OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

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  • The Saints and Animals

    The theme of ‘saints and beasts’ is a common one in hagiography where the interaction between holy men and women and the animal creation form some of the best-known and well-loved episodes in the Lives of the saints. Although stories of Irish saints and animals form a staple of anthologies of ‘Celtic Christianity’, this tradition is not exclusive to Ireland. Its origins are found in eastern Christianity among the Desert Fathers where a raven brings food to Saint Anthony and Saint Paul of Thebes and where the Great Martyrs such as Saint George and Saint Margaret of Antioch battle dragons and other fierce beasts. The tradition translated very readily to western Europe and below is an extract from a paper on ‘The Saints and Animals’ published in 1909 in the Paulist periodical The Catholic World by Irish writer Katharine Tynan (1859-1931). In her essay she combines some of the most famous Irish stories, such as that of Saint Kevin and the blackbird, with lesser-known stories of Saint Adamnan and Saint Beanus:

    A very distinguished Irishwoman, now dead, said to me many years ago that the old Irish saints were always preaching by their example the love of animals, and that fact proved to her mind that the preaching was no less needed in their day than in ours. But I am inclined to believe that the Irish saints, like the saints of other countries, loved animals just because they were the elect souls of the world. In those days gentleness betook itself to hermitages and cloisters, leaving the rough and the violent to carry on the world. In their hermitages these simple and saintly souls made companions of the animals, and came to love them, simplicity leaning to simplicity. Indeed one imagines that in our own days there may be many such instances in monastic life of friendship between men and animals as are recorded in the Acta Sanctorum. One who knows anything of monasteries will know how the cloistered monk keeps a heart like a child…
     
    …The lives of the saints contain the most delicious innocencies of the friendship and affection between them and the animals. Every one knows St. Francis of Assisi and his little brothers and sisters. Not so many know St. Jerome and his lion, St. Anthony the hermit and his hog, St. Benedict and his raven, St. Macarius and his hyena, St. Kieran and his badger, St. Rose of Lima and her gnats. Indeed the Acta Sanctorum contain records of friendship between the saints and the most unlikely creatures, even to snakes and vipers.
    In the Irish hagiology we find our father, St. Patrick, carrying a fawn in his breast after he had saved the little creature and its mother from death.

     

    While St. Kevin prayed in his cell that looks upon the dark waters of Glendalough, he stretched his hand through the window-space, and a blackbird immediately laid an egg in his hand and sat upon it. The saint forbore to disturb the sitting mother till the little bird was hatched, keeping his hand so stretched forth till that was accomplished.

    Another Irish saint, St. Kieran of Upper Ossory, worked his first miracle as a child when he saw a hawk swoop on and carry off a little bird. St. Kieran at this time did not know the true God, being the child of pagans, but he was moved to cry out to Him, and the hawk came back and laid the dead bird at his feet. Then Kieran said: “Arise and be made whole;” and so it was done, and the bird lived and gave praise to God.

     
    The life of St. Kieran, in the Gaelic, says with delicious naivete :
     
    “When first Ciaran came to that place (i.e. the wood where he built his monastery) he sat down in the shade of a tree. A fierce wild hog sprang up at the other side of the tree and as it eyed Ciaran it fled, but returned again as a gentle servant to Ciaran. That hog was the first disciple and first monk Ciaran had in that place. It used to go to the wood to cut rods for thatch, and bring them between its teeth to assist (the building of) the cell. At the time, then, there was no one at all along with Ciaran, for he came alone from his disciples to that hermitage. There came after that to Ciaran irrational brutes from every part of the wilds in which they were located, such as the fox, the badger, the wolf, and the doe, and they were submissive to Ciaran; and they humbled themselves to his teaching as monks, and used do all he bade them.

     

    “On a day that the fox came, which was very ravenous, crafty, and malicious, to Ciaran’s brogues, he stole them, and, shunning the community, went direct to his own den, and therein coveted to eat the brogues. When this was manifested to Ciaran he despatched another monk of his family, to wit, the badger, to head the fox and bring him to the same spot. The badger came to the fox’s den and found him eating the shoes (or brogues), for he had eaten the ears and thongs off; and the badger coerced him to come with him to the monastery. They came about eventide to Ciaran, and the brogues with them. Ciaran said to the fox ‘ O brother, why hast thou done that thievery which was not becoming a monk to do? And you had no occasion to do that; for we have water that is non-noxious in common, and food in like manner, and if thy nature constrained that thou shouldst prefer to use flesh, God would make it of the bark of the trees round thee.’ Then the fox asked Ciaran for remission of his sins, and to lay upon him the obligations of the Penance Sentence; and it was so done, and the fox did not eat food without leave from Ciaran, and thenceforward he was righteous like the others.”

