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

by John Healy

Certain writings have been attributed to Cathaldus by Colgan, and others; but it is difficult to regard them as genuine.

There is a short treatise, given by Colgan, containing an account alleged to be taken from the Records of the Church and City of Tarentum, of the principal miracles of the saint. It is a very striking enumeration of most wonderful cures effected through the intercession of the saint, and bears intrinsic evidence of authenticity—at least such is Colgan’s opinion.

There is also extant a prophecy attributed to the saint, which he uttered shortly before his death, and which was by his order, if not by his own hand, inscribed in certain leaden tablets, and hidden within a column in the Church of St. Peter without the eastern walls of the city. It is said that in the year A.D. 1492, the saint appeared to a certain deacon of Tarentum, by name Raphael Crurera, and commanded him to tell the Archbishop that he would find in the said church the figure of a boy painted on the column with the hand pointing out the spot where the leaves of the leaden record containing the prophecy would be found. The Archbishop sought the place indicated, and found the two sheets of lead inscribed with the prophecy. But the whole thing looks very like a forgery concocted for political purposes.

III.—Other Scholars of Lismore—St. Cuanna.

It does not appear that St. Cathaldus was ever Abbot or Bishop of Lismore, although he was certainly a student of that great seminary. St. Carthach appears to have been succeeded in the government of Lismore by St. Cuanna, who is said to have been his uterine brother. As Cuanna, or at least one who bore that name, was also the author of an ancient book of Annals, he is worthy of special mention in this place. Colgan is of opinion that St. Cuanna, the Abbot of Lismore, is the same as that Cuanna, who has given his name to Kilcooney, near Headfort, on the shores of Lough Corrib; and he thinks it highly probable that he was also the original author of the Book of Cuanach, cited in the Annals of Ulster. It is not quoted after A.D. 628; and we know that St. Cuanna of Lismore died about A.D. 650, so that this fact of itself lends some probability to Colgan’s view. The facts of his history, however, will clearly show that Cuanna of Lismore was the founder of Kilcooney, near Lough Corrib.

St. Cuanna of Kilcooney was born near the eastern shore of that lake, for he is described as founding a church in his native district.[335] His mother, Findmaith, was a near relation of St. Brendan, and appears to have been also the mother of St. Fursey, and of St. Eany, who also founded churches on the Corrib shore. In that case Findmaith was the second wife of Fintan of Ard-fintan, near Headfort, who is said to have been a nephew of St. Brendan. We know that both St. Brendan and St. Carthach belonged originally to the same district in the west of Kerry, and that both were sprung from Fergus Mac Roy. We know also that many of the tribesmen both of Carthach and Brendan migrated to West Connaught about this period, and that the father of Fursey was amongst them. It may be that his wife afterwards got married to another Kerry chieftain, and this would explain how Carthach and Cuanna were uterine brothers, although one was born at Tralee and the other near Lough Corrib.

About A.D. 590 Cuanna went to the school of St. Carthach, at Rahan, where he remained many years. Then he was sent about A.D. 620 to found a monastery “in the delightful land of the Ui-Eachach, in the south of the woody Inisfail.” Afterwards, however, he returned home to Lough Corrib and founded Kilcooney. The “Fragment of his Life,” in the Salamanca MS. then tells how he was carried off into Connemara, but God’s angels took charge of him, and brought him over the lake in safety, floating on a flat stone, to his own side of the lake. Then it was he resolved to found his Church of Kilcooney, or Kilcoonagh, of which the remains are still to be seen in the old churchyard not far from Headfort. There is also the stump of a round tower close at hand, which shows the ancient importance of the place.

Great numbers of saints and monks from all parts of Ireland were soon attracted to Kilcooney by the fame of its learned and holy founder. In fact we are told that on one occasion no less than 1,746 of these holy men assembled in conference in a beautiful meadow near the church, and there entered into a league of holy friendship with each other—surely a beautiful spectacle before angels and men in that rude and barbarous age.

It seems that it was after the death of his brother, St. Carthach, in A.D. 636 or 637, that Cuanna was called to preside at Lismore. The kin of the founders always got a preference when rulers were elected for these ancient monasteries, and his near kinship with Carthach was, together with his virtues and merits, the main reason of this election. It is certain, however, that he was Abbot of Lismore, for two of our ancient calendars describe him as such, and in the notes to the Felire of Ængus he is similarly described. He died about the year A.D. 650.

The School of Lismore continued to flourish under him and his successors, attaining, it seems, the zenith of its celebrity towards the opening years of the eighth century under St. Colman O’Leathain.