Constructing Colum Cille

Irish Arts Review

Constructing Colum CilleAuthor(s): Brian LaceySource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 21, No. 3 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 120-123Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25503089 .Accessed: 17/06/2014 19:10

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Irish Arts Review is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Irish Arts Review(2002-).

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.104 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 19:10:29 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=iarhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/25503089?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

ANTIQUITIES

CONSTRUCTING COLUM CILLE

Constructin

Colum Ci e The 23 September 2004, is the 1300th anniversary of the death of Adomn?n, the great biographer of

St Colum Cille (520-593). Adomn?n was a distant relative of Colum Cille and was a sort of Plato to Colum

Cille's Socrates: in fact, without the writings of Adomn?n it is unlikely that we would know much about the

founder of the great monastic settlement at Durrow, Co Offaly, which has recently been acquired by the state,

as BRIAN LACEY explains

mong many other things, Adomn?n is known to have written two important

books. De Locis Sanctis is his account of the holy places of Palestine. His more

famous work, the Vita Columbae, is a hagiographical Life of his illustrious prede

cessor, written around AD 700. The Vita is an extraordinary example of early

medieval Latin literature but it is not a biography in the modern sense. Instead, it is a work of

edification that sought to construct the image of Colum Cille as the equivalent of the great saints

of the universal church. In that sense Adomn?n can be said to have 'made' St Colum Cille. The

oldest surviving copy of the Vita Columbae was made by the lona monk Dorbb?ne, who died in

713. The manuscript was brought to another island monastery, Reichenau in Lake Constance

about 800, and is now in the Stadtbibliothek in Schaffhausen in Switzerland. Adomn?n too was

clearly a very 'saintly' man and in reading the Life he wrote about his predecessor it is difficult

to separate the ideas and spirituality of the author from those of his subject.

Although venerated as a saint, Colum Cille was never formally canonised. Few facts are

known about him as he lived at the time of Ireland's transition from prehistory. Indeed, he him

self, by initiating in lona the recording of contemporary events?a process that would grow into what became

known as the annals?may have been partly responsible for the very beginnings of the recording of Irish history.

However, Dr Daniel McCarthy has determined three important dates in the saint's life: his birth, his leaving of

Ireland, and his death. He was born in 520, apparently into the powerful Cen?l Conaill dynasty that gave its name

in the form Tir Chonaill to Donegal, and which provided several kings of Tara in the early medieval period. His

birthday was later calculated as 7 December. Eithne his mother, among other possibilities, is claimed to have

belonged to the Corbraige of the Fanad peninsula. Fedelmid was his father's name. He had a brother, logen, and

three sisters: Cuimne, Sinech and Mincoleth who was mother of the sons of Enan (after whom Kilmacrenan, Co

Donegal, is named). Several members of his family, including his mother, were also commemorated as minor saints.

Tradition claims that, originally, he was called Crimthann, a name meaning something like 'fox' or 'deceitful

one', but angels inspired his companions to address him as Colum Cille, 'dove of the church'. That name is not

attested before the middle of the 7th century and is probably itself part of the growth of his cult as a saint (Fig

2). His formal 'Christian' name in Irish was simply Colum, corresponding to the Latin, Columba, 'dove'. In his

Vita Columbae, Adomn?n, who loved playing with words and languages, tells us that Colum Cille received: 'the

same name as the prophet Jonah. For although sounding differently in the three different languages, yet what is

1 Saint Colum Cille as depicted in the

16th-century Betha

Colaim Chille by

Maghnus ? Domhnaill

MS. Rawl.B. 514, fol. 11IV verso

(Courtesy the

Bodleian Library,

University of

Oxford)

2 Saint Colum Cille

in the oak grove of

Derry, bas-relief,

Derry Guildhall

AUTUMN 2004 IRISH ARTS REVIEW 121



ke0

)i%-. " 1

1 4 L

-k ., .

'j'

pronounced iona (Jonah) in Hebrew, and what the Greeks call

peristera, and what in the Latin language is named columba, means

one and the same thing.'

While still a deacon, Colum Cille studied in Leinster with an

'old master', Gemm?n. He also studied sacred scripture with a

bishop Uinniau, probably St Finbarr of Movilla, Co Down.

Although there are many legends that purport to tell us about his

life as a young cleric, it is only with his departure for lona that we

get reliable information. In 562 (in Adomn?n's words) 'the forty

second year of his age, Columba sailed away from Ireland to

Britain wishing to be a pilgrim for Christ'. He established the

monastery on lona possibly that same year.

Despite the widespread belief that he died in 597 (his alleged 1400th anniversary was commemorated in 1997), it is now

almost certain that he died in 593. His feastday is celebrated on

9 June, the date on which he is believed to have died.

Almost every aspect of Colum Cille's life became richly mythol

ogised. Tradition points to a number of sites in the Gartan area of

Donegal said to be connected with his birth and early life, even

where he took his first walking steps as a baby, the C?dimthecht.

Leac na Cumhaidh, 'the stone of sorrows', is famous in the folk tra

ditions of Donegal. In the past, intending emigrants would go to

sleep there on the night before their departure from Ireland,

because, as this was believed to be the actual birthplace of Colum

Cille, himself an emigrant, the saint would protect them from the

pangs of loneliness and homesickness in their new lives.