    Here is a story of a less well-known Irish saint, St. Gobnet the little patroness of Ballyvourney, after whom so many County Cork girls are called, and which is Englished “Abby.” She was the daughter of a sea-king, who was a shrine robber. She had no sisters, and used to keep to the ship with her father and his men. Once she was ashore in a wood and God sent his angel to her to tell her to fly from her father and give her life to Him. She was willing to do that, but she knew no place of security. The angel came again, and told her to go on and give no rest to her soles until she would find nine white deer asleep. She went on and she came to a place and found three. She fondled them a while and went on to Kilgobnet, where she found six. Here she stayed a long time until they were all good friends. Then she left her heart with them and went on to Ballyvourney. There, as God willed it, she found the nine, and she made her dwelling with them, and they became her sisters, and she died in their midst and is there buried.

    We read of St. Bridget that the ducks from the lake came at her voice and flew into her arms, and that the saint gently caressed them against her breast. And again when she was a child, and in much terror of a very fierce stepmother, she was left to tend a dish of meat that was cooking for her father and his friends. But a dog which had just become the mother of puppies came and begged to be fed; and Bridget’s heart was so compassionate that she could not refrain from feeding the dog with the meat her stepmother had given her in charge, although she anticipated nothing but a savage punishment. But when the time came to set the dish on the table, lo! and behold, the meat had increased instead of diminishing, and was of a most excellent flavor. So did God reward her charity to the hungry dog.

    Here is a delightful story of St. Adamnan, Bishop of Iona: 
     

    “A Brother, by name Molua, grandson of Brennus, came to the Saint while he was writing, and said to him: ‘Please bless this weapon in my hand.’ So he raised his holy hand a little and blessed it, making the sign of the cross with his pen, his face meanwhile being turned towards the book upon which he was writing. As the aforesaid Brother was on the point of departing with the weapon which had been blessed, the Saint inquired: What kind of a weapon have I blessed for the Brother? Diarmid, his faithful servant, replied: ”A dagger for cutting the throats of oxen and bulls.’ But the Saint said in response: ‘I trust in my God that the weapon which I blessed will injure neither man nor beast.’ And the Saint’s words proved true that very hour. For after the same Brother had left the monastery enclosure and wanted to kill an ox, he made the attempt with three strong blows and a vigorous thrust, but could not pierce its skin. And when the monks became acquainted with it, they melted the metal of the same dagger by the heat of the fire and anointed with it all the iron weapons of the monastery ; and they were thereafter unable to inflict a wound on any flesh, in consequence of the abiding power of the Saint’s blessing.”

     
    I need not refer here to the better known stories, such as the story of St. Columba and the gull and the same saint and the horse. But an extract from Giraldus Cambrensis shows how a nineteenth century thought for animals in England was anticipated by the Ulstermen of his day. 

    “In a remote district of Ulster are certain hills, on which cranes and other birds build their nests freely during the proper season. The inhabitants of that place allow not only men but even cattle and birds to be quiet and undisturbed, out of reverence for the holy Beanus, whose Church makes the spot famous. That renowned Saint, in a wonderful and strange manner, used to take care not only of birds but of their eggs.

    “In the south of Momonia, between the hill of Brendan and the open sea which washes the coast of Spain and Ireland, is a large district which is shut in on one side by a river full of fish, and on the other by a small stream. And, out of reverence for the holy Brendan and other Saints of that locality, this affords a wonderful place of refuge, not only for men and cattle, but also for wild beasts, whether these are strangers or those which inhabit the district. Consequently stags, wild boars, hares, and other wild beasts, when they perceive that they can by no means escape from the dogs pursuing them, make their way as quickly as they can from remote parts to that spot. And when they have crossed the stream, they are at once safe from all danger; for the dogs in hunting are there brought to a standstill and unable to follow any further.”

    So much for the Irish saints. But their brethren of other lands were not behind them; and it may be said that there was no creature exempt from their pity and protection….

    Katharine Tynan, The Saints and Animals, The Catholic World, Vol. LXXXVII (September, 1908), 803-816.

