Leaving Roscrea the saint seems to have made his way to the royal rath of Failbhe Flann, King of Magh Femhin, as he is called in the Annals of Ulster. Magh Femhin was the fertile and picturesque plain stretching from Cashel to Slievenamon on the east, and on the south to the Knockmealdown Mountains, which separated it from the territory of the Desii. It was a rich and fertile land, watered by swelling rivers, and bounded towards the south and east by bold and savage mountains.
Failbhe Flann, the ancestor of the MacCarthys, was then king at Cashel, and kindly received Carthach, who showed his gratitude by curing the king’s son of a sore eye. The king offered Carthach a site for a monastery in his own territory of Magh Femhin; but Carthach knowing that this was not God’s will in his regard, declined the prince’s generous offer, and resolved to go further southward. It is likely that the saint met at the court of Failbhe that prince’s son-in-law, Maeloctraigh, Chief of the Desii of Waterford, who offered to Carthach a large territory beyond the mountain (of Knockmealdown), where he might establish himself and his brother monks in peace beside the Great River, and without any fear of further disturbance during the brief span of his remaining life.
The saint gladly accepted this offer, and stopping for a brief rest at Ardfinnan, which was destined for another saint later on, he crossed the rugged hills that rose up before him, probably by the pass leading southward from Clogheen, and coming down the southern slopes of the hill he saw stretched before him that beautiful valley through which the Blackwater forces its way from Lismore to Cappoquin. “Here shall be my rest, for I have chosen it,” exclaimed the saint, and crossing, not without miraculous aid, it is said, the swelling waves of the Avonmore, he crept up the wooded heights that overhung the southern bank of the stream, and sat down on Magh Sciath—the Plain of the Shields—close to what Keating calls Dunsginne—the great rath surmounting the height to the east of the present town of Lismore.
Many writers have asserted that there was a monastery at Lismore before St. Carthach’s arrival there. Mention is certainly made of the death of Lugaid of Lismore in the Ulster Annals, A.D. 591; and the Four Masters record the death of Neman, Abbot of Lismore, in A.D. 610. In A.D. 634 the Annals of Ulster tell us that Eochaidh of Lismore died. O’Donovan thinks these entries refer to Lismore on the Blackwater; it is more probable, however, that the reference is to Lismore—an island near Oban in Scotland—where an Irish saint called Molua or Moluag had founded a famous monastery much celebrated in later times.
Assuming with the Ulster Annals that Carthach came to Lismore after Easter of the year A.D. 635, he cannot have lived there more than two years—and probably died on the 14th of May, A.D. 637. The Ulster Annals fix his death in A.D. 636; but from the statements in his Life we gather that he must have spent at least two years at Lismore. We are told that on his arrival there he at once proceeded to mark out the site of his monastery, surrounding it as usual with a strong fence and ditch. Thereupon the holy virgin Coemell, whose cell was not far off, came to see the saint, and finding him at work she inquired what the saint and his monks were doing. They replied that they were building for themselves a small habitation—Lios-beg, it would be in Irish. “Not so,” replied the virgin saint; “this place will be called Lios-mor,” “which,” says the writer of the Life, “means in Latin atrium magnum,” or Great Hall; “and her prophecy,” adds the author, “was verified by the event. For Lismore is now a large city, half of which is an asylum where no female is allowed to enter, for it is full of cells and other monastic buildings, and a great number of holy men always dwell there. For they come there in great numbers, these saintly persons, not only from every part of Ireland, but also from England (Anglia), and from (Britannia) Britain.” This distinction between Anglia, or Saxon land, and Britannia, or the country from the Clyde to the Severn inhabitated by the native Britons, shows that this Life was written at a very early date—probably in the seventh or eighth century.
Having founded his monastery, the saint wished to retire from community life for some time to prepare himself for death by undivided communion with God. The great fame of Carthach was attracting numbers of monks and students to this new foundation, so that he was frequently disturbed by this great influx of pious visitors. Labour and old age too were telling on his emaciated frame, and he knew that the end was not far off. Then he retired to a lonely cave, which was under the monastery, and there for one year and six months gave himself up to the service of God in solitude. The monks, however, especially the older ones, were still allowed to visit their beloved father; and he seeing the difficulty they had in reaching the high ground on which the monastery was built, resolved to return to the community once more. So the brethren came to carry him up the steep ascent, and now they had reached the middle of the ravine, when the old man seeing a ladder reaching up to the open heavens told the brethren to lay him on the ground and administer to him the last sacraments. Tenderly and piously they did so, “and having partaken of the sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood and given his last injunctions to the brethren, he bade them all a tender farewell, and giving to each of them the kiss of peace he died in their arms on the day before the Ides of May,” in the year A.D. 637, which seems to be the true date.
Like St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise, Carthach spent only a very short time with his monks in this monastery that was afterwards to become so famous. He laid, however, the foundations of the spiritual edifice as well as of the material building. During his long residence at Rahan, he wrote a Rule for the guidance of his monks, which no doubt was the same that was adopted at Lismore. Many of the monks of Rahan, too, when expelled by the Hy-Niall, accompanied their beloved father to Lismore. These were no doubt the holy ‘Seniors,’ who used to visit him in his cell in the lonely valley; and who ruled the community after his death in the same spirit and in obedience to the same Rule.
Many striking miracles are recorded in the First Life of St. Carthach, to only one of which we shall make reference here.
When Carthach and his companions were coming to Lismore—the place given by the prince of the Desii, “where they might live on the fruits of their own labour, and serve God in peace, without becoming a burden to anyone”—they saw from the high lands a great impetuous river, swollen by the tide of the neighbouring estuary, barring the way, so that there was no means of crossing to the southern bank. Then, whilst the others were in doubt what to do, Carthach, with his friends, Colman-elo and Molua (of Kyle), bent their knees in earnest prayer to God, and lo! the waves were divided on the right hand and on the left, opening a passage for the saints to cross over on dry ground. And so these true Israelites, with hymns of praise to God, crossed the bed of the Avonmore, and came to Lismore, as it was afterwards called—the place which God himself had prepared for them. The word lis, anciently les, properly signifies the mound surrounding the buildings, and also by a secondary signification, the space enclosed within. Here it includes both—the defending mound and the enclosed space which contained all the ecclesiastical buildings—the church, the cells, the refectory, the stores and other necessary adjuncts to a great monastery. In those early days these buildings were of rude materials and simplest structure; but all the same they were the choice abodes of learning and holiness.
The most interesting literary monument connected with Lismore is the Rule of St. Carthach. It is one of the eight Monastic Rules of our early Church still extant in Dublin manuscripts, and, in the opinion of O’Curry, is certainly authentic. The language, the style, the matter, are all such as might be expected from the person to whom they are attributed at the time it is supposed to have been composed. We know, too, from other sources that these saints really did compose what are called Monastic Rules, and hence, when we find these Rules in ancient MSS. bearing their names, we are not justified in rejecting their authenticity without some tangible reason.