From the mid-5th century to the beginning of the Viking Wars in 795, the Irish experienced a golden age during which it found itself the center of education and culture in Europe as well as the preserver of its literary antiquities. Students from across the Continent and from next door flocked to its monastic schools, which quickly supplanted the druidic colleges.
Patrick’s first stay in Ireland was as a slave captured during a raid on Roman Britain by warriors from the island next-door. When he returned as missionary bishop, he did not go to the already evangelized south but to the pagan north (Ulster) and later the more pagan west (Connacht).
Enda’s abbey on Inishmore included what became the best known seminary and college of Ireland. Legend has it that Enda was granted the territory by the king of Munster, though since at this time the Aran Islands were ruled by a branch of the Corco Mruad in the later Co. Clare which was then part of Connacht, the donor was more likely the king of Connacht, or of Corco Mruad.
The exponential spread of schools across Ireland came with the generation that followed. St. Finnian founded Clonard around 520, the school mistakenly credited as the well-spring of the “Twelve Apostles of Ireland”. Later in that decade, St. Jarlath founded the abbey at Tuam which came to host among other things one of the best medical schools on the island. Two decades later, St. Ciaran the Younger founded Clonmacmoise, around 545, but died the next year ending a long life of teaching. St. Ida of Kileedy, “foster mother of the Irish saints”, established her abbey and its school in the middle of the century, as did St. Brendan of Clonfert.
Ireland’s greatest saint, St. Colmcille of Iona, born into the Cenel Connaill of the northern Ui Neill, is credited with founding 150 abbeys and other monasteries in Ireland and among the Cruithni (Picts) of northern Britain, not to mention hundreds of local churches. He established his first abbey among the Cenel Connaill at Derry in 545, the same year that Ciaran founded his last at Clonmacnoise the year before his death.
The Cruithni, incidentally, rather than being an entirely different ethnic group, were actually non-Romanized Britons in the northernmost reaches of the island of Britain, by this time having coalesced into two confederations whose descendants were to dominate the politics of Scotland down to the mid-13th century. In the latter two centuries of Rome’s dominance on the island of Great Britain, writers referred to its northern inhabitants as the Britticuni, or Little Britons.
Colmcille’s most prominent abbeys were at Doire (Derry) and Raphoe in Tir Connaill, Kells in Meath, and Iona in the Sea of the Hebrides in the sphere of influence of the Pictish kingdom of Fortrenn. The last became the single-most important and revered center of Christianity in Ireland and northern and western Britain until the Viking Age. No other see or abbey came close.
Besides manual labor and missionary work, one of the chief occupations of the Irish monks and nuns was collecting and copying literary works, not just Scripture or those of Christian theologians, but of classical authors shunned on the Continent. In fact, this function was so highly valued that a Scribe often ranked next to the Abbot in the day-to-day life of the Abbey (though as far as precedence ecclesiastically, it was the Bishop who ranked second to the Abbot). Had it not been for the Irish, along with the scholars of the Islamic Caliphate on the other side of the still extant Roman Empire, many of the most treasured of ancient works would have been lost entirely.
Aran of the Saints
What is by far the most important and influential Christian institution in Iar Connacht is the Abbey and College of St. Enda on the eastern end of Inishmore Island in Loch Lurgan in the area known as Killeany, founded in 485. Enda was a prince of the Airghialla in Ulster converted by his sister, St. Fanchea. After his conversion, he went to the abbey and school of St. Ninian at Candida Casa across the Irish Sea among the Novantae in the region of southwest Scotland later known as Galloway.
Though communal living had been a feature of the Irish church since Christianity was first introduced, Enda is called the father of Irish monasticism because his foundation was the first major house that practiced the asceticism of the Egyptian desert monks, with their life revolving around manual labor, prayer, and study.
Most accounts claim that Enda was given Aran by his brother-in-law, the then current king of Munster, but at the time the islands were ruled by a sept of the Corco Mruad. The main body of the Corco Mruad inhabited the northwest of what is now Co. Clare, the whole of which formed the southern territory of Connacht and was dominated by the Ui Fiachrach Aidne of Connacht. The later Co. Clare and the Aran Islands did not fall to the Eoghanachta until the mid-7th to early 8th century.
A disagreement between Enda and one of his disciples led to St. Brecan establishing another abbey at the western end of the island now known as Eoghacht. Another famous prodigy was St. Ciaran, later of Clonmacnoise, whom Enda encouraged to establish another monastery in the middle section of the island now called Mainistir. Around a dozen monasteries eventually dotted the landscape of the relatively tiny island.
