OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Saints of Iona

  • St.Cobthach of Iona, July 30

     

    On July 30 Canon O’Hanlon has a short account of Saint Cobthach, kinsman of Saint Colum Cille of Iona, whom he claims has a feast on this day, at least according to the two nineteenth-century scholars John O’Donovan and George Petrie. Unfortunately I have not been able to access the work referenced to see on what basis this claim was made. Bishop William Reeves, who published a scholarly edition of The Life of Saint Columba in 1857, noted that the seventeenth-century Scottish martyrologist, David Camerarius, had ascribed August 7 to the feast of Cobthach, but without any supporting authority. In the hagiography of Iona’s founder, Cobthach features as the son of Colum Cille’s father’s brother which would make them first cousins. Cobthach, along with his brother Baithene, were among the original twelve disciples of Saint Colum Cille who accompanied him on the voyage from Ireland to Iona, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:  

    Article IV.—St. Cobthach, Disciple of Columkille. 
     
    This devoted follower of the great Abbot of Iona, was the son of Brendan, and brother of St. Baithene, who immediately succeeded St. Columkille in the monastery at Iona. He was one of the twelve first disciples, who sailed from Ireland to that island with the founder. We find a commemoration for him at the 30th of July, on the authority of George Petrie, LL.D., and John O’Donovan, LL.D. The Rev. Dr. Reeves,when alluding to the early companions of St. Columkille, remarks, that Camerarius gives him a day, at the 7th of August, in the Calendar, but without any authority.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2022. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Connachtach of Iona, May 10

    May 10 is the feast of Saint Connachtach, an 8th/9th century abbot of Iona. This successor to Saint Colum Cille enjoyed a particular reputation as a scriba selectissimus, a scribe most choice, but the evidence from the Annals suggests that his tenure as abbot was of short duration and set against a backdrop of Viking attacks. Cowley Father, the Rev. Edward Craig Trenholme, gave a summary of the careers of the abbots of Iona in his 1909 guide to the historic monastery. He begins his listing of those in the ninth century with our saint:  

    THE NINTH CENTURY.

    18. Connachtach (801-802), “a scribe most choice and abbot of Ia”, had a short and troubled term of office. It must have been in quieter times and a lower station that he attained to fame as a “scriba selectissimus.” Some marvellous manuscripts of the Irish monastic scribes survive to show what Connachtach’s title implies. But alas! for such peaceful arts and Iona’s stores of precious writings in the calamitous ninth century. The Danish attack on the monastery in 795 proved the preliminary of a long period of terror, blood, and fire, in which Iona won the glory of “red martyrdom,” but lost well-nigh all else. In Connachtach’s first year the monastery was burned by the “Gentiles,” and the Abbot died next year. The ravagers returned again and again, as we shall see, but after each successive attack the love and veneration of the monks of Iona for their home forced them to re-establish themselves there at all perils.

    Rev. E. C. Trenholme, The Story of Iona, (Edinburgh, 1909), 67.

    Canon O’Hanlon in his account of Abbot Connachtach gives him the alternative name of Cormac and suggests that he may have met his death at the hands of the Viking raiders:

    Article III. Cormac or Connachtach, Abbot of Iona.
    [Eighth and Ninth Centuries.]  
    On the authority of the Martyrology of Tallagh, which enters Cormac at the 10th of May, Colgan assigns to this day, the festival of the present holy man. This authority is followed, likewise, by the Bollandists, who remark on the number of Irish Saints so called, as enumerated by Colgan, when treating about several bearing that name. Connachtach—a name substituted for Cormac—is said to have been a select scribe, and he became Abbot of Iona, most probably, after the demise of Bersal Mac Seghine, which is given, at the year 801, having been incumbent for thirty-one years. Connachtach followed his predecessor to the tomb, after a very short term of rule. He died according to some accounts, in 797—but recte 802—assuming the corrected chronology found, in Dr. O’Donovan’s Annals of the Four Masters. The cause assigned for Connachtach’s death, is not recorded; but as Hy-Columcille was burned by the Gentiles, A.D. 802, it is probable enough, that our Abbot met with a violent death, at their hands, having perished during the calamity inflicted on his religious community.

