CHAPTER XXI.
THE SCHOOLS OF THOMOND.
| “Though Garryowen has gone to wreck, We’ll win her olden glories back; The night long, starless, cold and black, We’ll light with song and story.” |
I.—The School of Mungret.
The first reference[367] we find made to Mungret is in the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick. When the saint had come into the territory of Hy-Fidhgente, which included that portion of the modern County Limerick west of the river Maigue, with a small portion of the barony of Coshma east of that river, Lomman, the king of the district, made a feast for Patrick on the summit of Mullagh Cae, to the south of Carn Feradaig. This hill still bears its ancient name, and the gifted poet[368] from whom we have already so often borrowed beautiful thoughts, describes its situation:—
“That pleasant hill ascends
Westward of Ara girt by rivers twain,
Maigue, lily-lighted, and the ‘Morning Star’
Once Samhair named, that eastward through the woods
Winding, upon its rapids earliest meets
The morn, and flings it far o’er mead and plain.”[369]
Now Lomman, son of Mac Eire, and Mantan, a deacon of Patrick’s household, had prepared a feast for the saint and his people on the summit of this green hill, when it chanced that a band of itinerant jugglers came upon the scene, and meeting Patrick first, asked him for some food. The laws of hospitality were always imperative in Celtic Ireland, and accordingly Patrick told them to go to Lomman and Mantan, and that they would supply their wants. No one had yet tasted of the banquet, not even Patrick himself; and hence, when the jugglers applied for food, they were rather rudely repulsed by Lomman and the deacon, who told them in effect that strollers like them were not the persons to bless the meat and partake of it first.
They meant no harm, but still Patrick’s request was not complied with, and his honour was compromised, when hospitality was refused even to the jugglers. So Patrick said:—
“To the boy who cometh from the north (Limerick)
To him the victory has been given.”
And forthwith a youth named Nessan appeared coming up the hill-side with his mother, and she being the stronger was carrying a cooked ram on her shoulders for the king’s feast. Then the saint asked the boy to give him the wether, that he might give it to the jugglers, and thus save his honour by complying with the laws of hospitality. The boy at once gladly gave the ram to Patrick; but his mother grumbled a little when she saw its destination.