Among other standout luminaries who lived, worked, studied, and trained under Enda and his colleagues and their successors were St. Colmcille of Iona, St. Brendan of Clonfert, St. Finnian of Moville, and St. Jarlath of Tuam.
At the beginning of the next century, upon finding Inishmore somewhat crowded for his taste, St. Cavan founded an abbey on Inisheer, the island closest to the coast of Aidne .
In addition to study and the contemplative life, the establishments of Inishmore evangelized the countryside, especially along the coast. Enda himself founded a satellite monastery on the northern shore of Loch Lurgan among the Delbhna Tir Da Locha at Ballynspiddal (Spiddal West). From there his monks spread out, founding two churches next to the monastery, two more among the Delbhna Tir Da Locha in Killagooly and Cloonif and one among the Delbhna Cuile Fabhair in Cloghanower.
Meanwhile, Brecan established a satellite monastery of his own among the Delbhna Tir Da Locha upon Rosmuck Peninsula at the head of Kilkieran Bay at Kilbrickan with a dependent church, and two other churches in the hinterland at Rosscahill East and at Kilannin.
One of Enda’s monks named Gregory made the first attempt to evangelize the Conmaicne Mara at the extreme northwest of their territory on Renvyle Peninsula, but he incurred the wrath of the local chieftain, and possibly the enmity of his druids. His subsequent beheading around the year 500 was one of the few cases of “red martyrdom” among the Irish during the period of evangelization. Better known as St. Ceannanach, he is now the patron saint of the parish of Ballynakill and once had a church dedicated to him on Inishmaan Island in the middle of the Aran archipelago. In the wake of his death, St. Rioch found a more hospitable reception among tribes from the same people, but somewhat to the south.
A companion of Enda’s, St. Coelan, set up a small monastery in Loch Orbsen on the island of Inishgarraunmore, where his mentor stayed with him for a time. The island lay in the territory of the Delbhna Tir Da Locha. There was another church on Croaghnakeela Island off the coast of Ballyconneely Peninsula south of Cashla Bay which may have been founded by him as well, plus another in the lands of the Delbhna Cuile Fabhair at Kildrum.
Aran was hardly the sole center of learning in Ireland, though it was the most famous, known throughout Christendom and even in the Caliphate. Other major schools included Clonmacnoise, Clonfert, Armagh, and Kildare, to name a very few of the very many.
The next generation of missionaries
After a seven-year stay on Inishmore, Enda’s disciple Ciaran left the island for the mainland, establishing a monastery and church in the southwest of the Conmaicne Mara territory, at Kilkieran on the western side of the mouth of the same-named bay. His greatest center in the vicinity, though, at least in later years, was the abbey he founded at Annaghdown among the Delbhna Cuile Fabhair.
While the abbey later came under the Rule of St. Brendan of Clonfert, the earliest mentions in the annals identify it as a foundation of Ciaran of Clonmacnoise. Under the later rulers of the territory, the Ui Briuin Seola also known as the Muintir Murchada, the abbey rose to become the center of a diocese that survived attempts to eradicate it by the rival see of Tuam until the 15th century.
In addition to these, Ciaran, or his disciples, established two churches among the Conmaicne Cuile Tolad at townlands both since named Kilkeerin. After a long life of teaching, Ciaran founded his crowning achievement, the abbey and school at Clonmacnoise. Unfortunately, his tenure as abbot there lasted only a year before he died in 546.
A Christian convert named Sinach left Inishmore in the early 6th century to live a life of contemplation as a hermit on a small island off the coast of Carna peninsula between Kilkieran and Cashla Bays. The island lies in the territory of the Conmaicne Mara. As so often happened with the green martyrs of Ireland, he began to attract disciples and companions to what is now known by his patronymic as St. Macdara’s Island.
Possibly working from a base on Inisheer Island where they are reputedly buried, the Seven Daughters of Connemara worked throughout the territory of that people, at least along the coast, and were revered throughout the territory. Also referred to as the Seven Sisters, none of them are known by name.
During the time he stayed on Inishmore, or perhaps immediately after leaving, St. Brendan established a monastery on Omey Island at the far western reaches of the territory of the Conmaicne Mara. He also organized a church on Inishnee Island off their southern coast.
The pinnacle of Brendan’s career was the abbey of Clonfert among the Ui Maine along with its college, which became their foremost Christian institutions, as well as one of the most respected in the Isles. From Clonfert, he established a satellite abbey and church among the Partraige an-t Sliebh in Iar Connacht.
Near Ciaran’s abbey at Annaghdown, he set up a convent for his sister St. Briga. When he retired from his position of abbot at Clonfert, Brendan went west to live near his sister and established a small abbey on Inchiquin Island in Loch Orbsen just off the coast. Upon handing over that post to St. Meldan, he lived in his sister’s convent until his death.
