In A.D. 969, Eoghan O’Cleirigh, ‘Bishop of Connaught,’ died. The reference here is probably to a prelate resident at Tuam, for in A.D. 1085 Aedh O’Hoisin, whose death is entered under that year, is described by the Four Masters as comarb of Jarlath, and High-bishop (ard-epscoip) of Tuam. This is the first distinct reference to a Bishop of Tuam since the decease of St. Jarlath.

From this period, however, the prelates of Tuam appear prominently in the history of the western province. Just at this time the O’Conor family reached a high degree of power, and retained it for three generations over the entire province. There was a long and bitter struggle between that family and the O’Brians of Kincora for the pre-eminence, which continued for nearly a hundred years. After the death of Turlough O’Brian, King of Ireland ‘with opposition,’ in A.D. 1085, the O’Conors gained the ascendency. Turlough Mor O’Conor was the most powerful prince in Ireland for fifty years, from A.D. 1106 to his death in A.D. 1156. He is described by the Four Masters as King of all Ireland, but ‘with opposition.’ They add that “Turlough Mor O’Conor was the flood of the glory and splendour of Ireland, the Augustus of the West of Europe, a man full of charity and mercy, hospitality and chivalry: and he died after the sixty-eighth year of his age, and was interred at Clonmacnoise, beside the altar of Ciaran, after having made his will, and distributed gold and silver, cows and horses, amongst the clergy and churches of Ireland in general.” We shall see presently, when treating of Celtic art in Clonmacnoise and the West of Ireland, that if Turlough was not the Augustus of the West of Europe, he was certainly the Augustus of the West of Ireland. He was succeeded without opposition by his degenerate son, Rory O’Conor, the last monarch of Ireland.

CHAPTER XXII—(continued).

CELTIC ART IN THE WESTERN MONASTERIES DURING THE REIGN OF TURLOUGH O’CONOR.

“He stepped a man out of the ways of men,
And no one knew his sept, or rank, or name—
Like a strong stream issuing from a glen,
From some source unexplored, the Master came.”
—M‘Gee’s ‘Gobban Saer.’

We have said that Turlough Mor O’Conor was, if not the Augustus of Western Europe, certainly the Augustus of the West of Ireland. During his long reign of fifty years Celtic art reached its highest degree of perfection, at least in three great branches—architecture, sculpture, and metal work. He was inaugurated as king of the Siol Muireadhaigh in the year A.D. 1106; and he went to his rest, beside the altar of Ciaran in Clonmacnoise in A.D. 1156, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. With his own right hand he fought his way through more than fifty battles to the kingship of all Erin—an honour to which no prince of his line had ever before attained since the time of Niall the Great. He had a clear head, too, as well as a strong arm; and thoroughly appreciated the force of the royal maxim—divide et impera. Neither did he neglect, so far as he could, the arts of peace. He made many roads and causeways through woods and morasses that were hitherto impenetrable; he built bridges over the Shannon and Suck, and fortified them with strong castles. He caused money to be regularly coined at Clonmacnoise for the convenience of commercial transactions. He had a great fleet of boats on the Shannon for trading, as well as for warlike purposes. He founded a chair of divinity in the great School of Armagh, to which we have already referred. He erected a hospital at Tuam for the aged and infirm, and was most munificent in rebuilding and adorning the churches of his own hereditary dominions with all those beautiful monuments of Celtic art to which we now propose to direct special attention.

I.—The O’Duffys.

Augustus always finds a Maecenas; and it was doubtless owing to the powerful patronage of Turlough that in all his cathedral cities members of a great and talented ecclesiastical family held the crozier, to whom quite as much as to himself we owe many of the most beautiful specimens of Celtic art still extant in Ireland. This was the family of the O’Duffys (Ua Dubhthaig), which flourished throughout the whole of the twelfth century, and gave bishops or abbots to Clonmacnoise, to Roscommon, to Tuam, to Clonfert, to Cong, to Mayo, and to Boyle. The O’Duffys originally belonged to the Province of Leinster, for they were sprung from the race of Cathair Mor, who divided that province amongst his twenty-four sons. But later on some members of the family settled both in Galway and Roscommon, and appear to have risen to a good position; although they are not mentioned by O’Dugan, who doubtless regarded them as more or less strangers in the West. They seem at this period to have been located in Roscommon, for the earliest reference we find to any member of the family is to Flanagan Ruadh O’Duffy, successor of St. Coman of Roscommon, and also it appears, a ferlegind, or professor, of the School of Tuam. His death is recorded in A.D. 1097. Domhnall O’Duffy, who died in A.D. 1136, is called in the Annals of Loch Cé, Bishop of Elphin, and comarb or successor of Ciaran in Clonmacnoise. The Four Masters call him High-bishop of Connaught,[402] because he was doubtless the most distinguished prelate of his time, for as yet there was no metropolitan See of Tuam. Domhnall’s death took place in the monastery of Clonfert ‘after Mass and Celebration;’ and he appears to have been much regretted, for he is described as the head of the wisdom and hospitality of the entire province. He was buried on St. Patrick’s Day in Clonfert; the true year seems to be A.D. 1137 (Annals of Lough Cé).