Another celebrated nursery of ancient sanctity and learning flourished in the island of Iniscaltra, especially during the seventh and eighth centuries. This beautiful island is situated in the south-western angle of Lough Derg, where that great expansion of the Shannon runs in towards the village of Scariff, between the Counties of Galway and Clare. It is elliptical in shape, and contains 45 statute acres of exceedingly fertile land, so that £100 per annum has been frequently paid for the grazing of the island. It belongs to the county Galway, but ecclesiastically the island is a portion of the parish of the same name, in the diocese of Killaloe. The gaze of every stranger is at once arrested by the stately round tower, which rises up in lonely grandeur from this green speck in the placid bosom of the lake, marking the spot where the saints of old sought communion with God, and spent their lives in prayer, and fasting, and sacred study. No one now dwells on this lonely and beautiful island; and indeed it would be a profanation to erect a building for the common-place purposes of every-day life on its sacred soil. Better—far better—to leave its tower, its graveyards, and its ruined churches to be the lone and silent memorials of the vanished past, than to mar their holy memories by association with anything that would be commonplace or trivial.
Mention is first made of this island in A.D. 548, when, as the Four Masters and the Annals of Ulster record, “Colum of Inis-cealtra died” of the Crom Chonaill, or Yellow Plague, which then for the first time, but not for the last, depopulated these countries, and carried off amongst others many of the most distinguished saints and scholars of ancient Erin. The Four Masters record in this same year, and probably from the same cause, the death of St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise, St. Tighernach of Clones, St. Finnian of Clonard, the tutor of the saints of Ireland, St. Colum of Inis-cealtra, and also of St. MacTail of Old Kilcullen, of Sincheall of Druimfada, now Killeigh, in King’s County, of St. Odhran of Latteragh, on the eastern slopes of Keeper Hill, and of St. Colum, son of Ninnidh, called also Colum Mac Hy-Crimthainn, the celebrated founder of Terryglass. It is highly probable that the two Colums here mentioned, Colum of Inis-cealtra, and Colum Mac Hy-Crimthainn, were really one and the same person; but the transcriber finding Colum in one place, called ‘Colum of Iniscaltra,’ and in another place ‘Colum of Terryglass’—Tir-da-glas—thought they were different persons, and recorded them as such.
The Life of St. Columba of Terryglass, recently published in the Salamanca MS., shows how this error may have arisen. This St. Columba was of Lagenian origin, for his patronymic, Mac Hy-Crimthainn, is derived from an ancestor, who was King of Leinster five generations before. His father, Ninnidh, seems to have been born not far from Clonenagh, in Queen’s County, for in his youth we are told that the saint learned his psalms and hymns from a holy old man named Colman Cule, who lived in that neighbourhood, and founded the Church of Cluain Cain. This has been identified with great probability as Clonkeen, near Clonenagh, in the Queen’s County. Columba afterwards studied under the celebrated Finnian of Clonard, and he, with his greater namesake, Columba of Iona, is reckoned amongst the Twelve Apostles of Erin, who studied together at that great school. When he was sufficiently trained in all spiritual knowledge at Clonard, we are told that he resolved to go to Rome, and bring home with him some of the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul. On his return he came to St. Martin’s monastery at Tours, where he was privileged to obtain the staff and chrismal of that saint, which he carried home with him to Erin. He also visited England during this return journey, and preached with some success to the still unconverted Saxons. Returning home to Leinster his brother Cairbre offered him a place called Echargabul, on which to build a church and monastery; but he preferred to leave in that place one of his disciples called Cronan, who was a foreigner. Afterwards, with his disciples, he remained a year at Clonenagh,[376] and then crossing Slieve Bloom he came to Hy-Many of the Connaughtmen, and founded a church, where he had a flock of 700 souls, at a place called Tir Snama, which seems to have been not far from Lough Derg; for we are told that shortly afterwards he founded other churches near the lake, called Aurraith Tophiloc and Tuam Bonden, where he dwelt for some time.