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  • A Famous Irish School and its Founder

     

     March 21 is the feast of the great monastic founder and teacher, Saint Enda of Aran. An account of his life by Father Albert Barry can be found on the blog here. Below is an account by another nineteenth-century priest, Father William Ganly, who took time out from his duties as a parish priest in County Galway to contribute a number of scholarly articles on the Early Irish Church and its saints to the Catholic press. In 1889 The Catholic World, an American publication of the Paulist Fathers, printed his paper on Saint Enda and the monastic school he founded.  Father Ganly’s pride in Saint Enda and his achievements is obvious. He places the saint firmly within the history of early monasticism and sees the traditions begun in the deserts of the Thebaid flowering in an island setting of the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed, Saint Enda outdoes his Eastern monastic progenitors as he ‘lived a life of penitence which for rigor was unsurpassed even by the anchorites of the Egyptian desert’. We get a chance too to meet some of Aran’s famous alumni who include some well-known Irish saints. For Saint Enda is also presented here as founder of ‘one of the great Celtic universities of the golden era of Irish history’. The article comes to a bittersweet conclusion as the author ponders that lost golden age amid the ruins and the wild Atlantic scenery of ‘Arran of the Saints’:  

    A FAMOUS IRISH SCHOOL AND ITS FOUNDER.

    ON the eastern shore of Arranmore, in a picturesque valley, sheltered on one side by a range of dark hills and washed on the other by an inlet of Galway Bay, is the primitive little fishing village of Killany. The place commands a view of a magnificent sheet of water, diversified by islands, capes, and headlands, and outlined in the distance by the Twelve Pins of Benbola, which stand like a cluster of pyramids in bold relief against the sky. Beyond this, however, a more melancholy locality could scarcely be imagined. It seems the very home of desolation. The only sound that breaks the monotony of the scene is the querulous whistling of some solitary curlew wending his flight from shore to shore, or the plaintive murmuring of the ocean, dashing itself fretfully against the huge cliffs which loom in the distance. And yet this desolate hamlet was for many centuries a renowned centre of monastic life and intellectual activity.

    Let us go back to the year of our Lord 480, and stand beneath the round tower, which, as we are informed, even then kept guard, like some tutelary giant, over the destinies of this lonely valley. A group of buildings of various forms and dimensions lies beneath our gaze. Around an oblong edifice, which is evidently a church, are clustered several other structures varying in size from the narrow cell, intended for a single occupant, to the public hall, destined for the accommodation of the whole community. Encircling the entire collection is a wall of solid masonry whose sameness is only broken by a single gateway, surmounted by a carved cross. Prompted by curiosity, we descend from our point of observation and ask for admittance. The door is opened by a white-robed janitor, who greets us with a cordial benedicite. On entering we find ourselves in a new world. It is a veritable bee-hive of industry and activity. Transcribers, illuminators, carvers, workers in silver and iron, mechanics of various kinds, are all deeply absorbed in their occupations. Here a group, in tunics and cucullas, are engaged in discussing some of the great scholastic problems which have been endless sources of dissension in the past as they are in the present. There a tonsured priest lectures to an attentive class, the dress and faces of many of his auditors denoting their foreign origin. As we pass along, the sounds of psalmody, now soft as the evening breeze, now loud as the murmuring of the ocean, break upon our ears. Have we visited a land of enchantment? Have we witnessed a fairy scene? We have travelled back over the centuries, and conjured up before our imagination what was once a reality. We have seen one of the great Celtic universities of the golden era of Irish history. We have visited the school of “Arran of the Saints.”

    Saint Honoratus, the great monastic patriarch of Southern Europe, went to his reward (428) a little over half a century before St. Enda arrived in Arran (480). When tracing the walls of his hermitage at Lerins, so like, in many respects, its sister island in the Atlantic, the former never dreamt of the vast edifice which, in the designs of Divine Providence, was to spring up from this humble beginning. Neither could the latter, even in his most sanguine moments, have foreseen the luxuriant harvest that was destined to issue from the little seed he had prayerfully planted on the bleak hillsides of Arran.

    The early days of the school of Arran were not, however, without those trials and difficulties which make beginnings proverbially weak, and which have been ever the lot of the saints. The old lives of Saint Enda for several have been written as well as the traditions still existing in Arran are filled with legendary anecdotes which detail with great minuteness the encounters of the holy abbot with a certain pagan chieftain named Corban, who at that time held possession of the island. Extravagant and improbable as many of these narratives undoubtedly are, they should not be altogether rejected. Various circumstances, such as the names of places, the traditions still extant, and local associations, all seem to indicate that these legends are but the echoes of authentic miracles which have become obscured by the lapse of centuries.

