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

by John Healy

The young Cathal, who seems to have been born about the year A.D. 615, grew up in holiness and grace before God and men; and, according to the author, was whilst yet a youth sent to study in the great monastic school of Lismore (Lesmoria). It was, as we have seen, founded by St. Carthach in the year A.D. 635. Indeed, Morini’s account of our saint at Lismore would seem to imply that he was a professor there as well as student, for he tells us that the fame of his learning and virtues attracted many disciples to the new college,[333] and what is more, raised up against himself some powerful enemies. He not only taught in the schools, but he preached the Gospel most successfully in all the country of the Desii, working many miracles too, and building churches—one of which dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, is specially mentioned in his Life as the glory of Lismore. The author even exaggerates his labours, for he adds, that no one was left throughout all Ireland whom Cathaldus did not instruct in the saving truths of the Gospel.

Now the king (of Munster no doubt), was jealous of the great popularity of the saint, and fearing that Cathal, relying on the good will of the people, might aspire to the throne, he sailed to Lismore, intending to seize and imprison the saint. But God protects His own. This evil-minded prince was warned by two Angels in a vision not to touch Cathaldus at his peril; but rather to make him successor to Meltrides, the regulus of the Desii, who had inflamed by evil counsel the king’s mind against Cathaldus; and lo! whilst the king was narrating this vision in the morning to his counsellors a messenger came to announce the sudden death of this Meltrides, the king’s evil counsellor. The king, now filled with terror, asked pardon of Cathaldus, who was then a deacon, and was going to make him ruler over the Desii; but Cathaldus modestly refused the honour, preferring to serve God in religion. Thereupon he was made bishop, and the king assigned him mensal lands around Lismore, in the territory of Meltrides, and he became not only bishop, but even an archbishop, with twelve suffragan sees subject to him as metropolitan! The facts here seem much exaggerated, but were probably quite true in substance.

Meltrides seems to have been that prince of the Desii, who gave Lismore to St. Carthach in A.D. 635. His death is recorded under date A.D. 670. If Cathaldus were a deacon, in A.D. 670, he can hardly have been a disciple of St. Carthach, who died thirty-three years before. Colga, son of Failbe Flann, was King of Munster at this period, for his death is noticed, in A.D. 674 by the accurate Chronicon Scotorum. It is not unlikely then that Cathaldus, the professor of Lismore, who was supposed to be aiming at the crown of Munster, was a member of the rival line sprung from Fingin, the elder brother of Failbe Flann. Fingin died in A.D. 619, leaving the crown to Failbe; but of course his sons would have a better claim than Failbe’s, when they grew up to man’s estate. These two princes, Fingin and Failbe Flann, were respectively the heads of the great rival families of Munster, the O’Sullivans and M‘Carthys; and although the latter rose to greater power, the former was, it is said, the senior branch of that royal stock, and retained their lands in the Golden Vale down to the advent of the Anglo-Normans, when they were driven to the mountains of Kerry. It was Colga, therefore, King of Munster, in A.D. 670, who caused Cathaldus the deacon to be elected Bishop, and not only endowed his See of Rachau with the lands of the Desii, but also subjected to his authority all the Bishops of the South, whose sees were within the kingdom of Cashel. In this way we can explain the statement in the Life that Cathaldus was made an archbishop with twelve suffragan prelates subject to his authority. Colga would lend himself all the more readily to this project, because there would be now less danger of Cathaldus, after he became a bishop, aiming at the crown of Munster.

But where was the See of Rachau? We cannot agree with Colgan that it was Rahan. Rahan was in Meath in the territory of the Southern Hy-Niall, and we may assume it as certain that the spirit of jealousy, which in A.D. 635, drove St. Carthach from Rahan would never tolerate the appointment of this Munster prince as bishop in any part of Meath. It is, of course, still more improbable that the same jealous rivals would consent to give him metropolitan jurisdiction over the princes and prelates of their own race.

