And the same authority likens him to Laurentius the Deacon in his habits and life.[371] Colgan says that Nessan died in A.D. 551; but even granting that he was a mere boy when St. Patrick was in Munster it is difficult to suppose he could have lived so long.
The fame of Mungret School is, however, due much more to St. Munchin, or Manchin, surnamed the Wise, than to Deacon Nessan, although unfortunately little can be ascertained with certainty about his history. He was of the Dalcassian race, being son of Sedna, and grandson of Cas, who was seventh in descent from Cormac Cas, son of Ollioll Olum, the great father of the race. His uncle Blod was king of the Dalgais of Thomond, during the early years of St. Patrick’s mission in Ireland. According to some writers, St. Manchan or Munchin, of Limerick, was identical with Manchan the Master, who is mentioned in the Life of St. Patrick. There were, however, several saints who bore that name; and it seems highly improbable that ‘Master’ Manchan of the Tripartite was the founder of St. Munchin’s. O’Curry says that this latter saint was daltha, or foster-son, and pupil of St. Mac Creiche of Ennistymon in Clare, who flourished towards the end of the fifth century; for he was the friend and contemporary of St. Ailbe of Emly. We assume, therefore, that Manchin, the founder of Cill-Munchin, now known as St. Munchin’s, flourished in the first half of the sixth century. It is said that he succeeded Nessan as Abbot of Mungret, and that under him and his successors, this monastic school attained great fame during the sixth and seventh centuries.
The fame of Mungret, however, seems to be principally founded on local tradition, for we can find no satisfactory evidence to prove its celebrity in any of our ancient documents. It is said that there were no less than six churches in Mungret, and no less than 1,500 monks (not to speak of the boys at school) within its cloisters. Of these one-third were preachers, or as we should now say, went about giving missions; one-third were constantly engaged in celebrating the divine office; and the remaining third were employed in teaching in the schools, or labouring for the community.[372] It is strange that no trace of these ancient buildings now remains, with the exception of the walls of one not very ancient church, which is 41 feet long, by 23 feet in breadth. The door-way in the west gable has a flat lintel with sloping jambs—its most characteristic feature. The round arches of the remaining opes rather show that this church belongs to the ninth or tenth century, than to the time of St. Munchin.[373] It is probable that St. Munchin presided for many years at Mungret; and then in his old age retired from community life, and built himself a cell and oratory in the neighbourhood, which was afterwards known as Cill-Munchin, and became the nucleus of the present city of Limerick. Thus it was that he came to be recognised as the patron of the city and diocese of Limerick; and, as such, his church is said to have been the cathedral church of the city down to the building of St. Mary’s by Donald O’Brien, who died in A.D. 1194.
It is very doubtful if there was any See in Limerick before the Danish colony became Christian, and got a bishop of their own. The only scrap of evidence in favour of a line of earlier prelates in St. Munchin’s that we could find, is the statement in the prose Life of St. Senan, that “Deron, Bishop of Limerick,” was present at the obsequies of St. Senan in Scattery Island. But, as Lanigan remarks, this Life is of the post-Norman period, and cannot be accepted as an unquestionable authority.
The subsequent history of Mungret may be briefly summed up. The death of Ailill, Abbot of Mungret, is noticed by the Four Masters in A.D. 760, which shows that there was a succession of abbots in that great school. But evil days were now in store for Mungret. Situated close to the great highway of the Shannon, it was one of the first places that felt the fury of the Danes, and suffered most from their constant presence in the great estuary of Luimnech. We are told that it was burned and plundered by these ‘gentiles’ in A.D. 834, like most of the great monasteries on the southern coasts and estuaries. Shortly afterwards the Danes took permanent possession of the estuary of the Shannon; and although defeated by the native tribes at Shanid and elsewhere, still, owing to their possession of the sea, and the constant arrival of fresh hordes, they were able to maintain themselves at Limerick, where they established strong forts on the King’s Island, which they held against all comers down to the time of Brian Boru. They were, indeed, the real founders of the city of Limerick, and their choice of that site, so suitable at once for commerce and defence, shows how keenly alive their chiefs were to the advantages to be derived from a good natural position. Of course whilst the Danes held the lower Shannon and all its islands, Mungret could not flourish. At best they could only live there on sufferance, and were constantly exposed to pillage and murder.