    It was near the alleged scene of one of these legends that St. Enda first celebrated Mass on the island. This spot now known as Killany he selected as the site of his monastery. In due time a little damliagh, or stone church; the prointeach, or refectory; the aregall, or kitchen; the abbot’s house, and a cluster of cone-roofed cells were erected. Towards the maintenance of this establishment one-half of the island was set apart. The remaining portion was divided into ten equal parts, on each of which was erected a monastery governed by its proper superior. St. Enda ruled over all. Under him was elected a second in rank, who had the right of succeeding the abbot after his death. The first of these coadjutor abbots is said to have been St. Benedict, brother of the famous Kieran of Saige, patron of the diocese of Ossory, who himself is said to have been one of the many great men who came to St. Enda to learn wisdom and holiness.

    The other traces of the internal government of the Arran community which have been handed down to us are of but little importance. Enda ordained that those among the monks who happened to be bishops should have a separate place of burial. All others were to be interred in the common place of sepulture. This regulation seems to have given umbrage to a portion of the community. Eight of the old monks who had accompanied St. Enda to Arran expressed their dissatisfaction. They further found fault with what they deemed the unequal partition of Arran made by St. Enda. To put an end to any doubts which might exist as to his right of governing, the abbot ordered a triduum of fasting and prayer. When this was twice repeated, an angel, we are told, appeared and presented Saint Enda with a chasuble and a Book of the Four Gospels gifts which were understood by all to signify that to him was entrusted the two-fold duty of teaching and governing.

    These meagre details throw but little or no light on a question which, in recent years, has given rise to much discussion among archaeologists. What was the rule followed by St. Enda and the monasteries of the early Irish church? To what system of monastic legislation is due the credit of having conferred so many benefits on civilization, and of having given so many citizens to heaven? The well-known antiquarian, Sir James Ware, who, like Ussher and Todd, devoted his energies to the fruitless task of endeavoring to identify modern Protestantism with the teachings and practices of the early Irish church, assures us that the community founded by St. Enda was a branch of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine. It is now, however, almost universally admitted by the best Irish scholars that this institute was unknown in Ireland until introduced for the first time by St. Malachy in the twelfth century. The rule exclusively followed by the monks of the early Irish church was that brought into the country by St. Patrick. This code was only a modification of the monastic system brought originally into Western Europe by St. Athanasius when exiled to Treves by Constantine the Great, in the year 336. It was a rivulet from the great stream which had its origin among the sands of the Thebaid and spread its fertilizing waters towards the regions of the north. Whatever doubt may exist as to the particular form of the monastic code adopted by the Abbot of Arran for the government of his young community, we are certain from the glimpses afforded us that it was based on the great fundamental principles of prayer, labor, obedience, and mortification of the senses. Fasting and abstinence of the most rigorous kind were strictly enjoined upon all. Meat was never used. All kinds of spirituous liquors were absolutely unknown. Bread, meal moistened with water, fish, herbs, and pulse were the only articles of food consumed by the members of the community. The exactness with which the rule of fasting was enforced is illustrated by an anecdote which we find related in Colgan’s Life of St. Enda. To test the fidelity of his monks Enda is said to have subjected them every evening to the following curious ordeal. On the waters of Killany Bay was placed a curroch, or canoe, destitute of the usual covering of skins. Every monk was obliged to go into this curroch. If the water entered and nothing but a miracle could have prevented it it was judged as a sign that the occupant had in some manner violated the rule. On a certain occasion all the monks except the cook had gone safely through the trial. Poor Gigias – for that was his name – no sooner entered than the boat sank, and he escaped only with a severe wetting.

    “What hast thou done, O Gigias?” asked the abbot.
    Gigias confessed that, overcome by hunger, he had taken some of Kieran’s dinner and added it to his own.
    “There is no room for a thief here,” was the reply. So Gigias was obliged to go.

    The monastery of Arran was a veritable bee-hive of industry. Labor was imposed on all as a kind of penitential duty. Those skilled in agriculture were appointed to the unremunerative task of endeavoring to snatch a scanty crop from the inhospitable soil; some ground the corn, while others launched forth in their skin-covered barks to reap the harvests of the deep. Copyists, composers, illuminators, and workers in vellum were employed in the scriptorium; lecturers and catechists gave instructions in the schools. In the meantime the prayers of the community were unceasing. The monks succeeded each other in the choir. They stood around the altar and chanted aloud the praises of God in the words of the royal Prophet.

