A Hymn for the Feast of Saint Colum Cille

Let us joyfully celebrate the great feast of Columba, happy in this night season, with musical prayer.

He was born of royal stock; pure was his childhood; he despised earthly glory, desiring only the things of heaven.

He had worked great marvels, had cured all diseases, had foretold the future, had given life to the dead;

he had assuaged enemies and wars, had seen the citizens of heaven; the good that he had spoken in words, he fulfilled in himself by deeds.

He had been head over all the people of the Isles; for seven years he had been king, he had dispensed both laws, he had stood as both king and teacher.

Accept our prayers, father Columba, most holy of monks; protect and guide us in the way of peace.

A. Macquarrie, The Offices for St Columba (9 June) and St Adomnán (23 September) in the Aberdeen Breviary in The Innes Review, Vol. 51, no.1, (Spring 2000), 1-39. 

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Manus O’Donnell’s life of Colum Cille

Although the Life of Saint Columba is most famously covered by the monk Adamnan, there is a later and less well-known Life by the 16th-century Donegal prince, Manus O'Donnell. It was first translated in the early twentieth-century by Andrew O' Kelleher et al., and this work is in the public domain here. Contemporary Columban scholar, Brian Lacey, has brought out a new edition:

From about 1510 Maghnus Ó Domhnaill (Manus O’Donnell) was a leading political figure in the north west of Ireland. Between 1537 and 1555 he was chieftain of Tír Conaill. In 1532 he completed the greatest cultural achievement of his life, the composition of the Beatha Colaim Chille or ‘Life’ of the 6th-century monastic founder whom Manus claimed as his ‘high saint and kinsman in blood’. The ‘Life’ is an extraordinary work, running to nearly 100,000 words of verse and prose, written, for the most part, in clear, elegant Irish. It is a compendium of all that was known or (more correctly) believed about Colum Cille in Manus’ day.

Like the life of Manus himself, the Beatha Colaim Chille is being recognized increasingly as an example of the extension to Gaelic Ireland of Renaissance ideas and standards. Although the Beatha is not our best source for reconstructing the life of Colum Cille, it does provide an insight into the beliefs, practices and cultural interests of Gaelic Ireland in the early part of the sixteenth century, prior to the onset of the Reformation and the Tudor conquest.

Brian Lacey is Director of the Discovery Programme, author of Colum Cille and the Columban Tradition (1996), and editor of the Archaeological Survey of Donegal (1983).

The book is published by Four Courts Press.

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Clancy on Columba

Saint Columba

An article by Thomas Owen Clancy, lecturer at the University of Glasgow in the department of Celtic history, and author (with Gilbert Márkus) of "Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery" (Edinburgh, 1995).

Scion of the most powerful family in the north of Ireland, founder of monasteries, and instigator of missions to the Picts and the English, Columba is undoubtedly the most important saint associated with Celtic churches.

Legends about him grew over the centuries, and many of the stories must be treated with caution. One of the more famous paints him as a sort of Christian sorcerer's apprentice, naughtily copying his master's precious psalter by the light of his own hand, and thereby sparking a major battle!

So too, hundreds of poems, some quite romantic in their descriptions of nature, others simple devotional verses, were attributed to the saint long after his death. Nevertheless, through the obscuring mists of his legends, it is possible to make out an outline of this key figure in the early Gaelic church. In fact, of all the Celtic saints, he is also the one about whom we know the most historically.

Fox and dove

Columba was born of royal stock around 521, in northwestern Ireland's Donegal. Although destined for the church by an early age, his noble birth gave him insight and influence in the political world.

Legend tells us that his original name was Crimthann ("fox") and that when he was trained as a priest he changed it to Columb, ("dove"), later known to all as Colum Cille: "dove of the church." It has become something of a tradition in modern times to view the saint through the twin lenses of these names: the astute fox on the make, and the peacemaking and peaceable dove.

He apparently took part in a battle in 561 between his near and more distant cousins; this led to his exile and even excommunication for a time. Yet his biographer and successor, Adomnán, saw it differently, glossing over his excommunication, and telling us only that: "In the second year following the battle of Cúl Drebene, when he was 41, Columba sailed away from Ireland to Britain, choosing to be a pilgrim for Christ."

