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

by John Healy

During the subsequent century—a period of much turmoil and bloodshed, when there was no recognised High King of Tara, who was able to keep the provincial kings in check, many of the southern princes retired to Lismore to end their days in peace and penance. Amongst these was the brave and generous Murtogh (Muircheartach) O’Brien, the grandson of Brian Boru, whom the Four Masters themselves describe “as King of Ireland, and the prop of the glory and magnificence of the West of the world.” He died after the victory of penance at Lismore, but was buried at Killaloe. In A.D. 1127 Turlough O’Conor, the bravest and most capable of his name, forced Cormac Mac Carthy, King of Desmond, to go on pilgrimage to Lismore, and put on the habit of a monk. But Cormac soon flung it off again, and once more met Turlough in the field, but unsuccessfully; for we are told that there was a great fight at ‘sea’ (on Lough Derg) between the fleets of the Connaughtmen and of the men of Munster, and that the former gained the victory and harried the territory of Munster.

Another noteworthy event in connection with Lismore is recorded in A.D. 1129. It is the death and burial at Lismore in this year of the good St. Celsus, after St. Malachy, the greatest man of his age. He laboured with the most constant and self-denying zeal to reform the gross abuses prevalent in the Irish Church, and to stay the fratricidal hands of the native princes, whose whole career was at this time one sad record of violence and slaughter. His life, say the Annals, was “a life of fasting, prayer, and mass-celebration; and after unction and good penance he resigned his spirit to heaven at Ard Patrick,” in the co. Limerick. He was buried at Lismore, by his own desire, and was waked, as was fitting, with psalms, hymns, and canticles, and buried with all honour in the tomb of the bishops, on Thursday, the 4th of April, having died on the previous Monday.

So Lismore was still held in great honour, and owned large possessions for the education of the clergy and the maintenance of the poor down to the advent of the Anglo-Normans. Then in A.D. 1173 we have the significant entry that Strongbow, after wasting the territory of the Desii, “extorted a large sum from the bishop to prevent the church from being burnt,” but in the following year his son completed his father’s work, “and plundered Lismore;” and four years later, in A.D. 1178, we are told that the town was again plundered, and set on fire by the English forces. Whatever still remained was wholly destroyed a few years after, in A.D. 1207, when the town and all its churches were entirely consumed. Shortly afterwards, this ancient See was united to the Danish bishopric of Waterford, and the lamp of learning in its schools was extinguished for ever.

Lismore is beautifully situated on the steep southern bank of the Blackwater, overlooking the picturesque valley of this noble river, which here teems with natural beauties. In this respect Innes declares that Lismore cannot be surpassed. “The Blackwater, both above and below the bridge, which leads into the town, flows through one of the most verdant of valleys. The banks bounding this valley are in some places thickly, in other places lightly, shaded with wood. Nothing can surpass in richness and beauty the view from the bridge, when at evening the deep woods, and the grey castle, and the still river are left in the shade, while the sun streaming up the valley gilds all the softer slopes and swells that lie opposite.” (Journey, 1834.)

Nothing, in truth, is wanting that can lend beauty and interest to this scene, which nature has so richly dowered with all her charms. And then the grand old castle, towering over the river, recalls to the mind of the beholder all those associations that cling like the ivy to its grey historic walls.

Of the twenty churches once in Lismore not a vestige remains. The existing Protestant cathedral was rebuilt by the Earl of Cork in A.D. 1663; but his workmen destroyed every trace of the ancient church, which is alluded to as the cathedral, or great stone church of Lismore, so early as A.D. 1052. Five inscribed stones are preserved in the present cathedral. They are fragments of ancient tombstones, with the peculiar Celtic crosses, and lettered in very ancient types of the Celtic alphabet.[339] One asks a blessing for the soul of Colgen, who, according to the Annals of Inisfallen, was an eminent ecclesiastic, who died in Lismore in A.D. 850. The words are—BENDACHT FOR ANMAIN COLGEN. Another is simply inscribed—SUIBNE M CONHUIDIR—Suibne, son of Conhuidir, an anchorite and abbot of Lismore, who went to his rest in A.D. 854. Another still more interesting inscription asks a prayer for Cormac, a priest—OR DO CORMAC P. The letter P stands apparently for the Latin word presbyter, i.e., priest. He seems to have been “Cormac, son of Cuilcanan, Bishop of Lismore, and Lord of the Desii of Mumhan, who was killed by his own family, A.D. 918”—a different person from the King-bishop of Cashel, who was slain in A.D. 907. The other two merely ask a blessing for the soul of MARTAN, and a prayer for DONNCHAD, who seems to have been the person bearing that name who was assassinated within the very walls of the old cathedral in A.D. 1034.

