St. Colman O’Leathain flourished as Abbot and Bishop of Lismore from A.D. 698, or A.D. 699 to 702; and during this brief period he became very celebrated. He was the son of Finbarr, of the race of Hy-Beogna, the hereditary princes of Ibh Liathain—a district extending from Cork to Youghal, and nearly corresponding with the modern barony of Imokelly. He was a pupil of Lismore during the incumbency of St. Hierlog, or Jarnlach, as we find it in the Ulster Annals, the same as the Hierologus of Colgan.[336] Lismore had now become so celebrated that the Irish princes, tired of the world, began to seek peace and penance in its sacred shades. The first of these princes, of whom we read, was Theodoric, or Turlogh, King of Thomond, of the celebrated Dalcassian line. His father Cathal died in A.D. 624, so that this prince must have ruled over his native territory for many years. He is celebrated, too, as the father of St. Flannan, the founder of the See of Killaloe. Theodoric came secretly to St. Colman, and flinging off his royal robes, and renouncing his crown, placed himself amongst the humblest disciples of that saint. Though now an old man, he would not consent to be idle, but insisted on earning his bread with the labour of his hands, like the monks around him. The road to the monastery from the low ground was steep and uneven, so Theodoric, whose strong arms so often wielded the sword of Thomond in battle, got his sledge and hammer, and spent his time breaking stones to repair the road. With such zeal did he work that the streams of perspiration poured down from his body to the ground, and it is said a sick man was healed by washing in these waters of holy and penitential toil. With Colman’s permission he returned to his kingdom to protect it from its enemies, whom he seems to have crushed as easily as he did the stones, and he then returned again to die in Lismore.
St. Colman O’Leathain is sometimes called Mocholmoc, but as Colgan points out, it is really the same name—Colman and Colmoc being both diminutives of Colum, with the term of endearment prefixed in one case—mo-Cholmoc, which is the same as ‘my dear little Colman.’ This great saint died on the 22nd of January, A.D. 702, and was interred at Lismore.
It has been said that Aldfrid, King of Northumbria, was a student at Lismore before he was called to the throne after the death of his brother, Ecgfrid, in A.D. 685. This statement is, however, merely a conjecture. We know, indeed, from the express statement of William of Malmesbury that Aldfrid spent his youth in Ireland, that he was trained in all the learning of our Irish schools, and that when he was called to the throne of Northumbria, he gave both sympathy and effective assistance to the Irish prelates and monks of the North in opposition to Wilfrid and his associates. It is unlikely, however, that he remained at any one monastic school during all the years of his enforced sojourn in Ireland. Armagh would be one of the nearest to a Northumbrian exile; and being the seat of the primacy, as well as a celebrated school, it would naturally attract him first. If he then came south he certainty would visit Clonmacnoise, and remain some time in its halls. The great fame of Lismore in the middle of the seventh century would doubtless attract him also; and he certainly would not leave unvisited the new monastery founded about this very time by his own countrymen in the plains of Mayo. And if we are to accept the authenticity of the old Irish poem attributed to Aldfrid, this is precisely what did happen. He went throughout the entire country from school to school, spending some time in each of them; and he testifies that he was treated everywhere with generous hospitality, and experienced at the hands of all his teachers and entertainers a kindly Irish welcome. This poem has been translated by Clarence Mangan, and the spirit of the original has been admirably preserved in the translation.
“I found in Innisfail the fair,
In Ireland while in exile there,
Women of worth, both grave and gay men,
Many clerics and many laymen.
I travelled its fruitful provinces round,
And in every one of the five I found,
Alike in church and in palace hall,
Abundant apparel and food for all.”
Then he tells how he found ‘in Armagh the splendid meekness, wisdom, and prudence blended’; how he found kings and queens and poets in Munster; in Connaught he found riches, hospitality, vigour and fame; in Ulster, ‘from hill to glen, he met hardy warriors and resolute men’; and so on throughout all the land.
During his residence in Ireland Aldfrid acquired much knowledge, and a great love of learning and learned men. He was an intimate friend of Adamnan, the celebrated Abbot of Iona, and probably spent some time in that monastery also. Another distinguished scholar, Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, dedicated to Aldfrid a poetical epistle in Latin on Metres and the Rules of Prosody, which shows that the king must have been competent to appreciate such a work. Aldhelm, in this Epistle, congratulates the king on his good fortune in having been educated in Ireland; and he knew well what the Irish scholars were, for his own master, Maildulf, was an Irishman. Aldhelm afterwards studied in Canterbury under Theodore and Adrian; and though trained by an Irishman, in one of his letters he shows himself a little jealous[337] of the greater fame and popularity which the Irish schools at this period enjoyed both at home and abroad. Maildulf[338] taught a school at Malmesbury, and from him it takes its name; but after his death it was placed in the hands of Englishmen.
IV.—Subsequent History of Lismore.
We cannot narrate at length the subsequent history of the monastery and School of Lismore. We find a regular succession of Bishop-abbots down to the advent of the Danes. But the position of Lismore on a great river not far from the sea rendered it especially exposed to their ravages; and hence, like our other great monastic schools, we find that it was repeatedly pillaged and burned during the ninth and tenth centuries. Nor was the plundering and burning altogether the work of the Danes.
As usual the native princes followed their example; and so we are told that in A.D. 978 the Ossorians plundered and burned both the town and abbey. Yet the school and monastery survived the ravages both of the Danes and natives, and were held in great veneration by the wisest and best men in Erin. Cormac Mac Cullinan, the King-bishop, loved Lismore, although he was not educated there, and in his will left a bequest of a gold and silver chalice, and a suit of silk vestments to the monastery.
We read in Archdall that there was at Lismore, as at Armagh and many other principal churches, a hermitage, where one or more anchorites dwelt enclosed in their cells, after the fashion of the primitive Egyptian saints in the Desert. St. Carthach himself had set the example at Lismore; and it seems it was regularly followed, for a small endowment in land was provided for the maintenance of these anchorites at Lismore. The death of one of the most celebrated is noticed A.D. 1040:—“Corcran Cleireach, anchorite, the head of the West of Europe for piety and wisdom, died at Lis-mor.” (F.M.). Another authority tells us that such was his learning and integrity that every dispute throughout the kingdom was confidently referred to his arbitration. It was for this reason also that during the interregnum that succeeded the death of Maelsechlainn II. in A.D. 1022, he, with Cuan O’Lochain, were chosen to guide the provisional government then established, as it would seem, with the consent of both the North and the South.