Adomnán: The Life of Saint Columba

During the years between 545 and 562 Columba founded many churches and monastic societies. ' A hundred churches which the wave frequents is the number of churches he has on the margin of the sea. There was a mass-chalice in every church5, says the Old Irish Life. Durrow, Dair Magh the Oak Plain, on the border of King's

County and Westmeath, was the principal one, founded in 553.

One of the most famous of ancient Irish manuscripts, the ' Book of Durrow ', the Gospels of the Vulgate, still preserved in Trinity College, Dublin, is attributed to Columba's own hand. The colophon refers to ' Columba the writer ' of the work, but Professor Fowler says the colophon and some other parts of the manuscript, seem to be copied from an earlier one, and to contain errors which St. Columba would hardly have committed. Another of Columba's foundations was the monastery of Kells, in Meath, and from it is named another famous and beautiful manuscript, the ' Book of Kells ', of which Professor Fowler says: 'It is impossible to give any idea of the splendour and elaboration of its ornamental pages and letters, or of the extreme minuteness of the work, which often requires a lens to trace it.' These two famous manuscripts of Durrow and Kells are the finest extant works of their kind, and both are now thought to be of the seventh and not the sixth century.

Arran, Boyle, Swords, Raphoe, Tory Island and Drumcliff were also Columban foundations. The most remote of his monasteries was that of Glen Columkille, in the westernmost part of Ulster. Here, on the north side of the glen, are the ruins of Columba's church and traces of the monastic buildings. ' Just below it the sea is always covered with foam round the promontory of Garraros, while mists shut out from view for six months the

opposite side' of the glen and the path ascending it into the world. The Saint and his followers always thought the roar of the sea and mists sweeping across desolate moorland incitements to devotion.5 (Dr. N. Moore.)

'insula sanctorum.'

Such were the foundations of a single holy man in that astonishing age of piety in Ireland, well named Insula Sanctorum. ' Rich endowments in land, bestowed by princes and chieftains, and skilfully tilled by monks, enabled the monasteries of Erin to grant free education, food, raiment and books to the thousands who flocked to their halls. The monastic schools of the island for…