Still Mungret was not obliterated. Cormac Mac Cullinan by his will, which he made before he set out for the fatal field of Ballaghmoon, bequeathed, amongst other charitable bequests to other churches, three ounces of gold, an embroidered vest, and his blessing to Mungret; so that it is not improbable the great king-bishop, so learned in the Scotic tongue, as the Four Masters tell us, had himself been a student of Mungret.[374] In A.D. 909, Maelcaisil, Abbot of Mungret, died; and although the school was burned in A.D. 934, we read of Abbot Muirgheas, whose death is noticed in A.D. 993, by the Four Masters. They also record the death of “Rebachan, son of Dunchadh, Archdeacon of Mungret,” or as they write it Mungarid, in the next year; so that it was still a place of importance, having an abbot, an archdeacon, and an airchinneach also, for Constans, who held that office, died in A.D. 1033. It was burned in A.D. 1080; and was no sooner rebuilt than it was once more destroyed by a native prince, Domhnall Mac Lochlann, ‘King of Ireland,’ in A.D. 1088. On this occasion the King of Ireland harried the coasts and the churches of Thomond quite as cruelly as ever the foreigners had done.
Yet, phœnix-like, it rose once more from its ruins, for we are told that in A.D. 1102, “Moran O’Moore (Mughron O’Morgair), chief lector of Armagh, and of all the west of Europe, died on the third of the nones of October at Mungret in Munster.” Though the Irish princes of the North and South were as usual at deadly feud, Mungret gave a hospitable home and an honourable grave to the great professor from Armagh, who was the father of St. Malachy—one of the greatest of our Celtic saints. The last entry in the Four Masters is the shameful record that Mungret was plundered in A.D. 1107 by Mortogh O’Brian. Can it be that this Mortogh, who thus impiously plundered the shrine of his kindred at Mungret, is the same Mortogh who gave Cashel to the Church, and carried the arms of Thomond in triumph from Luimnech to Lough Foyle? Thenceforward Mungret, as a school, disappears from our Annals—almost, but not quite, up to the present hour.
‘The learning of the Mungret women’ is proverbial about Limerick; and the proverb had its origin in this way.[375] A controversy arose between Mungret and some other monastic school of the South, as to which was the more learned community; and it was agreed by both parties that their best scholars should meet at Mungret on a certain day, and exhibit their learning in a public disputation. Now as the time drew nigh the Mungret scholars feared they would be worsted in the disputation, and so they had recourse to stratagem. A number of them dressed themselves as women, and going to the place, where a stream crossed the highway near Mungret by which the visitors were to approach, they began to wash clothes. The strangers coming up put some questions to the ladies in the vernacular, but the ladies replied in excellent Latin, and even some, it is said, in Greek. The visitors were filled with astonishment, and asked them how they learned the ancient languages. “Oh,” they said, “every one about Mungret speaks Latin and Greek; that is nothing at all—‘mere crumbs from the monks’ table’—would you like to talk philosophy and theology with us?” When the strangers saw that even the women were so learned they knew they would have no chance at all if they met the monks; so they decamped right off, leaving the victory to the ‘wise women of Mungret.’
Mungret is finely situated on a gently rising sweep of fertile land, close to Lord Emly’s beautiful demesne at Tervoe, about three miles to the south-west of Limerick. It commands a grand view of several reaches of the Shannon, with the pine clad hills of Clare rising in the distance beyond the river. Once more, too, bands of students roam through its meadows; and in statelier halls than St. Nessan built the languages and philosophy of Greece and Rome are taught to eager disciples. There is once more a great college at Mungret; once more its students come from afar to seek sanctity and learning under the shadow of the ancient Church of St. Nessan. The Jesuits have there established, since 1884, a College and an Apostolic School, both of which have achieved wonderful success during the brief period of their existence. May St. Nessan, and all the saints of Mungret, help them to revive the ancient glories of their own monastic school, and to send to foreign lands missionaries of the Celtic race, as zealous and as learned as the men who in olden days carried the faith and fame of Erin from the Shannon’s banks through so many distant lands, even to the utmost shores of Calabria.
II.—The School of Iniscaltra.