The Crozier of Lismore was discovered in 1814 in a tower of Lismore Castle, belonging now to the Duke of Devonshire—hence it is sometimes improperly called the Devonshire Crozier. It was made, as the inscription on it records, for Niall Mac Mic Aeducan, who was Bishop of Lismore from A.D. 1090 to 1113. The artist was Nectan—also a Celtic name—and the Crozier itself is one of the most beautiful specimens of Celtic art of this character that have been yet discovered. “It measures three feet four inches in length, and consists of a case of bronze of a pale colour, which enshrines an old oak stick—perhaps the original staff of the founder of Lismore. Most of the ornaments are richly gilt, interspersed with others of silver and niello, and bosses of coloured enamels. The crook of the staff is bordered with a row of grotesque animals like lizards or dragons, one of which has eyes of lapis lazuli.”[340] The staff seems to have been divided into compartments, which were filled in with filigree work. It is most likely this beautiful work of art was made at the monastery, and that Nectan, the artificer, was a member of the brotherhood of Lismore. The inscription is as usual in Irish, and runs thus:—OR DO NIAL MAC MEICC AEDUCAN LASAN DERNAD IN GRESSA + OR DO NECTAIN CERD DORIGNE IN GRESSA—Pray for Niall, son of MacAeducan, for whom this work was made; pray for Nectan, who made this work of art.

The Book of Lismore was found in 1814, together with the Crozier of Lismore, in a wooden box, which was enclosed within the wall of a built-up doorway in the Castle of Lismore. Both evidently belonged to the bishops of Lismore, for the castle was the ancient episcopal palace, and the box was built into the doorway for security on some occasion when the castle was being besieged by enemies, who might be disposed to appropriate these venerable relics. This castle was originally built by Prince John, in A.D. 1185; and at first was garrisoned for the Crown. It was, however, soon destroyed by the natives; but was rebuilt by the king, and became the residence of the bishops of Lismore down to the time of Miler MacGrath, who added the see of Lismore to his other ecclesiastical preferments. Afterwards, the castle sustained several sieges during the troubles that followed A.D. 1641, when it was held at different times for the Crown or for the Parliament: and it was, doubtless, during one of these sieges that both the Crozier and Book of Lismore were concealed. When discovered it had suffered much from damp, and the edges, O’Curry tells us, seem to have been partially gnawed by rats or mice. It was, however, still tolerably legible, but was, unfortunately, lent by the Duke of Devonshire’s agent to a Cork sheanachie, named O’Flynn, that it might be transcribed; and O’Curry alleges that several folios, and in some places entire sections of the MS., were deliberately cut out by those who had the temporary custody of the book. In 1839 O’Curry made a copy on paper of all that remained for the Royal Irish Academy; but that institution vainly sought to obtain the missing portions.

It is said that these excised parts were purchased, no doubt, in good faith, by a Mr. Hewitt, who lived near Cork, and they may, perhaps, be still secured and re-bound with the original MS.

This original was a vellum MS. said to be 900 years old. It consists principally of copies of the lives of certain Irish saints—of Patrick, Brigid, Columcille, Senan, Finnian of Clonard, and Finnchu of Brigobhan, near Cork—“all,” says O’Curry, “written in Gaelic of great purity and antiquity.”[341] There are also several historical and romantic tracts, and bardic accounts of several ancient battles. One treatise—a dialogue between St. Patrick and the Fenian warriors, Caoilte MacRonan and Oisin—is, says the same learned authority, especially valuable for the topographical information it contains.[342]