Colum Cille is credited with founding Derry in 546 but it is

clear now that this date is too early and, perhaps unfortunately, the

name of an alternative founder is also recorded. He is said to have

founded many other monasteries in Ireland (e.g. Moone, Co

Kildare and Swords, Co Dublin), but it is certain that they too were

established much later. Tradition claims that he founded Kells, Co

Meath, but we know that it was established about 804-807.

Although also made around 800 and almost certainly on lona, the

Book of Kells, known in Irish as Soisc?l Mor Coluim Chille, was

sometimes erroneously attributed as the work of the saint himself.

One theory about this famous manuscript is that it was made as an

hommage, in honour of the second centenary of the saint's death.

% The state has recently acquired the site of the one monastery

Tradition claims that, originally, he was called Crimthann, a name

meaning something like 'fox' or 'deceitful one', but angels inspired his companions to address him as Colum Cille, 'dove of the church'

-v::^:l|i^ that we can be certain that he did found in Ireland (probably in '

\'Ti^i^^^^^^^^^^^?KjKKK? the 580s), Durrow in Co Offaly (Fig 3), to which is attributed the

" ? Boole of Durrow. Other places in Ireland that have strong tradi

- ' -^^^^?I^SK

tional connections with the saint, include Glencolumbkille (Fig 4)

^:^^^^^^HBH| and Tory island, both in Donegal. In the 1850s, William Reeves

''^''A^W/'v^^^^^^^^^H^Hj listed thirty-seven ancient churches in Ireland, and fifty-three in -'

."ijBpP :

'^^^^^B^^H Scotland that had dedications to Colum Cille, however, most of

fl^ll ^ v'"^^^^^Bi?K these originated later than the life of the saint. Adomn?n links

|M|^^M|^^^^__ - ' ^^^^^??^^^^^^n???k

Colum Cille's departure from Ireland with the battle of Cul

i 2 i^l^^^^^^^^^^Hjj^^^^^^^^^^^^H^^^H



ANTIQUITIES

CONSTRUCTING COLUM CILLE

Dreimne in 560. C?l Dreimne was near Drumcliff, Co ^^^k Sligo, where, later, there was a monastery dedicated to ^^^8 Colum Cille and where, later again, the poet William ^^^^B Butler Yeats was buried. The facts about this battle

^^^^8 became enshrouded in legends that suggest that ^^^^^fl Colum Cille himself had been responsible for it ^^^^8 because of his rejection of the high-king's famous ^^^^^B copyright judgement: 'to every cow its calf, to every ^^^^^B book its copy', and that it was as penance for this ^^^^^B that he went into exile. Modern scholarship, how- ^^^^^B ever, would suggest that Colum Cille's exile was vol- ^^^^^B untary. Exile for the love of God became known in ^^^^^B the Irish church as 'white martyrdom'. ^^^^^B

Colum Cille eventually established his most ^^^B^| important monastery on lona, off the Isle of Mull, ^^^^^B off the west coast of Scotland. This became one of

^^^^^8 the most influential centres of Christendom; not ^^^^^8 just because of religion but because of many aspects ^^^^^^B of contemporary art and culture. ^^^^^^B

Many other churches and monasteries, in ^^^^^^B Scotland and northern England, were founded ^^^^^^8 from lona; some of these, although not all those ^^^^88 claimed, were founded within the lifetime of the ^^^BiB saint. Durham Cathedral, as inheritor of some of ^^8^^^B the traditions of the monastery on Lindisfarne ^^^^^|B? Island off the coast of Northumberland (founded ^^^^IBI in the 7th century from lona), preserved aspects ^^^^BBi of the cult of Colum Cille down to the later mid- ^^^^IBB die ages, including some of the important early ^^^^^|^9 texts about him. His cult was also extended to ^^^^^^^B continental Europe by various means. ^^^^^81

Colum Cille did travel away from lona, up the ^^^^^^8 Great Glen of Scotland and even back to Ireland.

^^^^^^8 He probably organised the significant meeting in ^^^^^^8 Ireland around 590, between his relative the ^^^^^^B important Donegal king, ?ed mac Ainmerech, and ^^^^^^B the king of an Irish colony in Scotland, ?ed?n mac ^^^^^|

Gabr?in. The Convention of Drum Ceat, as this ^^^^^| meeting came to be known, and at which Colum ^^^^8 Cille is said to have saved the poets from expulsion ^^^^8 from Ireland, gave rise to a host of legends. Colum ^881

Cille, himself, is remembered as a poet. Three Latin

poems, attributed to him, are possibly genuine but there are

many others in Irish, which later medieval poets put into his

voice. The apparently contemporary manuscript of the Psalms

known as the Catfiacfi, is also claimed as his work; something

which has neither been proved nor disproved (Fig 5). After his death, the long poem known as the Amra Choluimb

Chille (Elegy of Colum Cille) was written, allegedly by the famous

poet Dalian Forgail. Similar praise poems were written in the 7th

century, and we know that a liber de virtutibus sancti Columbae

'book on the virtues of saint Columba' was compiled in the mid

7th century also. In the later 12th century another Life of Colum

Cille was written in Irish, probably in Derry. That text is struc

tured as an account of the saint's alleged journey around Ireland,

* " Jl

**%* ,*

Documents

Constructing Colum Cille