St. Brigid of Kildare visited the area and worked among its people, but confined herself to the Partraige an-t Sliebh, among whom she founded two churches.
Somewhat later in the century, most likely between the foundation of the abbey of Derry in 545 and the foundation of the abbey of Iona in 563, Colmcille returned to Iar Connacht, perhaps revisiting Inishmore initially, to plant a number of abbeys and churches. Here he established an abbey and church at Cloghmore on the shores of Loch Lurgan among the Delbhna Tir Da Locha, but there is no record of whom he left in charge there.
At the head of Loch Lurgan, a contemporary admirer of Colmcille, St. Colgan, established Kilcolgan Abbey in the territory of the Meadhraighe, while his sister, St. Foilan, established another just to the east at Killeely. Very active, Colgan established a daughter church just north across the river in Stradbally South, and also what became the parish church of Ballynacourty. Colgan later became abbot of Clonmacnoise.
In the lands of the Delbhna Cuile Fabhair, Colmcille founded Kilcoona Abbey and church at Kilcoona, leaving St. Cuana in charge. To the north, at the intersection of the lands of the Partraige an-t Sliebh, the Partraige Locha, and the Conmaicne Cuile Tolad, he set up an abbey and church on Inishmaine Island under the care of St. Cormac.
Cormac’s abbey established daughter churches on the islands of Inishrobe and Ilauncolmcille, making it a virtual Columban lake. The monks there are probably responsible for the church of Colmcille in the townland of Ballinchalla. From Kilcolgan Abbey, Colgan’s monks established at least one daughter church in Ballynacourty townland. Kilcoona Abbey founded daughter churches in Callownamuck among the Delbhna Tir Da Locha and at least one other among the Soghain to the east in Garrafine.
Before he founded the famous Fenagh Abbey in the lands of the Conmaicne Magh Rein, later of the Ui Briuin Breifne, St. Callin, a near contemporary of Colmcille, studied at Taghmon Abbey in Munster, under its abbot, St. Fintan. Callin was born among the Conmaicne Dunmore, just outside the boundaries of Iar Connacht. Though there is no record of any missionary activity by him in the region, there were churches dedicated to him in Dovepark and Killcallin among the Delbhna Tir Da Locha and among the Conmaicne Mara off the coast of Ballyconneely Peninsula on Chapel Island.
Iar Connacht’s third Christian century
In the late 6th century, a scion of the Cenel Aeda na hEchtage in Aidne later known as St. Colman Mac Duagh studied at Inishmore under the successors of Enda, then returned home early in the 7th century to found an abbey at Kilmacduagh that became the central institution among the Ui Fiachrach Aidne. His female associate St. Soarney founded an abbey at Drumacoo, probably a satellite of Kilmacduagh.
Among the Delbhna Cuile Fabhair, he or his monks founded an abbey and church at Baile Clair (now Claregalway), of which the church named for him in Moyrus townland in the territory of the Conmaicne Rein is probably a satellite. On the northeast shore of Loch Lurgan, among the Conmaicne Cuile Tolad, he or his monks founded an abbey and church in Ramolin, and another church at Kilmainebeg.
St. Mochua, also known as St. Cronan, founder of the abbey of Balla among the Partraige Ceara, established churches at Barna among the Delbhna Tir Da Locha and across Loch Orbsen at Annaghkeen among the Delbhna Cuila Fabhair.
After years of study at Brendan’s abbey on Inchiquin Island in Loch Orbsen under the founder’s successor Meldan, St. Fursey crossed to the shore and established Rathmat Abbey in the Killursa parish townland of Ower. Naturally, it followed the Rule of St. Brendan.
The abbey and its daughter church (called the Church of the Two Kings) in the townland of Killursa, both in territory then held by the Delbhna Cuila Fabhair, eventually became the patron establishments of the Ui Briuin Seola after their invasion and conquest of the region. Another daughter church stood among the Partraige Locha in Ballymacgibbon North.
Fursey became the first Irish missionary among the pagan English when he went to East Anglia in 633 with volunteers he recruited among his monks. He and some companions, both Saxon and Irish, departed for France in 644. Fursey died at Mezerolles, which was renamed Forsheim in his honor.
The founding saint of the 7th century monastery in the northern Delbhna Tir Da Locha townland of Lemonfield (formerly known as Kilcummin) may have been purely local, but this St. Cuimin could also be St. Cuimin Fada, abbot of Clonfert. That would explain why the O’Flahertys so readily adopted his cult after their exile from Maigh Seola (and displacement of the MacConroys and the O’Heaneys); their own patron St. Fursey also followed the Rule of St. Brendan.