Despite the skeletons in Columba's closet, his efforts in Scotland reveal a man who had learned much in his 41 years, enough to establish a string of monasteries in the Inner Hebridean islands off the west coast of Scotland. This monastic system anticipated later orders such as the Cistercians and Carthusians.

Iona, a small island off the larger Hebridean island of Mull, was the fertile centre of this system. Remote to modern eyes, Iona was at the hub of early medieval sea lanes that brought pottery and perishable goods north from France and the Mediterranean. Still, Iona was intended as a true monastery, a place set apart for Columba and his brethren.

Other island monasteries, such as one on Tiree, housed lay-folk serving out penances for their sins. Another island housed older, more experienced monks living as holy anchorites.

Iona, however, trained priests and bishops, and Columba's reputation for scholarship was great when he died (though we have little of his own work). From Iona, priests and monks ranged far and wide, founding churches in Scotland and seeking "deserts in the ocean" (lonely, distant islands).

Mighty monk

Columba's legends give us a flavour of both the fox and the dove. The Life of Columba, by Adomnán, is packed with stories about Columba conversing with angels, sending an angel to rescue a monk falling from a roof, and being whipped by an angel to convince him to ordain God's (rather than his own) choice for king of the Gaelic colony in Scotland.

He is seen rapt in contemplation, seeing "with a mind miraculously enlarged . . . the entire orbit of the whole earth and the sea and the sky around it." From these visions, he proclaims prophecies, sends monks to help distressed people, or prays to refresh his tired monks labouring in the fields.

Columba holds his own with kings. Though he prays for the military success of kings whom God has chosen, he argues with angels over their appointment. He faces down the king of Picts through his power, blasting him with loud psalms, throwing wide his strong oak doors, and besting the magic of the king's druids. He even defeats wild animals: a fierce boar drops dead on the spot, and a strange monster on Loch Ness runs from his power.

Though Columba's power is often depicted in entertaining form, his influence was in fact the key to winning over the kings of Gaelic Scotland, and his legendary powers were famous enough for his monks later to convince the Picts to convert.

After his death, Columba's political and military power became a key element in his cult. His relics were taken into battle by minor Irish chieftains and Scottish kings--one of his relics preceded the victorious Scottish army at Bannockburn in 1314.

One particular appearance, decades after his death, to the English king of Northumbria was pivotal in the history of Christianity in Britain. That king was Oswald, who had been raised in exile in Iona. As Oswald fought the battle in which he secured his kingship, Columba towered above the field promising victory, as one modern scholar puts it, like Batman over Gotham. In 635, Oswald sent for missionaries from Iona to renew the flagging Christianity of Northumbria with their monastic sobriety and good works.

Posthumous achievements

Columba was a poet, scholar of wide-learning, monastic founder and leader, a visionary churchman. At the time of his death on June 9, 597, he was already celebrated.

Though more monk than missionary, Columba established churches in Scotland that went on, in time, to evangelize the Picts and the English. The legacy of the monasteries he founded, which drew constantly on the inspiration of their patron saint, multiplies many times the influence of the man himself. Fittingly, at the end of the Life, Adomnán has his hero ascend the little hill near the monastery on Iona, and declare;

"This place, however small and mean, will have bestowed on it no small but great honour by the kings and peoples of Ireland, and also by the rulers of even barbarous and foreign nations with their subject tribes. And the saints of other churches too will give it great reverence."

One way Columba's influence was felt after his death was the Law of Innocents enacted by Adomnán in 697. This law sought protection for non-combatants (in the midst of a militarised society) and for women (in danger from domestic violence, common abuse, and appalling labour conditions).

Adomnán's Law imposed strong punishments against offenders. It is a remarkable landmark in the history of law.

Adomnán records many tales of Columba as a protector of innocents, and these tales reinforce the stern message of the Law. In the most famous, Columba is a young boy, studying in a meadow with his tutor. A young girl appears, pursued across the plain by a vicious thug, who spears her at the very feet of the clerics. Appalled, the tutor cries, "How long, Columba, my holy son, will God the true judge let this crime and our dishonour go unpunished?" Columba calls down God's wrath on the killer, who falls dead on the spot.

