Of Colman’s further history we know nothing except the date of his death. Doubtless with his Celtic sympathies he preferred to live in his island retreat; although of course he visited from time to time the English monks of Mayo. But they had now got a ‘canonical abbot’ of their own, one elected by themselves and were, it seems, an entirely independent community. Their subsequent history shows that the monastery of Mayo, as Bede says, became a large establishment, and ultimately an episcopal See.
Colman’s death is noticed by the Four Masters in A.D. 674; the Annals of Ulster enter it under A.D. 675; but the true year appears to be A.D. 676—the ninth after his arrival in Inisboffin. All our martyrologies give his festival on the 8th of August. In the Felire of Ængus he is set down as the “praiseworthy Colman of Inis-bo-finde;” and the scholiast describes that island as situated in the western sea off Connemara in the west of Connaught. There, too, he was buried.
Bede, while strongly dissenting from Colman’s views on the Easter Question, bears noble testimony to his many virtues. He was much beloved, he says, by King Oswy, on account of his singular discretion. Then he adds that the place (Lindisfarne) he governed shows how frugal he and his predecessors were; how they despised earthly goods; and kept no money which they did not give to the poor; how their whole care was to serve God, not the world—to feed the soul, and not the belly. Hence the religious habit was then held in great veneration; the monk was joyfully received everywhere, and people from all quarters ran to get his blessing. When these Irish monks went into a village, it was either to preach, baptize, visit the sick, or otherwise take care of souls. They refused to endow their monasteries with lands or other possessions, content to preach the Gospel and to live by the labour of their hands, and the small alms of the faithful. It is not wonderful that they converted Northumbria, and that even in these unbelieving days of ours the memory of the Irish monks of Lindisfarne is still revered by men of all classes and of all creeds.
II.—St. Gerald of Mayo.
St. Gerald was in all probability the first ‘canonical abbot’ whom the Saxons of Mayo elected with the assent of Colman to preside over that famous monastery. There is a Life of this saint given by Colgan at the 13th of March, his festival day.[390] It was evidently not written for a considerable period after the saint’s death; and although containing much that Lanigan calls ‘sorry stuff,’ it still furnishes us with some valuable information. The composition of the Life has been attributed to Augustin Magraidin, the compiler of the celebrated manuscript belonging to the Monastery of All Saints in Lough Ree. The substance of Magraidan’s strange biography is as follows:—
Whilst Colman was Archbishop of Northumbria, the king of that or some neighbouring territory, Cusperius by name, sent his four sons to be educated under Colman’s care at Lindisfarne. Their names were Gerald, Balanus, Berikertus and Hubritanus or Hulbritanus. The queen, their mother, was called Benitia. And here, by way of parenthesis, we may observe that it is not a little remarkable to find the names of these holy brothers in our domestic martyrologies. Balloin of Tech-Saxon (in the co. Mayo) is given in the Martyrology of Donegal on the 3rd of September; Beretchert of Tolach-leis is given at the 6th of December; and Huildbriti at the 24th of April, is given both by Marianus O’Gorman and the Martyrology of Tallaght. The four brothers were instructed by Colman in the liberal arts, in theology, and in monastic discipline, and seem to have become greatly attached to their master.
It is said that Gerald became Abbot of Winton before Colman’s departure from Lindisfarne. When these four brothers saw how the kings and clergy of Northumbria rejected the discipline and authority of Colman, they resolved to leave their native country and accompany their beloved master to Ireland. There was nothing to detain them in England. Their mother was dead, and their father, it seems, entered on a career of crime, which hastened their departure. And so, says the Life, embarking in their fleet of ships, or rather boats, and taking with them all necessaries, they set sail and landed at the ‘mouth of the Shannon in Connaught.’[391] The subsequent narrative, however, shows that it is much more probable that they landed at the mouth of the river Moy near Killala, for it is in that district we find them shortly after their arrival.
It was nothing new or strange for English princes and nobles to go to Ireland to be educated at this period. It is fortunate that on this point we have the unexceptional testimony of Bede himself. “Many of the nobility, and of the lower ranks of the English nation were there (in Ireland) at that time (when the pestilence broke out), who, in the days of the Bishops Finan and Colman, forsaking their native island, retired thither either for the sake of divine studies, or of a more continent life; and some of them at once devoted themselves to a monastic life; others chose rather to apply themselves to study, going about from one master’s cell to another. The Irish (Scoti) willingly received them all, and took care to supply them with food, and also to furnish them with books to read, and their teaching gratis.”[392]
It seems that the west of Ireland was, especially after the return of Colman, a favourite place of refuge for these Saxon scholars. In fact we find in all our native annals that the sons of Gartnait, King of the Picts, with the people of Sketh (probably Skye), made a voyage to Ireland in the very same year, according to the Ulster Annals, that Colman sailed for Inisbofinde. Their return to Scotland two years later is also mentioned, which shows that they spent at least two years, most probably in the West of Ireland, with Colman.