Meantime the men of Meath, for seven years, kept watch around Terryglass, to see if they could get a chance of recovering their lost treasure; but finding no opportunity, they returned at last to their homes. Only then did the faithful Nadcumius transfer the holy relics from Iniscaltra to Terryglass, and thus carry out at length the dying wish of his beloved master. The men of Meath saw the bright beams that shone from heaven over all the lake on the night the holy relics were transferred; and at last reluctantly said—“Let us cease this toil. The saint chose this place for himself; let him rest in peace there for ever.”
Such is the account given in the Life; but in the Leabhar Breac, it is stated that the relics of Colum, son of Crimthann, were taken by Mochoemhe of Terryglass, and by Odhran the Master, on a wain southwards over Esge, to Caimin of Iniscaltra. Esge is a corruption of Echtge, the ancient and correct name of the Slieve Aughty mountains, that separate Galway from Clare. As St. Caimin was certainly not then in Iniscaltra, this would seem to point to a subsequent translation of the holy relics once more to the beautiful island where Columba had spent so many years. His successor, Caimin, had, it would seem, rendered the island once more a celebrated home of learning and piety, and wished to possess at least a portion of the blessed body of his illustrious predecessor.
Columba died A.D. 552; St. Caimin, the still more famous saint of Iniscaltra, and who has always been regarded as its patron, died, according to the Annals of Innisfallen, just one hundred years later, in A.D. 653; so that Caimin cannot have been a disciple of Columba. He came, however, of the same royal Lagenian race of Cathair Mor, for his father Dima, or Dimma, belonged to Hy-Kinsellagh, but his mother Cumaine, who was also, it is said, the mother of Guaire, King of Connaught, and of Cummian Fada, Bishop of Clonfert, belonged originally to the west of the County Kerry. We know little of the life of this great saint. He appears to have been present at the Synod of Easdara, now Ballysadare, which was held by St. Columba, and attended by the principal saints of Erin about the year A.D. 580 or 585. In that case the saint must have been born about the middle of the sixth century, and reached the age of one hundred years before he died. It is still more difficult to explain how he could have been a friend and contemporary of St. Senan of Scattery Island, who died about the year A.D. 544.
It is certain, however, that Caimin has always enjoyed the reputation of being himself a distinguished scholar, and the master of a very famous school. Lanigan tells us that he wrote “a Commentary on the Psalms collated with the Hebrew text,” a portion of which Usher says that he himself saw, and that both the text and notes were generally regarded as in the handwriting of St. Caimin.
If this be the fragment of the Commentary on the 119th Psalm, now in Merchants’ Quay, Dublin, that handwriting is certainly marvellously beautiful, but there is, we believe, no appearance of any collation with the Hebrew text. This fragment was once in the Franciscan Convent of Donegal; afterwards, it was in Colgan’s possession, and has now fitly returned to the representatives of the original owners.
Caimin’s school at Iniscaltra attracted, we are told, great numbers of pupils, even from foreign countries. In the Life of St. Senan reference is made to seven ships that arrived in the Shannon crowded with students seeking this island college of St. Caimin. Some poems have been attributed also to the saint, but without good authority. At present the remnant of the 119th Psalm is all that can fairly be regarded as his; but when complete, it must have been a very beautiful and most interesting specimen of our ancient Latin MSS.
Belonging, as he did, to the ruling classes, and connected by blood with several of the provincial kings, being, moreover, a man of great wisdom and virtue, Caimin seems to have exercised very considerable influence over the course of public events in his own time. Guaire, his half-brother, much against the wish and counsel of Caimin, provoked the King of Tara at the time, Diarmaid, son of Aedh Slaine, to a pitched battle at a place called Carn Conall, near Gort. Guaire was defeated, and his allies, the kings of Munster and Hy-Fidhgeinte, were slain on the field, thus verifying Caimin’s predictions of the disastrous consequences that would certainly result to the authors of this unjust war. The Four Masters say this great battle was fought in A.D. 645, but A.D. 648 or 649 seems to be the true date.
It would seem, from the curious story told by the Scholiast on the Felire of Ængus, that Caimin was afflicted during the latter years of his life with many painful diseases, which he bore in a spirit of perfect resignation. On a certain occasion when Guaire, Caimin, and Cummian were together in the great church of Iniscaltra, which Caimin had built, and the two saints were giving spiritual counsel to Guaire, Caimin said to his brother, “Well, Guaire, what would you wish to have this church filled with?” “With gold and silver,” replied Guaire, “that I might give it in charity to the saints and to the poor for the good of my soul.” Cummian, in answer to the same question, said he would wish to have it filled with books, for learned men to instruct others in the Word of God; but Caimin himself when asked the same question, said he wished it full of all diseases and sicknesses to afflict his body. And we are told that each of the brothers got his wish from heaven, “so that sickness and disease came on Caimin, and not one bone of him remained united to the other on earth, but his flesh was dissolved, and his nerves with the excess of every disease that fell upon him.” On account, doubtless, of this penitential spirit, Caimin has been likened, by an old author, to Pachomius the monk, one of the great fathers of Eastern monasticism. The monastic school of Caimin continued to flourish for many centuries after his death, and produced several distinguished scholars, whose names are still held in great veneration by the learned.
The ruined monuments still remaining at Iniscaltra, and now happily in charge of the Board of Works, sufficiently attest the ancient importance of the religious establishment on “Holy Island.” The peasantry still speak of it as the “Seven Churches,” and the island is almost invariably called ‘Holy Island,’ which shows the reverence that still clings to its ruined walls. The round tower which, in the distance, seems to rise from the waters of the lake, is a strikingly beautiful and picturesque object in the landscape. It is still 80 feet high, 46 feet in circumference, with an internal diameter of nearly 8 feet. The stones in the lower courses are very large, and the masonry of a massive character for the first seven or eight feet; after that the work becomes coarser and more irregular, and the stones are much smaller. The door-way is 10 feet 7 inches above the present level—anciently it was much more. There is a single window for each of the different lofts, looking towards the cardinal points, and lighting the different storeys. The northern window is formed of finely cut stone, and is triangular outside, but square-beaded within.
There is probably no foundation for the local tradition which ascribes the building of this tower, as well as those of Inis Clorann and Scattery Island, to St. Senanus. It is much more likely that it was built at the close of the tenth, or the beginning of the eleventh century, by Brian Boru, who also erected or repaired the great church, which had been more than once partially destroyed by the Danes. The door-way of the tower is circular-headed, and formed of very finely-chiselled blocks of stone. It was anciently secured by an iron door—the bolt hole and traces of its fastenings were visible in 1838, when O’Donovan visited the island, and one of the floors existed, in the memory of an old man then living; no traces, however, of the flooring now remain.