    The soul and centre of this angelical world was St. Enda. He was a model of all virtues, but above all shone his admirable sweetness of disposition and his self-denial. In selecting Arran as the place of his abode he was actuated by no other motives than a desire to hide himself from the eyes of the world, and sanctify his own soul and the souls of his brethren. By a wise dispensation of Providence, however, history has torn away the veil behind which he sought to conceal himself, and the former chieftain stands revealed to us in all the greatness of his soul and in all the beauty of his sanctity. Saint Cummian of Conor, who was born half a century (589) after the death (540) of St. Enda, and who is so well known for his famous letter on the Easter controversy, has left us a poem in which he pictures the holy Abbot of Arran living in a cell of flinty stone and practising austerities of such rigor as to seem almost incredible. Near the church of St. Benan, overlooking the village of Killany, is still pointed out a rude building called the bed of St. Enda. In the words of Froude, who gives the result of a visit to Arran in his Short Studies, “it is such a place as sheep would huddle under in a storm, and shiver in the cold and wet which would pierce through the chinks of the walls.” “Enda,” says St. Cummian, “loved victory (over self) with sweetness, he loved a prison of hard stone to bring the people to God.” This victory over self had only been obtained after a severe struggle. Enda was by nature passionate and impulsive. An anecdote illustrative of his fiery disposition is found in his life. Immediately after assuming the monastic garb he was on a certain occasion engaged in conversation with his sister Fanchea, who loved him most tenderly and who exercised a powerful influence on his life. Their conference was rudely broken by warlike shouts. A neighboring clan, the hereditary foes of the family of Enda, had invaded an adjacent territory and were returning home with their booty, when they were intercepted and attacked by the warriors of Oriel. A bloody battle ensued. Forgetful of his new vocation and filled with the old warlike ardor, Enda seized a weapon and was about placing himself at the head of his clansmen, when his sister interposed and exclaimed: “Enda, my brother, place your hand on your head and remember thou hast taken the crown of Christ.” The rebuke was effectual. Enda relinquished his battle-axe and returned to his prayers.

    During the interval which had elapsed between this event and his arrival in Arran so thoroughly had he overcome his natural disposition that, like St. Francis of Sales, sweetness and gentleness became his most prominent virtues. In the long range of monastic biography no more charming picture has been presented to us than the paternal kindness with which the holy Abbot of Arran treated the monks under his care. He was a father to all. He shared the sorrows of his brethren, dispelled their doubts, and when despondent he inspired them with a share of the invincible courage which glowed in his own great soul. Among the many anecdotes related in his life is one in which we are told that the monks of Arran, who from the circumstances of their abode became skilful and adventurous navigators, complained that owing to a huge rock which blocked up the entrance to the harbor they were often in danger of shipwreck. The abbot went to the spot, made the sign of the cross on the boulder with his abbatial staff, and prayed that God might do the rest. That night an angel bearing a flaming sword was seen descending from heaven, and, striking the rock like a flash of lightning, it crumbled into atoms.

    The fame of the austerities practised by these athletes of penitence spread like an odor of sanctity over all Western Europe. The tide of empire had moved westward, and the wonders of the Thebaid were revived in the Atlantic Ocean. The trackless deep became a highway, and the barren hillsides and gloomy valleys of this desolate island swarmed with human beings. There Saxon and Celt forgot their ancient race hatreds; the Iberian and the Gaul, the Frank and the Teuton might be heard conversing in the common language of all – the Latin of old Rome.

    Space will allow us only to cast a glance, in passing, at a few among the crowd who composed that holy company. Foremost among them we find Columkille, the Dove of the Cells, whose hermitage, clothed in a mantle of sweet-brier and wild roses, is still pointed out in a lonely spot by the sea-shore. On his departure from Arran he composed a poem, which has been handed down to posterity, and which is one of the most exquisite relics of ancient Irish literature we possess. Aubrey de Vere – one of Ireland’s truest poets – in his English version has transmitted the touching pathos and tenderness of the original with so much fidelity that we are tempted to quote the following stanzas:

    “Farewell to Aran Isle, farewell!
    I steer for Hy; my heart is sore:
     The breakers burst, the billows swell
    ‘Twixt Aran Isle and Alba’s shore.

    “O Aran, sun of all the West!
    My heart is thine! As sweet to close
    Our dying eyes in thee as rest
    Where Peter and where Paul repose.

    “O Aran, sun of all the West!
    My heart in thee its grave hath found;
    He walks in regions of the blest
    The man that hears thy church bell sound.”