Further west, on the peninsula now named for him between Mannin and Ardbear Bays, St. Flannan of Killaloe made his home at the monastery and church he established among the Conmaicne Mara. A colleague of Fechin of Cong, he later became abbot and bishop at St. Molua’s abbey at Killaloe. Flannan had another church at Gortnashingaun among the Delbhna Tir Da Locha, and he also worked among the Dal Riata in the Hebrides.
By far the most significant figure of this period is St. Fechin, for centuries dubbed the Apostle of Connemara. His principal house was at Fore, founded in 630, but in Connacht he is known as Fechin of Cong, after the abbey he founded there among the Partraige Locha on the outskirts of their territory with those of the Conmaicne Cuile Tolad. For a time the kings of Connacht made their home in its vicinity, raising its stature.
Histories disagree about the order in which Fechin founded his abbeys and other houses and churches, but Ballysadare Abbey among his own people the Luigne may have been his first house. He went west to the furthest reaches of the lands of the Conmaicne Mara, where he founded abbeys on Omey and High Islands. He had another abbey on Inishmaan Island among the Corco Mruad Arann, apparently having found Inishmore too crowded. Refusing the entreaties of his disciples, he continued aiding the stricken during the Plague of Connaill in the mid-660’s and eventually succumbed to it himself.
In the third quarter of the century, St. Colman, formerly of Lindisfarne, arrived in the extreme northwest of the territory of the Conmaicne Mara, bordering the lands of the Ui Mhaille. He came with a retinue of fellow Columban monks, exiles from Northumbria who were both Irish and Saxon. On the island of Inishbofin off the western coast, he founded an abbey for himself and the men who had come with him in 667.
After a year, it became obvious that habits of the Irish and of the Saxons were becoming incompatible. Colman therefore took his Saxon monks inland to the territory of the Ciarraighe, where he founded for them a house which became known for centuries as Mayo-na-Saxon since until the 12th century it housed only English monks. Mayo became an independent house under St. Gerald after two years.
Lesser known luminaries of Iar Connacht
In probably the 7th century, a hermit now called St. Leo set up a cell on the island of Inishark just south of Inishbofin. Like his fellow green martyr Macdara, he soon attracted a number of others seeking to emulate him.
The Delbhna Tir Da Locha had a St. Corkey, who established a church in the townland since named Kilcorkery.
A St. Kilkilvery had a church in Bunrabaun among the Delbhna Cuile Fabhair.
Nothing but a name is known of St. Mocan who had his abbey of Barraderry or St. Kelly who may have had the abbey of Maumeen on Gorumna Island (the former parish of Killinkelly and a chapel on the adjacent shore of the mainland were named for him).
Interestingly, there is a church named for a St. Cuthbert in the Delbhna Tir Da Locha townland of Curraghrevagh. Perhaps this refers to the St. Cuthbert who succeeded Colman as abbot and bishop of Lindisfarne. Or it could have been a same-named missionary from the abbey of Mayo-na-Saxon.
There are others, of course, but they are all listed in Part 11 at the end of this essay.
Some of the churches are not named for saints at all, though at least two of these are known to be dedicated to specific saints.
The Church of the Love of God on Inishmore Island is dedicated to St. Gobnait.
The intriguingly named Church of the Secret in the Tir Da Locha townland of Laghtgannon is dedicated to one St. Croinne, a virgin venerated in the Carlow area of Leinster.
The most interesting name of the others is the Church of the Thorns in Rathfee townland in the territory of the Delbhna Cuile Fabhair.
Later milestones related to the early Irish church
Many of these actually took place during the century-and-a-half long conversion of Iar Connacht. While they may have affected the region’s periphery, they were not intrinsic to events within. However, they did help create the world in which those things which created the church in Iar Connacht flourished.
The mission of St. Columban (Columbanus) to Gaul in 590 heralded the beginning of a new era both for the Irish and the Continent, that of the White Martyrs, missionaries who left Ireland usually never to return. At the various abbeys he and his followers founded in Gaul, Germany, and Italy, life followed the Insular model, including the celebration of Easter, which was synchronized with the calculations of its date in the East. So, besides beginning the revival of the moribund church on the Continent, Columban and his monks made Rome aware of the differences between the two varieties of Christianity.
The Battle of Magh Rath (Moira) in 637 is often portrayed as the final battle of Christianity over paganism in Ireland. In truth it was a struggle for control of the north of Ireland, and all forces of both sides were Christian.
