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

by John Healy

It speaks well for the love of holy penance shown by these young Christians of Ireland that in spite of its severe discipline this monastery was crowded with holy inmates from all parts of the country, and amongst the rest came Comgall from his far-off Dalaradian home to become a disciple of this school of labour and penance.

He remained a considerable time under the guidance of the holy Fintan, the Benedict, of our Irish Church, who, although his “senior,” or superior in religion, was probably about his own age in years. There is little doubt that it was from Fintan, Comgall learned those lessons of humility and obedience which, as we know from his Rule and from his disciples, he afterwards taught with so much effect to others. His teacher then advised him to return to his own country, and propagate amongst his kindred in Dalaray the lessons of virtue which he had learned at Clonenagh.

Hitherto it seems Comgall had received no holy orders. He was a monk and a perfect one, of mature age too, but in his great humility he had hitherto declined the responsibilities of the priesthood. Now, however, he resolved to pay a visit to Clonmacnoise, which is about twenty miles to the north-west of Clonenagh. Its holy founder, Ciaran, was scarcely alive at this time, for he died in A.D. 544; but then, and long after, the fame of the school was great, and crowds of holy men were attracted to its walls. Here Comgall was induced to receive the priesthood from the holy Bishop Lugadius, and after a short stay he returned northward to his own country. This was probably about A.D. 550, or perhaps a little later.

Some authorities place the foundation of Bangor at this time; but it must be understood only in a very qualified sense at this early date. Comgall was now, indeed, a famous saint himself, and likely enough, companions came to place themselves under his spiritual guidance. But we are expressly told that for some time after his return he went about preaching the Gospel to the people, especially amongst his own kith and kin, and in all probability this took place before he established his monastery at least on any permanent footing at Bangor. But the holy man longed for the solitary life, and so we are told that he retired to an island in Lough Erin, called Insula Custodiaria, or, as we should now say, Jail Island, and there he practised such austerities that seven of the brethren who accompanied him died of cold and hunger. He was then induced to relax his penances and fastings; and shortly after, it seems, at the earnest prayer of his friends, he was again persuaded to leave Jail Island and return to Dalaray. This was about the year A.D. 559, which seems to be the most probable date of the founding of Bangor, although the Four Masters fix it so early as A.D. 552.

Bangor is very beautifully situated. It is about seven miles from Belfast, on the southern shore of Belfast Lough, in the county Down, and may be easily reached either by rail or steamer. It commands a fine view of Carrickfergus on the opposite shore of the bay, with the bold cliffs of Black Head further seaward; to the right, across the narrow sea the bleak bluffs of Galloway are distinctly visible, and far away due north in the dim distance, the Mull of Cantire frowns over a wild and restless sea. We saw this fair scene on a fine day in June, when the sun lit up the steeples of Carrickfergus, and glanced brightly over the transparent waters, so deeply and purely blue, whose wavelets played amongst the bare quartzite rocks, and we felt that if the old monks who chose Bangor to be their home loved God they loved nature also. Most of all they loved the great sea; it was for them the most vivid image of God; in its anger, its beauty, its power, its immensity, they felt the presence, and they saw, though dimly, the glory of the Divine Majesty. It was on the shore of this beautiful bay, sheltered from the south-western winds, but open to the north-east, that Comgall built his little church and cell. Crowds of holy men, young and old, soon gathered round him; they too, without much labour, built themselves little cells of timber or wattles; the whole was then surrounded by a spacious fosse and ditch, which was their enclosure, and thus the establishment became complete. If St. Bernard in his Life of St. Malachy was rightly informed, it is clear that there were no stone buildings in ancient Bangor before the time of St. Malachy; and even he, when restoring the place, with some of his companions, only built a small oratory of wood which was finished in a few days.