From the narrative in the saint’s Life, if it can be relied upon, it is quite evident that Rachau was not far from Lismore, that it was in the territory of the Desii, and like the see of Sletty, it may, for a while, have attained to a certain pre-eminence in Munster in consequence of the learning and virtue of Cathaldus. Still it is very difficult to ascertain the exact locality of this ‘city of Rachau.’ There was, as we know from the Four Masters, a mountain in this district, about six miles north of Dungarvan, which was called Slieve Cua, now Slieve Gua. There must have been an old church in the district also, for there is a parish called Slievegue; and if there was a rath named from the territory, it would be Rath-cua, or Rachau, as any Irish scholar will readily admit. There was a pass through the valley beneath Slieve Cua, which, as it led from Magh Femhin into Decies without the Drum, was in ancient times the scene of many a bloody battle. We are inclined to think that Rachau of the saint’s Life is simply another form of Rath-cua, which was doubtless the ancient name of the residence of the family of Cathaldus, who were probably the rulers of the district. The old church might have once had the same appellation, although so far as we know it is now lost. After the departure of Cathaldus, this church would lose its pre-eminence like many another church in Ireland which was once the seat of a bishop, and at present does not rank even as a parochial church. Clonenagh is an example, as we have seen when treating of its history. However, we merely offer this as a conjecture, for we can find no reference to the church or district of Rachau in our domestic Annals.

After Cathaldus had ruled the See of Rachau for some years, with his brother Donatus and several companions, he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem—a journey that it was by no means unusual for the fervent saints of Erin to accomplish even at that early period. On their return from Palestine, their vessel was wrecked in the Gulf of Taranto, not far from the city of the same name.

Taranto, the classical Tarentum, was an ancient and famous city, beautifully situated on the northern shore of the bay. It was founded by a Spartan colony of young men, who left their native country because they were branded with the stigma of illegitimacy. But they selected a beautiful site for their city, under the shadow of the Iapygian hills, and surrounded by the sun-lit waters of that spacious bay. The climate was delightful, the air bracing and salubrious; for the summer’s heats were tempered by the sea breezes, and the mountains sheltered them from the biting winds of winter. The hills were clothed with olive trees and vineyards, which were specially prized; the wool of their sheep was of the finest quality; the inner harbour was filled with shell-fish; and their honey was equal to that produced by the bees of Hymettus. Horace, in a well-known Ode, extols its mild winter and lingering spring; and declares that its rare products and smiling bowers woo him to make his sojourn in that happy land.[334]

But its inhabitants, even in the days of Pyrrhus, were said to be an effeminate and licentious people, more devoted to the pleasures of peace than to the arts of war. They had heard the Gospel from the lips of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Mark; but during the disturbances succeeding the fall of the Western Empire, they became once more practically pagans. Such was the state of things when Cathaldus and his companions were wrecked on the shore of the Tarentine Gulf.

When the Irish bishop saw this beautiful city thus given over to pleasure and to vice, like St. Paul at Athens, his spirit was moved within him, and in burning language he implored the inhabitants to return to the service of the God whom they had forgotten. He performed also many striking miracles in the sight of all the people, healing the sick, and even it is said, raising the dead to life. It happened at this time that there was no bishop in the city; so the Tarentines besought the Irish saint to become their bishop, and promised to obey his commands, and follow all his counsels. Reluctantly he consented, in the hope that he might thus be able to win them back to the service of God. His efforts were crowned with complete success. Once more Tarentum became a christian city in reality as well as in name; and Cathaldus was venerated as the second apostle and patron saint of the city.

Cathaldus spent some years in his new see; then feeling his end approaching, the saint once more exhorted the people and the clergy, in language of the most tender affection, to be true to the profession and practice of the Christian faith. He died, shortly after, in his city of Tarentum, towards the close of the seventh century, on the eighth day of March, which is his festival day. The holy remains, by which many miracles were wrought, were buried in a marble tomb, which up to this day is preserved in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Tarentum. For a long period the identity and position of the tomb were unknown, until the time of the Archbishop Drogonus, by whose orders the old cathedral was restored. The workmen in excavating the old walls came upon the marble tomb; and the Archbishop having been sent for, caused the tomb to be opened, when the sacred relics were discovered, with a golden cross on which the name of Cathaldus was inscribed. So Archbishop Drogonus, full of joy, caused the holy relics to be translated, and the tomb itself to be rebuilt close to the high altar of the new Cathedral Church, where they are preserved with great honour down to the present day. In the year A.D. 1150, Archbishop Giraldus caused the holy relics to be enclosed in a silver shrine, richly adorned with gold and jewels. A large silver statue of the saint was also erected in the church, and a portion of the skull was placed within the figure. The feast of the Invention of the saint’s Relics is celebrated on the eighth day of May, and the Translation is kept on the tenth of the same month. Both these festivals, as well as the Natalis of the saint on the eighth of March, are celebrated with much pomp by the Tarentines even to the present day. The silver-gilt cross found within the tomb is hung around the neck of the silver statue of the saint, and on the cross may still be seen, engraved in characters quite legible and distinct—Cathaldus Rachau, which identify so conclusively the prelate of Lismore and Tarentum with the sacred relics that were discovered by Archbishop Drogonus.