scriptural interpretation to which he chiefly owed his fame.

In the introduction to the life of Marianus Scotus by the Bollandists, we are told that the holy men who went from Scotia to France and Germany, built monasteries as places of retirement for themselves, and schools of learning and discipline for their fellow-workers. Speaking of Columbanus, Montalembert says, that "his bold genius by turns startled the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Lombards." Moore, too, speaking of him, has the following: "The writings of this eminent man that have come down to us display an extensive and varied acquaintance, not merely with ecclesiastical, but with classical literature. From a passage in his letter to Boniface, it appears that he was acquainted both with the Greek and Hebrew languages, and when it is recollected that he did not leave Ireland till he was nearly fifty years of age, and that his life was afterwards one of constant activity and adventure, the conclusion is obvious, that all this knowledge of elegant literature must have been acquired in the schools of his own country." On the epistle of St. Livin (another Irishman) to St. Floribert, Dollinger remarks, "This epistle and his epitaph on St. Bavo are perhaps the best poetical specimens of the time, and awaken within us an idea of the high state of mental cultivation which then existed in Ireland."

Virgilius, Dungal and Scotus Erigena, were beyond doubt the most remarkable scholars of their age. Lecky speaks of Virgilius as one of the few who in the eighth century cultivated profane sciences. Dungal is praised by Muratori for his classic grace of style and for his great knowledge of Scripture and literature. Erigena is described by Hallam as one of the two extraordinary men who in the dark ages stood out from the crowd in literature and politics. The three were Irishmen, and educated in the schools of their native isle.

Indeed the more we study our ancient annals, and the lives of our early saints, the more we study Bede and the chroniclers of the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries, the brighter grows the vision of our former greatness. The past gives up its dead. We see wooded hillside and winding glen crowded with cell and church; we see Celt and stranger gathered round a venerable teacher under the shade of sighing oaks; we see multitudes leaving their country

" To serve as model for the mighty world

And be the fair beginning of a time."

we truly understand the full meaning of the proud title, “Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum."

TIMOTHY LEE.

Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 3rd series, Vol. 6 (1885), 249-257.

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