Not its buildings, however, but its saints and its scholars, were the glory of Bangor. St. Columba from his home in Iona came more than once, with some of his followers, to visit Comgall and his good monks. On one of these occasions one of the brothers died during the voyage, and the corpse at first was left in the boat whilst the monks with Columba went to the monastery. Comgall received them with great delight, washed their feet, and on asking if all had come in, Columba said one brother remained in the boat. The holy man Comgall going down in haste to fetch the brother found him dead, and perhaps thinking it might have happened through his neglect, besought the Lord, and calling upon the monk to rise up and come to his brothers, the dead man obeyed. Walking to the monastery Comgall perceived that he was blind in one eye, and telling him to wash his face in the stream that still flows down to the sea from the church, he did so, and at once recovered his sight. St. Comgall brought back the brother from the grave, and, moreover, restored to him his eyesight. In this age of ours we are apt to smile at such miracles as these, because ours is not an age of faith; and the incredulity of the world around us make us incredulous also. Yet our Saviour said to his disciples (Luke xvii. v. 6), “If you had faith like to a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree, be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea, and it would obey you.” We doubt if any of our Irish Saints ever did anything apparently so foolish as this, yet even this they could do in the greatness of their faith.

St. Comgall paid a return visit to Columba, and it is said that he even founded a church in the Island of Heth, now called Tiree, one of the western isles to the north of Iona. He also accompanied Columba in the famous visit which he paid to King Brude, the Pictish King, who, at the approach of the saints, shut himself up in his fortress on the shore of the river Inverness. But Columba signed the sign of the cross, whereupon the barred doors flew open in the name of Christ; and the pagan King of the Picts, fearing with a great fear, allowed the saints to preach the Gospel to his subjects.

A man so famous for holiness and miracles, soon attracted great crowds to Bangor. St. Bernard in his Life of St. Malachy says that “this noble institution was inhabited by many thousands of monks.” Joceline, of Furness, a writer of the twelfth century, says that “Bangor was a fruitful vine breathing the odour of salvation, and that its offshoots extended not only over all Ireland, but far beyond the seas into foreign countries, and filled many lands with its abounding fruitfulness.” In the time of the Danes we are told, on the authority of St. Bernard, that nine hundred monks of Bangor were slain by these pirates—an appalling slaughter, but not at all an unusual, much less an incredible massacre, for the North men to perpetrate. The second life given by the Bollandists says distinctly that in the various cells and monasteries under his care, Comgall had no less than three thousand monks; but this it seems is to be understood of all his disciples in other monasteries as well as in Bangor.

Amongst these disciples, besides Columbanus and his companions, of whom we shall presently speak, were Lua, called also Mo-Lua, the founder of Clonfert-Molua, now Clonfert-Mulloe, in the Queen’s County, and St. Carthach, founder of the great School of Lismore, which became almost as famous as Bangor itself. Luanus from Bangor, who seems to be the same as Molua, is said by St. Bernard to have founded a hundred monasteries—a statement that seems somewhat exaggerated. Even kings gave up their crowns and came to Bangor to live as humble monks under the blessed Comgall.

Special mention is made of Cormac, King of Hy-Bairrche, in Northern Leinster. That prince had been freed from the fetters in which he was held by the King of Hy-Kinselagh at the earnest intercession of St. Fintan of Clonenagh. Before his death, however, he retired to Bangor, and in spite of great temptations to return to the world, he persevered to the end in the service of God, under the care of Comgall, to whom he gave large domains in Leinster for the endowment of religious houses. Comgall, according to some authorities, ruled over Bangor for fifty years, others say for thirty, which is more likely to be true, and died on the 13th of May, A.D. 600, at his own monastery of Bangor, in the midst of his children, after he had received the Viaticum from the hands of St. Fiacra of Conwall, in Donegal, who was divinely inspired to visit the dying saint, and administer to him the last rites of the Church. His blessed body was afterwards enclosed by the same Fiacra, in a shrine adorned with gold and precious stones, which subsequently became the spoil of the Danish pirates.