It is difficult to summarise his accomplishments, but one memorial composed after his death does it better than most:

"He was learning's pillar in every stronghold,

he was foremost at the book of

complex Law.

The northern land shone,

the western people blazed,

he lit up the east

with chaste clerics."

Lacey on Colum Cille

Below is a short essay on Saint Colum Cille by Columban specialist Brian Lacey:

COLUM CILLE

Colum Cille (and other variations), the name by which he became known throughout Ireland and Gaelic Scotland, was revered as one of the three patron saints of medieval Ireland, along with Patrick and Brigit. He is also known by the Latin name, Columba. Almost every aspect of Colum Cille’s life became heavily mythologized, but around 700 his hagiographical Life was written in Latin by Adomnán, which, together with other sources, can be used to reconstruct some of the details of the saint’s actual life. The annals assign various dates to the main events of his life, suggesting that he was born around 520 (or 523) and left Ireland— ultimately to found the monastery of Iona—in 562 (or shortly afterward). His obituary is dated to 597 by the Annals of Ulster, which has been widely accepted, although Dr. Daniel McCarthy has argued that the chronology of the Annals of Tigernach, which would place his death at 593, may be more accurate. Legends say his birth occurred on December 7, the day St. Buite of Monasterboice died, and that this fell on a Thursday. There were strong traditions, especially in Scotland, associating the saint with Thursday. Colum Cille belonged to the Cenél Conaill, part of the northern Uí Néill. Legends claimed that he could have become high king. He certainly was extremely influential in the highest aristocratic and royal circles of his time, both in Ireland and northern Britain. Tradition points to a number of sites in the Gartan area of Donegal, said to be the locations of his birth and other events in his early life. Eithne, his mother, among other possibilities is claimed to have belonged to the Corbraige of Fanad, north of Gartan. She too was venerated as a saint. Her alleged grave is pointed out on Eileach an Naoimh, in the Garvellachs, in the Inner Hebrides. Colum Cille’s father, Fedelmid, was said to be a great-grandson of Niall Noígiallach. The saint had a brother, Iogen, and three sisters: Cuimne, Sinech, and Mincoleth, who was mother of the sons of Enan (after whom Kilmacrennan, Co. Donegal, is named). Several other members of his family became monks and priests, and some were also commemorated as minor saints. Legends claim that his original name was Crimthann, meaning something like “fox” or “deceitful one.” It is not certain that the name Colum Cille was ever used when he was alive, although it occurs in very early texts about him. Almost certainly his “Christian” name was the Latin Columba (Dove). The Irish “Colum Cille” (Dove of the Church) may itself be part of the growth of his cult. While he was still a deacon, Colum Cille spent time in Leinster studying with an “old master,” Gemmán. He is also said to have studied sacred scripture with a bishop Uinniau, identified by Pádraig Ó Riain as St. Finbarr of Movilla, County Down. Although there are many legends that purport to tell us about Colum Cille’s life as a young cleric, it is only with his departure for Iona in 562 (at about forty-one years of age) that we have any reliable information about him. He is credited with founding Derry (his first and thus most beloved church) as early as 546, but it is clear that this date is too early, and the name of an alternative founder is recorded elsewhere. He is said to have founded many other monasteries in Ireland (such as Moone, Co. Kildare, and Swords, Co. Dublin), but it is certain that they too were established much later. One such place was Kells, County Meath, associated with the Book of Kells. Although traditions claim that Colum Cille founded this monastery, we know that it was established about 804–807. Likewise, the famous manuscript was sometimes later, erroneously, attributed to the saint. The one monastery that we can be certain that Colum Cille did found in Ireland, probably in the 580s on one of his return trips from Iona, was Durrow in County Offaly. Other places in Ireland that have strong traditional connections with the saint include: Glencolumbkille, in County Donegal, and Tory Island, nine miles off the coast of the same county. In the 1850s, William Reeves listed thirty-seven churches in Ireland, and fifty-three in Scotland, that had dedications to Colum Cille; most of these, however, originated later than the life of the saint.