Then an angel appearing to him bade him go to the island Keltra—since called Iniscaltra. At that time a certain old man dwelt on the island, called Maccrihe; but the angel told him to leave the island to St. Columba, which he willingly did.
Thus we find St. Columba of Terryglass established at Iniscaltra, where he remained a ‘long time,’ and where he was miraculously supported for a while by the liquor that distilled from a lime tree growing on the island. The birds that lived on the island, too, became quite familiar with the saint; and when Nadcumius, one of his disciples, asked him the reason, he gave a very beautiful reply. “Am I not a bird myself,” he said—“why should they fear me, for my soul always flies to heaven, as they fly through the sky?” It is said that on one occasion, when one of his ‘family’ died suddenly on the shore opposite the northern part of the island at Mount Shannon, he ordered his monks to go and say to the dead man—“Columba bids thee arise”—and the dead man arose and returned with them to the island.
Whilst at Iniscaltra the saint seems to have made frequent voyages over the lake. On one of these occasions seeing the place, ‘where Terryglass now is,’ rising over the broad waters of the lake, towards the east, he said, “Oh! that my resurrection would take place from that sweet spot”—a wish that was destined afterwards to be fulfilled.
Crowds of people came to visit the saint and his companions at Iniscaltra, so that he pined for some more lonely spot, where he might hide himself far away from men. Accordingly he embarked in his curragh, as we may suppose, then shooting the rapids, and sailing out into the estuary of the Shannon, called Luimnech, he established himself with a few companions in a lonely island, called ‘Insula Erci’ in the Latin Life, which may, perhaps, have been corrupted into Iniscorcy, the name of an island in the bay formed by the Fergus River, close to Kilydysart. The place, at any rate, was west-north-west (a circio) of Mungret, not very far away; and had, close at hand, another small island, to which the saint was sometimes in the habit of retiring, in order, it would seem, to be still more alone with God.
From this island he was called away to visit his master, St. Finnian of Clonard, who had been stricken with the yellow plague, and anxiously longed to receive the Holy Communion from his hands. The saint at once set out for far-distant Meath, a ten days’ journey, and arrived in time to give the ‘sacrifice’ to his beloved master before he died of that dreadful pestilence. It was in the year, it seems, A.D. 551 or 552 (548 with the Four Masters).
The blessed Columba himself seems to have caught the contagion whilst attending his dear old master; for retiring to a neighbouring place called Cluain Hii, where one of his old fellow-students had founded a church, he sickened and died of the same disorder towards the close of the same year—his festival day being December 13th, as marked in all our Calendars.
The men of Meath learning that so great a saint had died amongst them, were unwilling to let the blessed body be carried off, so that his companions had recourse to stratagem to convey the body secretly away. But even this they could not effect until a year after the saint’s death, so closely were they watched by the men of Meath. At last they hid the remains of their beloved father in a waggon, covered over with oats, and taking several other waggons also, as if for the purpose of bringing a supply of provisions with them, they set out for the Shannon, choosing the road towards Clonmacnoise. There they were hospitably received; and they told the abbot, in confidence, of the blessed burden which they bore along with them. The abbot then greatly rejoiced, and wished to have the holy relics kept at Clonmacnoise; but the brethren would not consent. Terryglass, blessed by St. Patrick, on the swelling shore of the beautiful Lough Derg, was chosen by himself to be ‘the place of his resurrection;’ so the Abbot-Ængus, next successor to St. Ciaran, let them go in peace with his blessing. But the men of Meath now began to suspect that their treasure was taken away, and followed quickly after, headed by the prince of the southern Hy-Niall, Colman Beg. The brethren, however, had already embarked; and when Colman took the helm to pursue them, Nadcumius threatened him with God’s anger if he followed them further. So for the time he turned back, and the monks with swelling sail and sturdy oar quickly traversed the lake, and came to Iniscaltra, where they buried the saint in secret for seven years, giving out, it seems, that his remains reposed at Terryglass.[377] We are told that the lake was lit up with a heavenly light of marvellous beauty during all the time that the body of the saint was borne over its heaving bosom.