Another, but probably more justifiable, instance of the clergy fasting upon a lay ruler and cursing him, was that of the notorious Raghallach (Reilly), king of Connacht, who made his queen jealous by his infidelity, and committed other crimes. The story is thus recorded by Keating—
"The scandal of that evil deed soon spread throughout all the land and the saints of Ireland were sorrowful by reason thereof. St. Fechin of Fobar [Fore is West Meath] came in person to Raghallach to reprehend him, and many saints came in his company to aid him in inducing the prince to discontinue his criminal amour. But Raghallach despised their exhortations. Thereupon they fasted against him, and as there were many other evil-minded persons besides him in the land, they made an especial prayer to God that for the sake of an example he should not live out the month of May, then next to come on, and that he should fall by the hands of villains, by vile instruments, and in a filthy place; and all these things happened to him,"
as Keating goes on to relate, for he was killed by turf-cutters.
Sometimes the saints are found on opposite sides, as at the Battle of Cooldrevna where Columcille prayed against the High-king's arms, and Finian prayed for them; or as in the well-known case of the expulsion of poor old St. Mochuda[12] and his monks in 631 from the monastery at Rathain, where his piety and success had aroused the jealousy of the clerics of the Ui Neill, who ejected him by force, despite his malediction. It was then he returned to his own province and founded Lismore, which soon became famous.[13]
Led away by our admiration of the magnificent outburst of learning and the innumerable examples of undoubted devotion displayed by Irishmen from the sixth to the ninth century, we are very liable to overlook the actual state of society, and to read into a still primitive social constitution the thoughts and ideas of later ages, forgetting the real spirit of those early times. We must remember that St. Patrick had made no change in the social constitution of the people, and that the new religion in no way affected their external institutions, and as a natural consequence even saints and clerics took the side of their own kings and people, and fought in battle with as much gusto as any of the clansmen. Women fought side by side with men, and were only exempted from military service in 590, through the influence of Columcille at the synod of Druimceat—of which synod more hereafter, and Adamnan had to get the law renewed over a hundred years later, for it had become inoperative. The monks were of course as liable as any other of the tribesmen to perform military duty to their lords, and were only exempted[14] from it in the year 804. The clergy fought with Cormac mac Culenain as late as 908 at the battle where he fell, and a great number of them were killed.[15] The clergy often quarrelled among themselves also. In 673 the monks of Clonmacnois and Durrow fought one another, and the men of Clonmacnois slew two hundred of their opponents. In 816 four hundred men were slain in a fight between rival monasteries. The clan system, in fact, applied down to the eighth or ninth century almost as much to the clergy as to the laity, and with the abandonment of Tara and the weakening of the High-kingship, the only power which bid fair to override feud and faction was got rid of, and every man drank for himself the intoxicating draught of irresponsibility, and each princeling became a Cæsar in his own community.
The saints with their long-accredited exercises of semi-miraculous powers, formed an admirable ingredient wherewith to spice a historic romance, such as the soul of the Irish story-tellers loved, and they were not slow to avail themselves of it.
A passage in the celebrated history of the Boru tribute, preserved in the twelfth-century Book of Leinster, turns both Columcille and his biographer Adamnan to account in this way, by introducing dialogues between them and their contemporary kings of Ireland, which are worth giving here, as they preserve some primitive traits, but more especially as an example of how the later medievalists conceived their own early saints. Aedh [Ae], the High-king of Ireland, had asked Columcille how many kings of all whom he himself had come in contact with, or had cognisance of, would win, or had won, to heaven; and Columcille answered:
"'Certainly I know of only three, Daimín King of Oriel, and Ailill King of Connacht, and Feradach of Corkalee, King of Ossory.'
"'And what good did they do,' said Aedh, 'beyond all other kings?'
"'That's easy told,' said Columcille, 'as for Daimín no cleric ever departed from him having met with a refusal, and he never reviled a cleric, nor spoiled church nor sanctuary, and greatly did he bestow upon the Lord. Afterwards he went to heaven, on account of his mild dealing with the Lord's people; and the clerics still chant his litany.
"'As for Ailill, moreover, this is how he found the Lord's clemency; he fought the battle of Cúl Conairé with the Clan Fiacrach, and they defeated him in that battle, and he said to his charioteer, "Look behind for us, and see whether the slaying is great, and are the slayers near us?"
"'The charioteer looked behind him, and 'twas what he said:
"'"The slaying with which your people are slain," said he, "is unendurable."
"'"It is not their own guilt that falls on them, but the guilt of my pride and my untruthfulness," said he; "and turn the chariot for us against [the enemy]," said he, "for if I be slain amidst them (?) it will be the saving of a multitude.'
"'Thereupon the chariot was turned round against the enemy, and thereafter did Ailill earnestly repent, and fell by his enemies. So that man got the Lord's clemency,' said Columcille.
"'As for Feradach,[16] the King of Ossory, moreover, he was a covetous man without a conscience, and if he were to hear that a man in his territory had only one scruple of gold or silver, he would take it to himself by force, and put it in the covers of goblets and crannogues and swords and chessmen. Thereafter there came upon him an unendurable sickness. They collect round him all his treasures, so that he had them in his bed. His enemies came, the Clan Connla, after that, to seize the house on him. His sons, too, came to him to carry away the jewels with them [to save them for him].
"'"Do not take them away, my sons," said he, "for I harried many for those treasures, and I desire to harry myself on this side the tomb for them, and that my enemies may bring them away of my good will, so that the Deity may not harry me on the other side."
"'After that his sons departed from him, and he himself made earnest repentance, and died at the hands of his enemies, and gains the clemency of the Lord.'
"'Now as for me myself,' said Aedh, 'shall I gain the Lord's clemency?'
"'Thou shalt not gain it on any account,' said Columcille.
"'Well, then, cleric,' said he, 'procure for me from the Deity that the Leinster men [at least] may not overthrow me.'
"'Well, now, that is difficult for me,' said Columcille, 'for my mother was one of them, and the Leinstermen came to me to Durrow,[17] and made as though they would fast upon me, till I should grant them a sister's son's request, and what they asked of me was that no outside king should ever overthrow them; and I promised them that too, but here is my cowl for thee, and thou shalt not be slain while it is about thee.'"
Less clement is Adamnan depicted in his interview, over a century later, with King Finnachta, who had just been persuaded by St. Molling[18] to remit the Boru tribute (then leviable off Leinster), until luan, by which the King unwarily understood Monday, but the more acute saint Doomsday, the word having both significations. Adamnan saw through the deception in a moment, and hastened to interrupt the plans of his brother saint.