Adomnán links Colum Cille’s departure from Ireland with the battle of Cúl Dreimne in 561. Cúl Dreimne was near Drumcliff, County Sligo, where later there was a monastery dedicated to St. Colum Cille. The annals say that victory was gained for the northern Uí Néill on that ocasion, “through the prayer of Colum Cille,” over Diarmait mac Cerbaill. The facts about this battle became enshrouded in legends that suggest that Colum Cille himself had been responsible for it, and that it was as penance for this that he went into exile. Modern scholars and the earliest sources available, however, would suggest that Colum Cille’s exile was voluntary; Adomnán called him a “pilgrim for Christ.” This sort of practice, exile for the love of God, became known in the Irish church as “white martyrdom.” A list, drawn up about the early eighth century, claims that he left Ireland accompanied by twelve companions.

Iona

Colum Cille eventually established his most important monastery (c. 562/3) on Iona, a small island off the Isle of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland. This was to become one of the most influential ecclesiastical centers in western Christendom. A rectangular earthwork enclosing about eight acres, built, apparently, by earlier settlers, was re-occupied by the Irish monks; within it they built their monastery. We can get some impression of what that monastery was like from Adomnán’s Life. The great restored Benedictine Abbey that dominates the island now was begun in the early thirteenth century, but there are some earlier buildings, including one that is pointed out as the burial place of the saint, despite another tradition that he was reburied at Downpatrick. Among the significant early monuments on Iona are the three great High Crosses, dedicated respectively to St.Oran, St. John, and St. Martin, that were carved, in that order, between about 750 and 800. Many other churches and monasteries in Ireland, Scotland, and northern England were founded from Iona, that is, the federation known as the Familia Columbae; some of these, although not all those claimed, were founded within the lifetime of the saint. Colum Cille did travel away from Iona, up the Great Glen of Scotland and even back to Ireland. He attended a significant meeting in Ireland around 590, between his relative, the important Donegal king Áed mac Ainmerech, and the king of an Irish colony in Scotland, Áedán mac Gabráin. The Convention of Druimm Cete, as this meeting came to be known, and at which Colum Cille is said in legend to have saved the poets from expulsion from Ireland, gave rise to a whole host of legends. Colum Cille is, himself, remembered as a poet. Three Latin poems attributed to him are possibly genuine, but there are many others in Irish, which later propagandist poets put into his voice. The apparently contemporary manuscript of the Psalms, known as the Cathach, is also claimed as his work, but this has neither been substantiated nor disproved. Colum Cille died on Iona, probably on June 9 (his feast day) in 593 or 597. Very shortly after his death, the long poem known as the Amra Choluimb Chille (Elegy of Colum Cille) was written, allegedly by the famous poet Dallán Forgail. Other similar poems praising Colum Cille were written in the seventh century, and we know that a liber de virtutibus sancti Columbae (book on the virtues of saint Columba) was compiled in the mid-seventh century, although only one paragraph survives as a quotation in a version of Adomnán’s Life. In the later twelfth century another Life of Colum Cille was written in Irish, probably in Derry. This took the form of a homily for preaching on his feast day. The text is structured, mainly, as an account of the saint’s alleged journey around Ireland, founding churches and monasteries. The most elaborate Life of Colum Cille was written just over a thousand years after his birth, in 1532. This was prepared for Maghnus Ua Domhnaill who, in 1537, became chieftain of Tír Conaill (most of Co. Donegal). Throughout the Middle Ages, many other works, both hagiographical and secular, were also written about, or referred to, Colum Cille, each of which developed the fabulous legends about him and moved his fictional character ever more distantly from that of his true identity. Professor Pádraig Ó Riain has also argued that several other early Irish saintly characters, such as St. Cainnech of Achad Bó, are really aliases of Colum Cille. In England, Durham Cathedral, as inheritor of some of the traditions of the seventh-century monastery on Lindisfarne Island off the coast of Northumberland, preserved aspects of the cult of Colum Cille down to the later Middle Ages, including some of the important early texts about him. His cult was also brought to continental Europe by various means. 

BRIAN LACEY

References and Further Reading

Anderson, M. O. Adomnán’s Life of Columba, revised ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. 

Bourke, Cormac, ed. Studies in the Cult of Saint Columba. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997. 

Clancy, Thomas Owen, and Márkus, Gilbert. Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995. 

Herbert, Máire. Iona, Kells and Derry: The History and Hagiography of the Monastic Familia of Columba. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1996. 

Lacey, Brian. Colum Cille and the Columban Tradition. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997. 

