As to the alleged death of Cairnech in A.D. 530, that Cairnech, whose festival day is set down on the 28th of May, was quite different from St. Cairnech of Tuilen (now Tulane in Meath), whose festival is the 16th of May, and who is said to have been one of the British saints, probably from Cornwall, that accompanied St. Patrick to Ireland. He it was who was chosen to act on the Commission which produced the Senchus Mor.
Benignus was a mere boy of some sixteen years of age when Patrick stayed for a night at the mouth of the Nanny River near Duleek, and being weary from his journey the Saint fell asleep on the green sward. Then the boy gathered sweet-smelling flowers and tenderly laid them in the Saint’s bosom as he slept. “Stop doing that lest thou awake Patrick,” said the others; and thereupon Patrick awoke, and blessed the boy, and foretold that he was to be the heir of his kingdom. So the boy was baptized and ever afterwards followed the Saint, who appointed him his Coadjutor Bishop in the See of Armagh, so early as A.D. 450. Benignus being young and carefully trained by St. Patrick, and also learned in the Irish tongue, in all probability acted as Secretary to the Commission, and drafted with his own hands the laws that were sanctioned by the Seniors. According to O’Donovan he was also the original author of the famous Chronicle called the Psalter of Cashel, which gives a full account of the laws, rights and prerogatives of the Monarchs of Ireland, and especially of the Kings of Cashel. He seems also to have been the original author of the Book of Rights, although in its present form it gives manifest proof of considerable changes, and much later emendations.
Daire, the only remaining member of whom it is necessary to make any remark, seems to have been the same who granted Armagh to St. Patrick as a site for his Cathedral, and whose daughter was one of the first, if not the very first of the Irish maidens, who took the veil from the hands of St. Patrick, and with her companions, some the daughters of kings, spent her life of utter purity in working vestments for the priests, and altar-cloths for the service of the Cathedral. Yet romance was mingled with her name, for she:—
“The best and fairest,
King Daire’s daughter, Erenait by name,
Had loved Benignus in her Pagan years.
He knew it not; full sweet to her his voice,
Chanting in choir. One day through grief of love
The maiden lay as dead; Benignus shook
Dews from the font above her, and she woke,
With heart emancipate that out-soared the lark,
Lost in the blue heavens. She loved the Spouse of Souls.”[68]
Such was the Commission of Nine selected by St. Patrick to purify the ancient pagan Code. We have still in existence the fruit of their labours substantially unchanged, although as we might expect, a vast mass of accretions, in the shape of commentaries and glosses, has gathered round the original text. The Nine were, however, the real authors of the Senchus Mor, which still furnishes the most abundant and authentic materials for the study of our national history. It is a very large work, and the archaic text was so obscure that even O’Donovan and O’Curry were sometimes unable to explain its meaning. It is certainly the greatest monument in existence of the learning and civilization of the ancient Gaedhlic race in Erin.
St. Patrick not only reformed the State Organization, he also established a Church Organization in Ireland. He knew well that it was not enough to preach, and baptize, and build churches; it was necessary, if his work was to endure, to train a native ministry, and organize the native Church in harmony with the institutions and character of the Celtic tribes in Ireland. It was a very difficult task; for the tribes were still very simple and primitive in their habits, and were moreover devotedly attached to the tribal institutions, which had come down to them from a remote antiquity.
In accomplishing this task, which he did with perfect success, Patrick displayed singular firmness and prudence. Whenever there was question of principle, that is, of the truths of the Gospel and the teaching of the Church, he was, as might be expected, unyielding as the rock. But, on the other hand, he was no root-and-branch reformer; he dealt most tenderly with the usages and with the prejudices of the people. He utilized whatever was good in their existing habits and institutions, reformed what was imperfect, and lopped off what was evil. With druidism, for instance, he could make no terms. There could be no alliance between Christ and Belial; it must be utterly rooted out of the land. Not so with the Brehons, and the Brehon Code. He made no attempt to introduce the Roman Civil Law into Ireland; it would have been utterly unsuited to the tribal system. But he reformed the Brehon Code, and retained “all the judgments of a true nature, which the Holy Ghost had spoken through the mouths of the Brehons, and the just Poets of the men of Erin,” thus winning over to his side that influential Order, who might otherwise have been arrayed against the propagation of the Gospel.
In like manner he dealt with the Bards. In a spirit of consummate prudence, he sought to secure the aid of that powerful corporation for his infant Church, and succeeded in establishing a friendly alliance with the Arch-Poet of Erin. Dubthach Mac Ua Lugair held the twofold office of Chief Poet and Chief Brehon of Ireland, and St. Patrick utilized his influence and his services in both capacities. He was the working head of the Commission for the reformation of the Brehon Laws; but St. Patrick seems also to have secured his influence as Chief Poet in procuring eligible candidates for the sacred ministry from the schools of the Bards—the most lettered class in the community. It was thus the young poet, Fiacc of Sletty, was ordained by Patrick on the advice and at the suggestion of Dubthach. St. Patrick indeed had every reason to be grateful to the Arch-Poet; he was the first to believe in the Saint’s teaching at Tara, and rose up to do him honour even against the king’s command; he aided in reforming the laws; he gave his most promising young pupils for the service of the altar, including several of his own sons, who otherwise would doubtless have followed the profession of their father.
This friendly alliance between St. Patrick and the Bardic Order is personified in the story of Ossian’s relations with the Saint. According to the legend the venerable old man had long survived the fall of his house, and the destruction of the Fenian chivalry on the fatal field of Gabhra, yet lived on to find himself friendless and helpless under a new and strange order of things in Christian Erin. But Patrick in the true spirit of the Gospel took the homeless old man under his own protection, and, treating him with the greatest generosity and forbearance, sought to console him for the vanished glories of the heroic past, and fill his mind with brighter visions of a more glorious and immortal future beyond the grave:—
“Patrick, this other boon I crave,[69]
That I to thee in heaven may sing
Full loud the glories of the brave,
And Fionn, my sire and king.”
“Oisin, in heaven the praises swell
To God alone from soul and saint;”
“Then Patrick, I their deeds will tell
In little whisper faint.”
“Prince of thy country’s tuneful choir,
Thou wert her golden tongue.
Sing thou the new strain, ‘I believe,’
Give thou to God her song.”