    Next come the founders of the great schools of Moville and Clonard the two Finnians. Saint Finnian of Clonard was a man of such vast learning that, after his return from Arran, he became a kind of consulting theologian for all Ireland. His namesake of Moville was even still more famous. Filled with love and veneration for the Apostolic See, he set out from Arran on a pilgrimage to Rome, and after a long sojourn in the Holy City he returned to Ireland laden with gifts from the reigning pope. He afterwards made several other journeys to Rome, and brought back a vast store of relics, the penitential canons, known as the Canons of St. Finnian, and a copy of St. Jerome’s translation of the Holy Scriptures, until then unknown in Ireland. He founded the monastery of Moville in the year 540 and afterwards returned to Italy, where he was elected Bishop of Lucca, in Tuscany, and is to this day venerated in that country under the name of Fridian or Frigidian. He died in 589.

    The great Saint Kieran of Clonmacnois, whom Alcuin calls the glory of the Irish race, was also a pupil of the school of Arran. Having come to the island in his youth, and being endowed with a vigorous constitution, he was appointed to the task of grinding all the corn of the community. For seven years he discharged this duty. Visions of his future greatness broke in upon his humble labors. He dreamt, at one time, that he saw a great tree laden with leaves and fruit growing on the banks of the Shannon. It spread out its branches far and near until it covered with its shade the whole of Erin. He related the vision to his abbot, who interpreted it as follows: “The tree,” he said, “thou art thyself, for thou shalt be great before God and men, and shalt bring forth sweetest fruits of good works. Proceed, then, at once, and, in obedience to the will of God, build thou there a monastery.”

    Saint Kieran prepared himself for the work allotted to him. Having been ordained priest, and having said his first Mass at Killany, he took an affectionate farewell of his brethren. The parting was most affecting. Walking between Saint Enda and Saint Finnian of Moville, and escorted by the entire community, he proceeded to the place of embarkation. No words were spoken, but tears flowed in abundance. Long and wistfully did the monks gaze after the bark which bore their beloved brother away from their island home. When returning to his cell, Saint Enda, sobbing with grief, said: “O my brethren! good reason have we to weep, for this day has our island lost the flower and strength of religious observance.” St. Kieran died at Clonmacnois in the year 549, having governed the monastery only a short time.

    Among the many others who were trained to holiness in this great nursery of saints were Saint Kevin of Glendalough, whom the poet Moore has touched with his poetic wand; St. Jarlath, patron and founder of the See of Tuam; St. Carthage of Lismore; Saint Benignus of Armagh; Saint Colman MacDuagh and St. Mac-Creiche, both natives of Clare; St. Loran Kerr; St. Caradoc; St. Kybi; Saint Papeus, and Saint Brecan, son of Euchu Ball-dearg, prince of the proud Dalcassian race.

    It was a gathering at once democratic and cosmopolitan. Prince and peasant, plebeian and patrician worked and prayed side by side. Children of races as divergent as the poles, but united by the catholicity of a common faith, lived together in harmony.

    Among the many objects of interest to be seen in this wonderful island is a sculptured cross bearing the inscription “VII Romani,” or the Seven Romans. We ask in vain who they were. This solitary monument cast on the shore of time, a relic of the shipwreck of ages is the only evidence of their existence we possess. And yet we know that these strangers were only a few among the countless numbers who came from afar to drink copious draughts of wisdom and holiness from the fountains which flowed in perennial streams in Arran of the Saints.

    In this, as well as in the other great centres of monastic life throughout Ireland, there was an intellectual development unknown among the monks of the Egyptian desert. The prodigies of penance practised by the eremites of the Thebaid found a parallel in Arran, but to these were added the charm that mental culture always gives the actions of mankind. The study of the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the fathers of the church were the great foundation stones on which the Irish scholastic system was erected. In Ireland itself but few relics of her ancient literature, with the exception of legendary narratives, have escaped the vandalism of Dane and Saxon. The libraries of Europe, however, possess ample evidences of the literary eminence to which national feeling lays claim. These records consist chiefly of books of the Gospels, the New and the Old Testament, with glosses on the margin, and distinct commentaries, such as that of St. Columbanus, which bear ample testimony to the depth and fulness of knowledge possessed by the authors. Augustin Magraidin, in his life of Saint Enda, tells us that a book of the Gospels, richly bound and illuminated, was in his time (he died in 1405) still preserved in the monastery of Arran. Among the original works said to have been composed in this island is a poem entitled the “Voyage of the Children of Ua Corra,” which tells us of seven brothers who set out in a skin-covered bark, on a pilgrimage of discovery into the depths of the Atlantic, where they met with as many adventures as the heroes of the Odyssey. The study of the Greek and Latin classics formed a portion of the educational course in the Irish schools. From the frequency with which we meet with copies of Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, Lactantius, Plato, and Aristotle these authors would appear to have been special favorites among the Irish monks.