Lacey, Brian. Manus O’Donnell: The Life of Colum Cille. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998. 

Lacey, Brian. “Columba, Founder of the Monastery of Derry?— ‘Mihi manet Incertus’.” Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 128 (1998): 35–47. 

MacDonald, Aidan. “Aspects of the Monastery and Monastic Life in Adomnán’s Life of Columba.” Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland 3(1984): 271–302. 

Ó Riain, Pádraig. “Cainnech alias Colum Cille, Patron of Ossory.” In Folia Gadelica, edited by R.A. Breatnach, 20–35. Cork: Cork University Press, 1983. 

Picard, Jean-Michel. “Adomnán’s Vita Columbae and the Cult of Colum Cille in Continental Europe.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 98C (1998): 1–23. 

Reeves, William. The Life of St. Columba, Founder of Hy; Written by Adomnan. Dublin: The Irish Archaeological and Celtic Society, 1857. 

Sharpe, Richard. Adomnán of Iona: Life of St. Columba. London: Penguin Books, 1994.

MEDIEVAL IRELAND AN ENCYCLOPEDIA Seán Duffy, Editor (Routledge 2005), 97-99.

In the Footsteps of Saint Patrick Around County Down

I have spent a week in County Down, based in the beautiful village of Dundrum. The entire area is rich in Patrician associations, Muirchú’s Life describes the work of Saint Patrick in the Lecale district, starting with his landing at the Slaney River. The saint encountered a local chieftain, Díchu, who lived ‘where Patrick’s barn is now’. After a visit to his old master near Slemish Patrick returned to Mag Inis (Lecale), and ‘he favoured and loved the district, and the faith began to spread there’. When close to death, he was told by the angel to ‘return to the place from which you came, that is, to Sabul’, where he died. Sabul is Old Irish for barn, and later sources fill out the story, explaining that Díchu gave Patrick his barn to use. Saul appears in some texts as the place of Patrick’s burial.

The site now consists of a modern Anglican church, built in 1933 as part of the 1500th anniversary celebrations of the coming of Saint Patrick, which seeks to recreate the architecture of the original 'barn' church. There is an adjoining graveyard and not far away a holy well dedicated to Saint Patrick which local tradition says is the baptismal site for the early converts.

I discovered as I called into various local churches that the story of Díchu's gift of the barn was a popular theme for stained glass windows. This one below, from the Catholic church at Saul shows Saint Patrick arriving by boat and Díchu waiting on the shore with his wolfhound:

Another common theme is the depiction of Saint Patrick on his deathbed being given his last Holy Communion by Saint Tassach of Raholp, a incident recorded by Muirchú. Later sources add that Tassach was one of Patrick’s craftsmen: ‘he is the first that made a case for Jesu’s staff, and Raholp to the east of Downpatrick is his church’. This refers to the enshrining of the precious crozier, the Bachall Ísu, one of Ireland’s chief relics until its destruction in 1538. Calendars record Tassach’s festival day as 14 April. Nothing more is known until the 1306 taxation in which ‘the church of Rathcolpe’ is listed. The church was reported to be ruined in 1622. Raholp is just a 2 miles away from Saul and the ruins of Saint Tassach's church can still be seen:

The county town of Downpatrick boasts the grave of Saint Patrick, which he shares with Saints Brigid and Columcille. As a local guidebook puts it:

Patrick, Colum and Brigid rest in glorious Down,
Lie in one tomb and consecrate the town.

Down Cathdedral was destroyed in 1538 by the infamous Lord Gray who also carried off the relics of the three saints, according to the Annals of Ulster, and destroyed their statues:

Some years later, Father Edmund MacCana claimed that his grandfather had seen Edward, Lord Cromwell, burn the relics of the three great saints in 1607. Despite these shocking accounts of gross impiety, the tradition that the graves of the saints were on the south side of the cathedral persisted. It seems that in the 18th century, the site of the burial shifted to outside the cathedral walls, as one account claims that three stone coffins were found under the high altar during renovation work to the building. These were buried outside and the market cross erected to mark the spot. Unfortunately, this cross was also destroyed by some later defenders of the Reformation but was replaced by a stone giving the names of the three patrons:

