Of his personal history we know nothing. His name implies that he was the grandson, or great grandson, of Cluasach; but of his history nothing else can be ascertained. It is clear, however, both from the Scholiast’s preface, and from intrinsic evidence that this St. Colman was a Ferlegind, or Professor, in the School of Cork in the year A.D. 664. At that period, as is well known, a terrible pestilence devastated Ireland; it likewise extended to England, and probably to many parts of the Continent also. It carried off nearly half the population of Ireland—kings, saints, and people—without distinction. A panic spread through all the land, and all classes, who could do so, sought to fly from the plague: but their flight was vain for go where they would the plague overtook them, and claimed its victims. An idea, however, had gone abroad that the pestilence could not extend nine waves beyond the shore of Erin, and hence we find that there was a rush to such of the islands on the coast as were supposed to be outside the infected area.
Colman and his scholars took the very prudent resolution of leaving their monastery by the marshes of Cork, and making their way to one of the islands on the coast, the name of which unfortunately is not given. But like a good and holy man, he put more faith in God’s protection and blessing than in mere sanitary precautions. So he invited the school to help him in composing this hymn as a lorica or coat of mail against the pestilence, and all other dangers temporal and spiritual. It seems, too, that it was recited during the voyage, and no doubt filled the fugitives with hope and confidence in God’s fatherly love.
The Scholiast in his preface tells us that Colman composed the hymn to protect himself against the yellow plague (buidhechair) that was prevalent in the reign of the sons of Aedh Slaine (A.D. 656-664[350]), and of which they themselves died in A.D. 664. The cause of the plague was, he alleges, the over-population of the country at the time, for so great was the number of the people, that the land could afford but thrice nine ridges to each man in Erin—nine of bog, nine of arable, and nine of wood—“and, therefore, the noblemen of Erin fasted along with the sons of Aedh Slaine, and with Fechin of Fore, and with Aileran (the Wise), and with Manchan of Liath, and with very many besides, for the reduction of the population, because of the scarcity of food in consequence of the great population.” In fact, there seemed to be no alternative but famine or pestilence; and these holy men appear to have preferred the latter alternative; which was granted to their prayers, and by which they themselves also were sent to heaven.
Some say, adds the Scholiast, that St. Colman composed the whole of it; but others say he composed only the first two stanzas, and that his scholars composed the rest—that is, each man of them made a half stanza. As the original poem consisted of forty-six lines, this would give the number of scholars belonging to the school at something more than eighty; or, if the stanza be taken to mean a distich of two rhyming lines, which seems more probable, they would number about forty-four.
“It was composed,” adds the Scholiast, “in Cork in the time of Blathmac and Diarmaid, on the occasion of this great plague, which left only one out of every three persons alive in Erin. And the place where they happened to compose it was in the course of their voyage to a certain island in the sea of Erin, flying from this pestilence; because the plague did not extend further than nine waves from the land, as the learned relate.”
In its present form the hymn consists of fifty-two lines, with an added prayer; but it is quite evident that it originally consisted of forty-six stanzas, and the remaining six, asking the blessing and protection of the patron saints of Erin—Patrick, Brigid, Columcille, and Adamnan, were subsequently added. The language is the very oldest form of the Gaedhlic, which has come down to us, and, as Dr. Todd remarks, “it fully confirms the early date assigned to it by the Scholiast.” The metre is in rhyming distichs with fourteen syllables in each line—when we say rhyming, we mean that there is a rhyme, or at least an assonance, between the final syllables of each two lines. Here and there Latin phrases, taken from the Scripture, are introduced in the Gaedhlic lines, and made to rhyme, as the Gaedhlic lines themselves do. The author was evidently familiar as well with the Latin as with his native Gaedhlic, both of which he manipulates with considerable dexterity. The subject matter mainly consists of an invocation addressed in appropriate language to God, and to the Son of Mary, as well as to the Saints of the Old and New Testament, to protect the writer and his school from the pestilence, and from all assaults of their foes, both spiritual and temporal. The following stanza may be taken as a specimen:—
Maire, Joseph don ringnat et spiritus Stephani,
As cach ing don forslaice taithmet anma Ignati.
“Mary, Joseph, guard us with the spirit of Stephen;
May it deliver us from every difficulty to invoke the name of Ingatius.”
This poem is an exceedingly interesting monument of the time in which it was written; and moreover, shows what a deep spirit of piety and filial confidence in God and His saints inspired the mind of the writer. We have finer poetry in our own days; but we have nothing that breathes a deeper and more fervent spirit of earnest devotion.
III.—The School of Ross.