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

by John Healy

The great glory of the School of Lismore was St. Cathaldus. Like many other Irishmen, who left home and died abroad, he has been almost forgotten by our native writers. But the country of his love and of his adoption has not been ungrateful to Ireland. With one accord all foreign writers, following the testimony of Tarentum itself, proclaim that Cathaldus, its second apostle and patron saint, was an Irishman and a scholar of the great School of Lismore.

Lismore is far away from Taranto, as it is now called. It was a city of ancient Magna Graecia, frequently hostile to Rome, and at the best of times yielding only a reluctant obedience to the Queen of the Seven Hills. She preferred Pyrrhus and Hannibal to the Curii and Scipios. Seated on the southern sea that looks towards Greece, its cultured and pleasure-loving inhabitants had more affection for their ancient motherland than for their stern mistress by the Tiber. Even in the days of the Empire they were more loyal to Byzantium than to Rome. Strange that this Greek-Italian city, situated in the very heel of Italy, should get its apostle from a Munster monastery. Yet such is the fact, to which its own writers bear unanimous and grateful testimony.

The Life of St. Cathaldus has been written by two Tarentines—the brothers Bartholomew and Bonaventure Morini—of whom the former wrote his account of the saint in prose, and the latter in poetry. Both being citizens of Taranto, were acquainted with all the traditions of the place in reference to their patron saint, and, moreover, formally appeal to the testimony of the ancient public records of the Church and of the city in all those things to which these ancient records could bear witness, and also to the Office for the Feast of St. Cathaldus, which was published at Rome in the year A.D. 1607, by the Cardinal Archbishop of Taranto, with the sanction of the Holy See. The brothers Morini shortly afterwards wrote the Life of the Saint. The poetic Life by Bonaventure Morini was first written in eight books; and is greatly and justly praised for the elegance of its Latin style. Bartholomew Morini gives a briefer, but more authentic narrative in prose, which he hoped would help to make known beyond the bounds of their own city the labours, and virtues, and miracles of the saint, whom his brother had already celebrated in verse, and whom Providence had sent from the remotest shores of Ireland (Hibernia) to be the patron and protector of their native city. Unfortunately we have, as I observed before, no account of St. Cathaldus in our domestic Annals; and we must, therefore, follow the guidance of those foreign writers, who, whilst unanimous as to the place of birth and education of our saint, so render the uncouth Irish names in the Latin tongue, that it is very difficult to identify the persons and places to whom they refer. The substance of their account is as follows:—

Cataldus, or Cathaldus, which is the Latin form of Cathal, a very common Irish name, “came from Hibernia, which is an island beyond Britain, in the western sea, smaller in area, but fully equal to it in fertility of soil and productiveness of cattle; whilst in the warmth of the land, in the temperature of the climate, and the salubrity of the air, it is even superior to Britain.”

Some say, continues Morini, that Rachau was the Irish city in which he was born, because in many books he is called Cathaldus of Rachau; but the writer rather thinks his native town was Cathandum, which by a change of letter would be Cathaldum, the town of Cathal. He was, he thinks, called Cathaldus of Rachau, because he was bishop of that place in Ireland; but the name Cathaldus he got from his native town, so that the saint’s name would be a patronymic.

It is very difficult to ascertain where these two places were. Colgan, a very high authority, seems to think that Cathaldum or Cathandum was Baile-Cathail (i.e., Ballycahill) in Ormond, which was the birthplace of the saint, and that Rachau was the foreign way of expressing Rahan, the original monastery and See of St. Carthagh, and of which Cathaldus might have become bishop on the expulsion of its holy founder by the Hy-Niall. On the whole, we think this is a probable explanation, and not inconsistent with the facts narrated in the Lives both of St. Carthagh and of St. Cathaldus.

For all the accounts agree that the native place of Cathaldus was in Momonia, or as some call it, Mumenia, which in the Office of the saint is changed by mistake of a letter into Numenia. But the reference is clearly to Munster, in Irish Mumhan, which is usually latinized Momonia, or more accurately, perhaps, Mumonia. There are three townlands in North Tipperary called Ballycahill, one of which gives its name to the parish of Ballycahill, west of Thurles, in the barony of Eliogarty. Seeing that this church took its name from Bally-Cahill, it is highly probable that the village itself got its name from a saint who was a native of the place, and under whose protection, too, the church of his native village would naturally be placed. There is every reason to assume that Cathaldus was of the royal blood of the Munster kings, and that he lived not very far from Lismore; both of which circumstances would very well apply to Ballycahill. Cashel, the royal residence of the Munster kings, is about twelve miles further south; and Ballycahill itself was on the highway from north to south Munster, the very road that Carthagh and his monks would follow in their flight from the North to the court of Failbe Flann at Cashel, on their way to Lismore.

His father’s name was Euchus, and his mother’s name is rendered Achlena or Athnea. Euchus is an attempt at latinizing the Irish Eochaidh. Achlena was a not unfrequent Irish female name, which was borne by the mothers of St. Fintan and St. Columbanus. More likely, however, the original name was the Irish form Ethnea—a very common name—which the Tarentines, with their Greek tastes, would very naturally render Athnea in Latin.

As to the date of the saint’s birth there is more difference of opinion. The Morini, who speak, however, doubtingly, seem to think the saint was born in the reign of the Emperor Adrian, and came to Tarentum during the reign of Aurelius, or Antoninus Pius. In this, however, they appear to have merely made a conjecture, having no ancient authority to follow. They were anxious to make this second foundation of the Tarentine Church after St. Peter and St. Mark, who were said to have first preached the Gospel there, as ancient as possible. It is evident, however, even from their own narrative that a much later date must be assigned to the advent of Cathaldus to Tarentum. For he came there on his return from Jerusalem, where with his companions he had been to visit the Holy Sepulchre of our Lord. But the Holy Sepulchre was not discovered until the time of St. Helen, in A.D. 336, after which this pilgrimage became common in Christendom, so that we cannot assign by any possibility this early date to the mission of Cathaldus at Tarentum.

Of course, too, the history of the Irish Church is entirely inconsistent with so early a date for the apostolate of this Irish saint. For we are told that he studied and taught at Lismore; that he was Bishop of Rachau; that he preached the Gospel successfully in Ireland before he left for the Holy Land—facts which more clearly mark the seventh than the second century as the period during which he lived and flourished.