The burialplace continued to attract popular devotion, so much so that the practice of removing a handful of soil from the grave by departing emigrants was starting to undermine the site. In 1900, therefore, a huge slab of Mourne granite bearing the name PATRIC and a cross (which as the archaeological guide says is 'ironically of a type hardly ever found in Ulster') was laid over the site instead. It is interesting to see that only Saint Patrick is commemorated by name on this slab, the revival of interest in Saint Brigid being very much a phenomenon of our own times. I don't know why Saint Columcille was left out, as he is a saint who is an attractive figure for Protestants, but perhaps the desire was to claim Patrick for Down and leave the others to their better-known associations with Kildare and Donegal. Whatever the truth of the claims that the remains of the three great patrons of Ireland lie beneath this slab, all I can say is that the site has been hallowed by centuries of prayer and popular devotion:

There is, of course, also the inevitable Visitors Centre, complete with multi-media exhibition and gift shop. The Saint Patrick's Centre at Downpatrick has a very good cafe and roof garden. I needed to fortify myself for the climb to the summit of Slieve Patrick, Down's very own answer to Croagh Patrick. This site was also a product of the 1930s anniversary, when a local farmer donated land midway between Saul and Raholp for the erection of a statue of Saint Patrick, his hand raised in blessing over the district. As is usual for Ireland, later expressions of Catholicism mingle with the ancient, as the climb to the top follows the Stations of the Cross, and a Lourdes Grotto awaits the pilgrim too. Saint Patrick, however, has the summit all to himself, his statue is most impressive and is surrounded by a series of bronze sculptured reliefs at the base depicting good old Díchu and Saint Tassach, among others, all with inscriptions in Irish using the old script. Down Museum at Downpatrick has acquired a photograph album of the 1930s celebrations for Saint Patrick showing people dressed up in all sorts of wonderful 'Celtic' costumes, complete with false beards and wooden staffs. There is an official pilgrimage to Slieve Patrick in June, whilst it is a mere walk in the park compared with Croagh Patrick, it is still possible to have a sense of the penitential pilgrimage as you climb, and the views from the summit are truly spectacular. The picture below shows the small statue that greets the pilgrims as they enter the site, the large statue can be seen in the postcard at the top of the page:

It was a strange feeling driving around the roads of the Lecale District that one was following in the footsteps of Saint Patrick and some of the earliest Christians in the north. As you can see below, it is certainly a beautiful as well as a sacred landscape.

It was wonderful to have a sense of the real Saint Patrick, far removed from the packaged heritage or the secularized razzamatazz of the 17th March. As my holiday reading included Lisa Bitel's book Isle of the Saints: Monastic Settlement and Christian Community in Early Ireland, it certainly put some of her comments on the relationship between the early saints/monks and the environment they chose for their foundations into focus.

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The Story Brought by Brigit: An Irish Passion Play

The Story Brought by Brigit is the title of a play by Augusta, Lady Gregory (1852-1932), one of the leading lights in the Celtic revival of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although born into the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, Lady Gregory wholeheartedly embraced the nationalist revival movement and was an important contributor to its literary output. She published a number of volumes drawing on the traditions of the Irish-speaking peasantry who lived in the County Galway estates owned by her husband, Sir William Gregory. The books presented the 'Kiltartan' view of Irish history and culture in the distinctive Hiberno-English of the west of Ireland. Among the legends which Lady Gregory recorded were a number of Irish traditions which linked Saint Brigid with the early life of Christ. Thus in one story, the Holy Family is miraculously brought to Ireland rather than Egypt as a place of refuge from the murderous King Herod and in another, Saint Brigid is miraculously transported to Bethlehem and acts as a midwife during Christ's birth. It was to these traditions that Lady Gregory returned in her 1923 play on the Passion of Christ. In The Story Brought by Brigit, she introduced a rather neat twist on the legends which associated the Irish saint with the beginning of Christ's earthly life by having her also present at its end. Ignoring, as the legends did, the chronological impossibility of having a 5th-century Irishwoman present at events which had occurred several hundred years before her own birth, the play's Saint Brigid once again finds herself in Christ's homeland, where fortunately, everyone seems to speak the dialect of Kiltartan! In Act 1, the newly-arrived Saint Brigid explains to some of the Jerusalem locals the reason for her long journey:

St Brigit: It was in a dream or a vision of the night I saw a Young Man having wounds on him. And I knew him to be One I had helped and fostered, and he a Child in his mother's arms. And it was showed me in my dream there would trouble come on him but in the end he would put gladness in the heart of His friends. And it was showed to me that the place where I would find him would be in this country of Judea, a long, long way to the east.