At Magh Rath, the forces of the high king, Domnall mac Aedo of Cenel Connaill of the northern Ui Neill, and his allies the Sil nAedo Slaine defeated those of Domnall Brecc of the Dal Riata and Congal Caech of the Ulaidh and the Dal nAraidi, supported by Oswald of Northumbria.
On the same day, Domnall’s fleet defeated those of Dal Riata and Cenel nEoghan at the Battle of Kintyre. The outcome of these two battles was domination of the north by the Ui Neill for the next thousand years along with their subjugation of western Dal Riata, while eastern Dal Riata became a client of Northumbria, then of Fortriu.
In the mid-660s, the Yellow Plague, known in Ireland as the Plague of Connaill, the high king at the time, devastated not only the Irish church but all of Ireland, as well as the various Pictish, Irish, Brythonic, and Germanic kingdoms of Britain. Among its most prominent victims was St. Fechin of Fore (or of Cong).
After spending three years back in Iona, Colman, formerly abbot and bishop of Lindisfarne, migrated to the far west reaches of Ireland, establishing an abbey off the shore of Connacht on the island of Inishbofin in 667. The monks who followed him were from Lindisfarne, both Irish and Anglo-Saxon.
After less than a year, friction between the Irish and Saxons grew to the point where Colman felt compelled to found the separate house of Mayo-na-Saxon (Maigh Eo, “plain of the yew trees”) some distance away for the Saxons. It became an independent abbey in 670 under St. Gerald, and soon eclipsed its mother house, which later became dependent on it. The abbey, which remained almost exclusively for Saxons until the 12th century, gave its name to the later diocese, deanery, and county. The abbey and the see were referred to as “Mayo-na-Saxon” or “Mayo-of-the-Saxons” well into the 16th century.
In 697, Adomnan, abbot of Iona and coarb of St. Colmcille in Ireland and Scotland, presided over the Council of Birr at which the leading clerics of Ulster, Meath, and Connacht ratified the decisions at Streonshalh, though Iona itself did not do so until 717. They also formulated the Law of Innocents (aka the Law of Adomnan), which forbade the killing of noncombatant women and children, prohibited the compulsory conscription of women and clerics, and set forth harsh penalties for wartime rape.
In 793, Vikings destroyed the center at Lindisfarne, looting its treasure and killing its monks as well as burning its buildings, beginning the Viking Age in the Isles as well as in Europe. Two years later, they attacked Ireland.
The raid on Rathlin Island off the coast of Antrim in which the invaders burned a church and killed several monks in 795 heralded the beginning of the Viking Age in Ireland, which brought about the rapid end of Ireland’s Golden Age. The monastery on Inishmurray and Colman’s abbey on Inishbofin were raided the same year by the same Norse.
At midstream: A politically turbulent century
The eighth century was a time of turbulence and tribulation on the political surface of Ireland beneath which the Church provided a bedrock foundation.
Many of the former ruling tribes of several regions were displaced or eclipsed by newcomers, as was the case with the Ui Briuin Breifne over the Conmaicne Magh Rein, though the Muintir Annalaigh (Annaly) of the latter managed to maintain their independence. The Fir Ceara of the Ui Fiachrach Muaidhe conquered the Partraige Ceara and reduced them to the territory then known as Odhbha and later as Ballyovey and now Partry.
The conquerors often adopted as their own the leading monastic houses of the conquered, as was the case with those two groups. The Fir Ceara of the Ui Fiachrach Muaidhe adopted those of the Partraige Ceara whom they squeezed into Odhbha. The Ui Briuin Breifne adopted those of the Conmaicne Magh Rein.
At the top of the kingship pyramid in Connacht, the Ui Briuin Ai completely shut out the Ui Fiachrach Aidne from the high kingship at Cruachan by the fourth quarter of the 8th century.
In Iar Connacht itself, a branch of Connacht’s ruling tribe that became known as Ui Briuin Seola conquered the Conmaicne Dunmore, the Conmaicne Cuile Tolad, and finally the Delbhna Cuile Fabhair in Maigh Seola. Until this last conquest, the tribe was simply referred to in contemporary annals as the southern Ui Briuin. Fursey, whom its lead dynasty took as their patron, may have been the patron saint of the conquered Delbhna Cuile Fabhair, or maybe not.
Much further to the south, the Ui Fiachrach Aidne lost their southern territories to the Eoghanachta of Munster, the area that is now Co. Clare. Their troubles with their southern neighbors are one reason they lost so much ground in the north to the Ui Briuin.
West of Loch Orbsen, the Delbhna Tir Da Locha and the
Conmaicne Mara remained independent and in control of their lands, as did the
Ui Mhaille who were occasionally mentioned as being in Iar Connacht.
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