    Some modern writers have suggested that Abbot Connachtach’s reputation as an eminent scribe makes him a possible candidate for involvement in the creation of the Book of Kells, traditionally believed to have been produced at Iona. In a lecture of 2011 Arne Kruse argued:

    The organisation of what was tremendous artistic activity on Iona sometime in the second half of the eighth century would have been an economic and logistical challenge. The effort must have been conducted by an inspired leader with extraordinary managerial and artistic skills. The one in charge would have been the scribnidh or scribe of the community, an office which carried equal importance to that of the abbot. The scribe behind the tribute in copper, stone and vellum is anonymous. However, if it is correct that the intense artistic activity may have taken place toward the end of the eighth century, there is a chance that the mastermind could have been Connachtach, ‘an eminent scribe and abbot of Ia’, who, according to the Annals of Ulster, died in 802, possibly during the Viking raid that very year. It is rare to hear of scribes in the annals, and the mention of Connachtach could be because he was murdered, although the murder itself is not mentioned. On the other hand, it can also be that Connachtach was such an extraordinarily brilliant scholar, artist and coordinator that his death merited a note.

    Arne Kruse, ‘Columba and Jonah – a motif in the dispersed art of Iona’, Northern Studies, vol. 45, (2013), 18.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2022. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Golgus (Colgus of Iona), July 17

    Some of the problems faced by hagiologists in their study of the saints are illustrated by Article VIII for July 17 in Volume VII of Canon O’Hanlon’s Lives of the Irish Saints. Hesuggests that in the supposed feast on this day of an Abbot Golgus, we may be dealing with a case of mistaken identity. The error has been made by the seventeenth-century Scottish calendarist David Camerarius:

    Reputed Feast of St. Golgus, Abbot.

    At the present date, David Camerarius mentions a Golgus, Abbot, said to be alluded to by Adamnan, in his Third Book—assumed to be in his work Vita S. Columbae—and by other writers. While the Bollandists insert this reputed feast, on his authority, they remark, that under such form, they could not find his name, and therefore, they defer classing Golgus, Abbot, among the saints, until strengthened by further authority than that of Camerarius.

    So, this raises the possibility that behind ‘Golgus’ lies a member of the Iona monastic community, Colgus.  Indeed, although he does not say so here, in the Introduction to Volume I of his magnum opus Canon O’Hanlon wrote that a ‘St. Colgius or Colchuo, is said to have been author of a Treatise on the Miracles of his Master, St. Columkille’.

    A footnote states plainly that

     In Dempster’s “Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum,” tomus i., lib. vii., num. 578, he is called “St. Golgus.”

    Thus it seems that Canon O’Hanlon had already concluded that Golgus is probably a misspelling of Colgus (Colgius), a Latinization of the Irish name Colga. He reiterates this conclusion in the final footnote to his article on the mysterious Saint Golgus:

    Probably Camerarius meant to have written Colgius, who is mentioned by Adamnan, in lib iii., cap.20, but whose festival – if one he had – is not known.

    Here is an account of Colga of Iona and one of the miracles of its founding saint to which was a witness from the classic translation of Bishop William Reeves:

    CHAPTER XXI.
    Of another very similar Vision of great brilliancy.

    ANOTHER night also, one of the brothers, whose name was Colga, the son of Aid Draigniche, of the grandsons of Fechrech mentioned in the first Book, came by chance, while the other brothers were asleep, to the gate of the church, and stood there for some time praying. Then suddenly he saw the whole church filled with a heavenly light, which more quickly than he could tell, flashed like lightning from his gaze. He did not know that St. Columba was praying at that time in the church, and after this sudden appearance of light, he returned home in great alarm. On the following day the saint called him aside and rebuked him severely, saying: “Take care of one thing, my child, that you do not attempt to spy out and pry too closely into the nature of that heavenly light which was not granted thee, but rather fled from thee, and that thou do not tell any one during my lifetime what thou hast seen.”

    Life of Saint Columba, founder of Hy. Written by Adamnan. Edited by William Reeves (Edinburgh 1874), 92.

    Knowledge of Colga of Iona seems to be confined to this source and I have not been able to find another recorded feast day for him. Ó Riain’s A Dictionary of Irish Saints does not mention this saint in connection with the Golgus recorded on the Scottish calendars at July 17 but suggests that he may be identical with Saint Colga of Kilcolgan, County Galway.
    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2020. All rights reserved.