The locals invite Saint Brigid to join them in awaiting the arrival of the Master and the greetings bestowed have a distinctive Irish flavour:

(Christ appears. He is followed by St. John and a crowd. The women stand aside.)

1st Woman: May God enable you!

3rd Woman: All the luck in the world to you!

2nd Woman: God bless every hair of his head!

St. Brigit: Why would we not shout for him that is more than any earthly King!

The joy is quickly turned to fear as word spreads that Christ has been arrested and Saint Brigid's new friends are eager for news:

3rd Woman: Here is that Saint of the Gael coming, that some call the fostermother of Christ. She might have some tidings. (To St. Brigit) Where were you through the night time?

St. Brigit: I was with the Mother of our Lord.

1st Woman: And what way is she? This trouble must lie very heavy on her.

St. Brigit: It is as if it was foreshadowed to her from the beginning. It is a long time there has been a shadow across her heart.

Saint Brigid joins the women of Jerusalem as they witness the road to Calvary and one remarks to her:

2nd Woman: You did well coming here to see him with your own eyes. For this is a story will have seven shapes put on it.

1st Woman: Indeed it is a heart-broken story you will have to bring back to Ireland.

St. Brigit: No; but a great story and a great praise I will bring with me. I have heard him myself, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.

In a final example of Kiltartan meets Jerusalem, Saint Brigid and the women join in a traditional Irish keen, in the style of the Caoineadh Na dTri Muire (Lament of the Three Marys). The play, however, ends with the knowledge of the Resurrection and Saint Brigid's prayer 'that God may bring us to the same joy his blessed soul returned to!'

Perhaps on another occasion I can return to this play and discuss it more critically, as there is much more to say of this Irish Passion Play. The text I used here was that published in The Collected Plays of Lady Gregory 3 - Wonder and Supernatural Plays edited by Ann Saddlemyer.

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Two April Feasts of Saint Patrick

Canon O'Hanlon notes two interesting feasts connected with Saint Patrick in the month of April: a commemoration of Saint Patrick's first baptism of an Irish convert on April 5 followed by the feast of Saint Patrick's Ordination on April 6:

Feast of Saint Patrick's First Baptism, in Ireland.

This means, not the day, on which St. Patrick himself was baptized but the day on which he baptized his first convert. It seems to have been celebrated, from a very remote period, since it occurs, in the "Felire" of St. Aengus, on the 5th day of April. From the commentary appended, we learn, that "The first baptism of Patrick" means how Sinell, the son of Finnchadh, of the Ui Garchon, was the first person baptized in Ireland, by Patrick. On the 5th of April in the Martyrology of Tallagh we find entered Baptisma Patricii venit ad Hiberniam, i.e. "the Baptism of Patrick came to Ireland." The remarkable event of St. Patrick regenerating, in the saving waters of Baptism his first Irish convert, is recorded, likewise, in the Martyrology of Donegal and, in reference to it, the "Feilire" of St. Aengus is quoted :—

" On the great festival of the son of Cula,

Of Becan with the victory of austerity,

The first baptism of Patrick

Which he performed in Erinn."

The Ordination of St. Patrick. [Fifth Century]

The Bollandists merely notice this Feast. The Martyrology of Tallagh records, at this date, Ordinatio Patricii. Whether this entry, meaning, "the Ordination of St. Patrick," refers to his sacredotal ordination, or to his Episcopal consecration, cannot be exactly determined. It is probable, however, it must be coupled with the latter, as more in accordance with ecclesiastical usage.

Even at the present time, it is customary, to commemorate the anniversary of a Bishop's consecration, by a prayer, added to the Mass, offered on that day, within his own diocese. In the published Martyrology of Donegal, the editor remarks in a note: The more recent hand adds here,'Ordinatio S. Patricii, Mart. Taml,' as if it were deemed by the writer a matter of importance, to supply an obvious omission of the compilers.

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