We may assume then that Durrow was founded about A.D. 553, that is seven years after the foundation of Derry. By this time the reputation of Columba had spread far and wide over the entire kingdom. His ‘cousins’ too of the Southern Hy-Niall then reigned at Tara, and at this period the saint seems to be on friendly terms with that branch of his family. Being so famous and so influential, it is not to be wondered at that Columba was invited to found monasteries through almost all the northern half of Ireland to which even Durrow at that period belonged.
Several interesting incidents are recorded by Adamnan in his Life of Columba having reference to Durrow. The monks, it seems, had an orchard near the monastery on its southern border, and in the orchard there was one tree that produced a great abundance of apples; but they were so bitter that no one would eat them. The saint hearing every one complaining of the sour apples, raised his hand and blessed the tree in the name of Almighty God, and lo! at once every apple on the tree became sweet and good to eat.
Even when he was in Iona Columba was solicitous about his beloved monks of Durrow. One cold winter’s day the saint in Iona was very sad, and shed silent tears. Diarmait, his attendant, asked what troubled him; and Columba replied, that he was sore grieved because he saw in spirit how Laisren, the prior of Durrow, kept his poor monks working on that bitter day in building the Great House.[245] At the very same moment Laisren in Durrow found himself moved by some internal suggestion, and bade the monks, as the weather was so severe, to get their dinner, and take rest for the remainder of the day. This too was made known in spirit to Columba, and he greatly rejoiced.
On another occasion during the building of the same Great House, Columba in spirit saw one of the monks falling from the very top of the roof. “Help! help!” cried the saint—and lo! the guardian angel of Iona flew to the monk’s aid at the prayer of Columba, and caught him up before he fell to the ground. Such is the speed of an angel’s flight, and the virtue of a saint’s prayer; for it is written, “He hath given His angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up; lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.”[246]
When Columba was leaving Durrow, he was very anxious to secure the future well-being of that dear monastery, which next to Derry appears to have held the highest place in his affection. There is an ancient poem attributed to the saint in which he describes with loving minuteness the various charms of Durrow. There the wind sings through the elms, as well as through the oaks; the blackbird’s joyous note is heard at early dawn; and the cuckoo chants from tree to tree in that noble angelic land—“all but its government was indeed delightful.” Elsewhere the saint speaks with tenderest feeling of the toll of its soft-toned bell; and the glories of the woods in beautiful many-coloured Dair-magh.
“O Cormac, beautiful is that church of thine,
With its books, with its learning;
A city devout with its hundred crosses,
Without blemish, and without transgression.”
The reference here is to Cormac Ua Liathain, who seems to have been left in charge at Durrow, when Columba himself retired to Iona. But Cormac was a Momonian, as he is called in the dialogue with Columba, and hereditary jealousy between North and South soon showed itself at Durrow after Columba’s departure. The princes of the Clan-Colman, or Southern Hy-Niall, objected to have a Momonian the ruler in Durrow, and made it so unpleasant for Cormac that the latter, without waiting for Columba’s permission, resolved to leave the government of Durrow to Laisren, the first cousin of Columba, and seek for himself a desert isle in the ocean to be the place of his rest and resurrection.
With a few companions he set out from Killala, and sailed the northern seas for two long years, but yet could find no island home in the northern main. After perils and hardships untold, he and his famished crew succeeded in reaching Iona, where they were kindly welcomed by Columba. But when Columba discovered why it was that Cormac had sailed so long ‘over the all-teeming sea, from port to port and from wave to wave,’ his brow grew stern; and he felt much inclined to rebuke Cormac severely for his disobedience. “Thou art welcome,” he said; “since the sea hath sent thee hither—else thou hath merited satire and reproach.”[247]
Columba then urges on Cormac to return back again to his monastery in Durrow; he enlarges on the beauty of that devout city with its books, and its learning, and its hundred crosses; he describes how sweet is the blackbird’s song and the music of the wind, as it murmurs through the elms on the Oak-plain of far-famed Ros-grencha; he promises Cormac that he will cause the Clann-Colman of the reddened swords to protect the monastery of Durrow; “and I pledge thee my unerring word,” he said, “which may not be impugned, that death is better in reproachless Erin than life for ever in Alba.”[248]
Still Cormac was unwilling to return—“How can I go there amongst the powerful northern tribes in that border land, O Colum? and if it is better to be in noble Erin than in inviolate Alba, do thou return to Erin and leave me at least by turns in Alba.” The discussion grew warm between the two saints; but it appears to have ended amicably. Cormac was allowed to remain for a time in Iona, and afterwards to found a monastery of his own in Tyrawley, on condition that he used his influence with his southern kinsmen to make them pay their alms and dues to the monastery of Durrow.