Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum; Or, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars

by John Healy

The Bards were now thoroughly alarmed. The whole country was against them, and they probably felt that they were guilty. In this great emergency there was only one person powerful enough to help them; to him they appealed to come to their relief, and save them from destruction; and Columba listened to their prayer.

At this time his influence was all-powerful both in Erin and Alba. He was a cousin of the High King of Erin; he had inaugurated at Iona the king of the Scottish Dalriada, who was also his connection by blood. He had founded many monasteries in both countries; and though he was a stern ruler, he was beloved and venerated by his disciples. He was known to be a man of miracles, filled with the spirit of prophecy, and powerful in word and work. Every one in Ireland had heard how he converted Pictland; how the barred doors of King Brude’s fort flew open at his touch. Many feared him; but more loved, and all reverenced him.

The great Convention of Drumceat, in which the fate of the Bards, as well as some other important questions were to be decided, appears to have been held in A.D. 575. “The precise spot,” says Reeves, “where the assembly was held is the long mound in Roe Park, near Newtownlimavaddy, called the Mullagh, and sometimes Daisy Hill.” Aedh Mac Ainmire was king of Ireland at this period, and was a first cousin once removed of Columcille. The saint was accompanied to the meeting by Aidan, king of the Scottish Dalriada, who was resolved to assert the independence of his kingdom, and have it formally recognised without bloodshed in this great assembly. Through the aid of Columcille he was successful. The next request made by the saint was the liberation of Scanlan Mor, son of the king of Ossory, who was most unjustly kept in bonds by the High King. In this demand also Columba, though not without difficulty, succeeded. The third great question—the proposed abolition of the Bards—was then taken into consideration.

King Aedh himself was their accuser. All the princes of the line of Conn were ranged around him. The Bards were there, too, with the illustrious chief Bard, Dallan Forgaill. The queen and her ladies were, it is said, also present; and twenty bishops, forty priests, thirty deacons, and many clergy of inferior grade were seated near Columcille in this great parliament of the Irish nation.

The king brought all those charges against the Bards, to which we have already referred—their avarice, their idleness, their exactions, their insolence; and he called upon the assembly to dissolve the Order, and take away all their privileges. Then Columcille arose; and all that vast assembly did him reverence. With his clear and strong melodious voice, which was borne to the utmost verge of the vast multitude, he defended the ancient Order of the Bards of Erin. He did not deny the existence of grave abuses—let them be corrected; and in future let the guilty be severely punished. But why destroy the Order itself? Who would then preserve the records of the nation—celebrate the great deeds of its kings and warriors—or chant a dirge for the noble dead? His eloquence carried the assembly with him. The Order was preserved from destruction; but it was to be reformed, and restrained by salutary laws from such excesses in future.

It is said that on this occasion Columba made a formal visitation of all the religious houses which he or his immediate disciples had founded in Ireland. It was no easy task to accomplish, for Dr. Reeves in his notes furnishes a list of no less than thirty-seven monasteries throughout the northern half of Ireland, of which Columba is the reputed founder and patron. Besides Durrow, Derry, and Kells, he was also the founder of Swords, Drumcliff, Screen, Kilglass, Drumcolumb, and many other celebrated houses, to which we cannot now refer in detail.[266]

There is a story told, but without good authority, that during these visits to Ireland Columcille wore a cere-cloth over his eyes, and had clay from Iona in his sandals; so that in accordance with the penance imposed on him by St. Molaise, he neither trod the soil of Ireland, nor looked upon his native land again. If such a penance were ever imposed, it was too rigid to be always binding, and even if it were binding, such a public cause as attendance at the assembly of Drumceat would render his presence there necessary and lawful, without making any special effort to observe his obligation to the letter.

Columba was at this period the most powerful man either in Ireland or Scotland. Large grants of land were made to his monasteries, and thousands of people begged to be enrolled amongst his disciples. St. Patrick himself had not greater influence than Columba possessed at this period in the North of Ireland.

In gratitude to Columba for preserving the Bardic Order in Erin, Dallan Forgaill composed the celebrated poem in praise of Columcille, known as the Amhra Choluimcille, to which we shall refer again. But Dallan did more effective service to Irish literature in another way. By the advice and under the direction of the saint, he reorganized and reformed the Bardic Order, as decreed by the assembly of Drumceat, and moreover founded regular schools for the instruction of the young aspirants of the Order. This tended to check their vagabond disorderly habits, which led to so many abuses in the past. These schools also fostered habits of systematic study, encouraged the cultivation of the Celtic language, and developed a taste for general literature even outside the monastic schools.

According to Keating, who had sources of information at hand that have since been lost, Dallan appointed four Arch-poets—one for each province—who were to preside over these Bardic schools, and carry out the regulations enacted at Drumceat. There is no doubt that it is in a great measure to these schools of the Bards, and the systematic training which their pupils received, that we owe the preservation not only of the ancient and authentic chronicles of Erin, but also of that immense mass of romantic literature in the Gaedhlic tongue, which at length is beginning to attract the attention not only of British, but also of foreign scholars. It was the monastic schools, no doubt, that preserved and transcribed the Lives of the Saints, which, in spite of many fables, have added so much to our knowledge of ancient Erin in things profane, as well as in things sacred. We know what the Four Masters have done for the literature and history of ancient Erin. But they were in reality the last and not unworthy representatives of the ancient Bards of Erin. Through good and ill they laboured to preserve and perpetuate the knowledge of our ancient books; and when the nation’s day was darkest, and the future without a single ray of hope to light up the deepening gloom, they sat down in the ruined convent of Donegal, and at the peril of their lives, arranged and transcribed for posterity those immortal Annals, which, like the work of the Greek historian, will be our treasured possession for all time.