    Nor were the fine arts neglected. Besides the art of illuminating, which attained a degree of perfection never since surpassed, metallurgy, sculpture, and architecture were also successfully cultivated. The relics of antiquity still to be found in Arran, such as portions of a round tower, exquisitely carved crosses, incised inscriptions, finely formed arches and cut-stone mullions and lintels, are all eloquent witnesses of the artistic skill of the monks of the early Irish church. From the circumstances of their abode, it will not be considered strange if the science of navigation had a special attraction for Saint Enda and his insular community. They loved the sea. Its solemn voice filled them with joy, for it seemed to them to be for ever chanting a hymn of praise to its great Creator. As they launched fearlessly out upon its waters they mingled their psalms with the cries of the sea-birds, and thus animate and inanimate nature united in adoration of the Almighty. Among the saints who were friends and contemporaries of Saint Enda was the famous navigator, Saint Brendan. Many claim for this holy man, and not without a certain amount of probability, the first discovery of America. Before setting out on his voyage he paid a visit to the Abbot of Arran, to ask his prayers and to be guided by his counsel. As one of Erin’s poetic sons -the lamented Denis Florence MacCarthy- has immortalized this pilgrimage in verse, we shall here be excused for quoting a few verses:

    “Hearing how the blessed Enda lived apart,
    Amid the sacred cares of Ara-Mhor;
    And how beneath his eye, spread like a chart,
    Lay all the isles of that remotest shore;
    And how he had collected in his mind
    All that was known of the old sea,
    I left the hill of miracles behind
    And sailed from out the shallow, sandy Leigh.

    “Again I sailed and crossed the stormy sound
    That lies beneath Binn-Arte’s rocky height,
    And there upon the shore the saint I found
    Waiting my coming through the tardy night.
    He led me to his home beside the wave,
    Where, with his monks, the pious father dwelled,
    And to my listening ear he freely gave
    The sacred knowledge that his bosom held.

    “When I proclaimed the project that I nursed,
    How ’twas for this that I his blessing sought,
    An irrepressible cry of joy outburst
    From his pure lips, that blessed me for the thought.
    He said that he, too, had in visions strayed
    O’er the untracked ocean’s bellowing foam;
    Bid me have hope, that God would give me aid,
    And bring me safe back to my native home.”

    It was in the midst of these hallowed associations that Saint Enda went to his reward in the year 544, having for over sixty years lived a life of penitence which for rigor was unsurpassed even by the anchorites of the Egyptian desert. His remains were laid to rest in the cemetery of the little mortuary chapel which he himself had built, and which still exists, as if its founder had imparted to it a share of his own immortality.

    As one stands over the grave of St. Enda, with the ocean spreading out before him, and the cliffs of Moher looming in the distance, all the associations of the place rush upon him and fill him with emotion. The spirit of the angelic life practised there fourteen hundred years ago comes back upon him in all its beauty. He sees once more the sea covered with craft filled with pilgrims eagerly flocking to this desolate island. He hears the accents of the Celt and the Roman mingling with the rougher cadences of the Saxon and the Cymbri. He listens to the voices of human adoration chanting in concert with the mysterious music of the ocean; and he feels that land and sea, arch and altar, while echoing the praises of the great Creator, also become eloquent of Ireland’s glory.

    WILLIAM GANLY.

    Clifden, Co. Galway.

    The Catholic World, Volume LXIX (1889), 464-473.

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

  • How to Learn Irish

    To mark the annual Seachtain na Gaeilge celebration of our national language and culture below is a rather extraordinary article on the subject of how to learn Irish. Published in early 1858 in the Boston Catholic newspaper, the Pilot, author C. M. O’Keefe begins by making a reasonable proposition that a good way to learn the Irish language is through the use of a prayer book. He then goes on to remind us of all our saints and martyrs whose native tongue was Irish and claims that ‘we have colonized Heaven’. An even more extraordinary claim is that the angels who visited the seventeenth-century English astrologer William Lilly spoke with an Irish accent! This, we are assured, is perfectly reasonable given that ‘the Irish are so numerous in Heaven that the inhabitants have contracted our accent.’ Here on earth there have been some good collections of Irish prayers published in recent years, including the 2008 volume edited by Donla uí Bhraonáin, Paidreacha na Gaelige, which includes a wonderful selection of Paidreacha chuig Naoimh na hÉireann, Prayers to the Saints of Ireland:

    How to Learn Irish.

