The Latin hymns of this [ancient Church] will be found in the “Leabhar imuin” (Book of Hymns) and the Bangor Antiphonary, both miscellanies of odes, canticles, blessings, prayers, &c. Altogether the number is upwards of thirty. The “Leabhar imuin” is a MS. of the ninth or tenth century in Trinity College Library, Dublin, of which two thirds have been printed. The first part, edited by the late Dr Todd, appeared in 1855, and contained the following four hymns, with extensive annotations from the “Leabhar Breac,” &c.:—1, The Hymn of St. Sechnall in praise of St. Patrick; 2, The Hymn of St. Ultán in praise of St. Brigit; 3, The Hymn of Cummain Fota in praise of the Apostles; 4, The Hymn of St. Mugint. These are specimens of the terminology of the hymn titles.
The Bangor Antiphonary is a MS. in the Ambrosian Library, Milan. It was written between 680 and 691; and was printed by Muratori in 1713. Some of the pieces in this MS. have a historical, as well as a devotional value, such as “The Versicles of the Family of Benchor,” and “The Commemoration of our Abbots,” in which the names of fifteen abbots of the Bangor (County Down) monastery are given in the same order in which their obits occur in the annals. Dr Reeves speaks well of its accuracy, considering that the MS. has been some 1200 years absent from Ireland. These are the sources in which this Latin hymnology of the ancient Gaels will be found. They are not very accessible. As already remarked, versions of them will be also found in the “Leabhar Breac;” some of them were printed by Sir James Ware, in the appendix to his “Opuscula S. Patricii;” while the Isidore Codex of the “Leabhar imuin” recently brought from Rome to Dublin, has never yet been printed. These MSS., written in a peculiar ornate style, have become known to archæologists under the description “libri Scottice Scripti,” (books written in Scotch).
Some of these devotional compositions are as old as the fourth century, such as the “Hymnum dicat” ascribed to Hilary, and the “Mediæ noctis,” ascribed to the famous Ambrose of Milan. The “[Audite Omnes]” was composed by Sechnall, the nephew of Patrick, towards the close of the fifth century, in praise of the Irish apostle. This piece, rather a poem than a hymn, bears to have been written “in Domhnach Sechnaill,” (now Dunshaughlin in Meath), by the St. Sechnall, or Secundinus, who was a son of Patrick’s sister, “by her husband Restitutus” of the “Longobards of Leatha.” The superscription reminds us of the fact that the Scots and the Gaidels were the same people, whether found in Ireland or parts of Britain. It runs thus: “Incipit Ymnus sancti Patricii episcopi Scotorum.” (“The hymn beginning, St. Patrick, Bishop of the Scots.”) The following note on it occurs in the “Leabhar Breac”: “Tempus autem.” (“But the time”);—viz: “when Leogaire, son of Niall, was King of Eirinn came to praise Patrick. Sechnall said to Patrick, ‘When shall I make a hymn of praise for thee?’ Patrick said, ‘I desire not to be so praised during my life.’ Sechnall answered, ‘Non interrogavi utrum faciam, sed quando faciam.’ (‘I did not ask whether I should do it, but when’). Patrick said, ‘Si facias venit tempus.’ (‘If you do it, the time has come’)—i.e. because Patrick knew that the time of his (Sechnall’s) death was at hand.” In the third verse we have the old Scottic interpretation of the famous passage in Matthew on which St. Peter’s chair is founded:—
“Constans in Dei timore
Et fide immobilis
Super quem aedificatur
Ut Petrum Ecclesia.”
“Constant in the fear of God, [and immovable in] faith, upon him as upon a Peter is built a Church.”
The student of these ancient writings is surprised to find the modern Irish persist in making Patrick a Frenchman. In the “Leabhar Breac” the following note, as decisive of his nationality, occurs in connection with this hymn. “Patraic umorro do bretnaibh h ercluaide a bunadus.” “Now Patrick in his origin was of the Britons of Er-Cluaide”—i.e. of the Strathclyde Britons, among whom his name has found its topographical monument in Kilpatrick, as already pointed out.
The ancient Christian Scots had their own saints, to whom they were naturally attached as the fathers of their Church. The names of Patrick, Columba, and others, as well as of Brigit constantly occur in these Latin Hymns. Brigit comes next in importance to Patrick in Hibernian hagiology. Ultán’s hymn in praise of her begins with these words, “Christus in nostra insola que uscatur hibernia;” and towards the end, the “angelic and most holy Brigit” in all her wondrous works of power, is spoken of as “like unto the holy Mary.” We have only fragments of this poem. It appears to have been originally composed, like Sechnall’s and several others in these MSS., in the A B C style, with a stanza for each letter of the alphabet. There is another found in the beginning of an old Celtic copy of the Greek Psalter, in praise of Brigit, whose feast day is also celebrated in another, “Phœbi diem.” The feast day of Patrick has also its celebration hymn, beginning thus: “Lo, the solemn feast day of Patrick is shining most brightly.”