    In 1847, Smith O’Brien was learning Irish from a primer. Adverse fortune tore the primer out of his hand, and plunged him into a felon’s cell. With his eyes, naturally, full of tears, cheeks pale, and heart throbbing—distracted by contending emotions —he could not apply his agonizing mind to the “Sgeul beag,” which Finachty has written for Irish learners, —No! But in this very frame of mind he could, and would apply himself attentively to a prayer book. This is the use of learning to read a prayer book. You read it when nothing else can be read. We are all like children who fly, appalled, to the bosom of their parent from the scowling darkness and hoarse storms of gathering adversity. And seldom is the journey of life undusked and unchequered by such storms. I have known several instances—hundreds I might say—in which men —like Lucien Bounaparte, toyed a while with the Irish language, and then flung it by, never more to open the book in which they had been reading; because such a book was of no use whatever, except as a “Reading made easy.” If the time which is frittered away upon unprofitable books were given to a prayer book, the knowledge acquired during three months would be never lost, it would be used, and used again, used ten thousand times, during, perhaps, sixty years. And the older you grow the more you will use your prayer book. Not so with other books; calamity does not compel you to open novels; the iron scourge of adversity does not force you to read them with tears. Of all books a prayer book is most easily read, because you can get a teacher everywhere. Every hag in Erin knows the Lord’s prayer, creed, &etc. With your eye on your prayer book, and your ear on her utterances, you must be very stupid indeed if you do not learn some words. These words will never be lost; you will repeat them, I trust, every day of your life, and several times every Sunday. In the halls of heaven Irish is not an unknown tongue. There is many a saint in glory that spoke no other. If we address in their own tongue Holy Brigid, Holy Columbkille, our prayers may perhaps be acceptable. The Saints may turn from the heights of their glory and look down upon us, poor banished sons of Eve, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. — There is many a martyr there to whom the Gaelic was familiar. There is Patrick himself, and whole armies of his shining disciples. We Irish have a strong faction in America—a strong party in Scotland—a strong faction in Australia— a strong faction in England, but we are stronger in Heaven than any where on earth. This may appear ludicrous, but it is literally the fact. We have colonized Heaven. Lilly asserted that the angels who visited him, spoke with a strong Irish accent. This you will see in “D’Israeli’s Curiosities of Literature.” Now, why should he say they spoke with an Irish rather than a Spanish or German accent ? We can easily account for it. The Irish are so numerous in Heaven that the inhabitants have contracted our accent. Seriously: no language is so expressive of piety and adoration as the language of the Gaels.— If we should speak in German to horses, in English to birds, in Italian to the ladies—we should speak in Irish to the glorified saints. Therefore every Irishman should learn to read an Irish prayer book, and in addition to this it should be the first book he should learn to read, because you can always meet with people who can teach you Irish prayers.— 

    There is a second way of learning Irish and that is singing it. “Sorrow,” says the Spanish proverb, “flies appalled from the voice of song.” If prayer be our refuge in adversity, song is our enjoyment in serener moments.— When the flowers of pleasure spring up under our footsteps, and the joyous sunshine glows radiantly over our heads, we cease to pray, and inevitably sing—the carol of gladness bursts from the lips of success. Our lyric literature is the most voluminous in the world. No nation in the world can or could ever compare with us as song-writers. Nothing can be more mean, poor, tame and contemptible than the songs of Scotland, when compared with those of Ireland. The scholar who learns to read and sing ten or twenty of these songs will certainly have a large stock of words in his memory. This is the way in which the ancient philosophers of Ireland learned first, and taught afterwards, not merely philology, but all physical science. Magnum ibi numerum versuum ediscere dicuntur, says Caesar. By ediscere he means to learn thoroughly; to study accurately, or to commit to memory. This idea, common in schools, is not new. It is two thousand years old, if not more, as we learn from Caesar. The ancient sages of the Gael did not, like some modern philosophers in America, first publish songs, and then ridicule and scoff at all singing. This blunder was reserved for modern times. The Exiles, I trust, will not be deterred by the clumsy raillery of a stupid clerk, from clubs in every city, and singing in chorus Irish words to the immortal airs of Ireland. Irish songs and Irish airs shall, I trust, be sung, simultaneously, on the banks of the Ohio, the Hudson, and the Mississippi.

    “The stranger shall hear their lament o’er his plains.”

    Yes! shall hear it! and this in spite of the blundering— “the slavish, the cold heart’s derision,” which would mock at singing while publishing songs! In this way scholars learn arithmetic in our national schools. In this way the Welsh, have restored their language, and revived their literature, and in this way the Irish must restore and revive their literature and language.

    C. M. O’K.

    Pilot, Volume 21, Number 9, 27 February 1858

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