AN IRISH SCHOOL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 13, 20 July 1888, Page 29

AN IRISH SCHOOL.

(Melbourne Advocate, June 30.)

Th^b Hibernian Hall was well filled on Saturday night when a concert was given in aid of the building fund of St. Joseph's Hall and School, Port Melbourne, which is under the charge of the Carmellite Fathers. The Archbishop of Melbourne, the Very Rev. Prior Butler and the Rev. Father Shaffrey were present. During the interval the Archbishop delivered the following address : —

His Grace said that as ho was set down in the programme to deliver an address, and not allowed, as he desiied, to remain a silent listener to the beautiful vocal and instrumental music, and to the admirable recitation, which filled the first p-n:, of the programme, he thought it would not be inappropriate— as tais concert was given in aid of a Catholic school under thft care of the Carmellite Fathers— to give a short chapter of history connected with a famous school, the very name and existence of which seemed to be unknown to general reaiers. He referred to the school of " Mayo of the Saxons." The history of thai school carries us back over twelve oenturies. The scenes are laid in f ar-fam. ;d lona, in Northumbria, in the lone island of Innishoffii, but, above all, in " Mayo of the Saxons," where this school flourished from the latt :r part of the seventh to tha close of the sixteenth century, when its light was finally put out in the bitter strife which accompanied the attempted introduction of the Reformation into IreUmd. hlihelfrid, granlson of lla, wh> may bs said to be the founder of the Anglo-Sixon race, being defeated in battle.^and slain, his sons, Oswald and Oswy, fl ;d to the court of the King of Dalradia. By him they were sent for instruction to lona, where during seventeen years they were taught by St. Columba'a monks secular science in addition to Christian virtue. After this long exile Oswald, having recovered the throne of his fathers, determined to rule over a Christian people. When he looked around for an apostle he naturally turned hiß eyes to lona where he himself had received the faith from Irish monks. Sts. Aidan, Finan, and Ooleman became in succession Bishops of Lindisfarne. and succeeded in winning Northumbria permanently to the true E'aith. The rule of St. Coleman was embittered by the disputes which arose between his Celtic and Saxon subjects regarding the proper time for celebrating the Easter festival. When the King tided with his Saxon subjects. tSt. Coleman, rather than abandon the traditions o£ the Irish Church, resigned his See, and taking with him th^ remains of hia two immediate predecessors, all the Irish monks, and thirty of the Saxon monks, who had made their religious profession at Lindisfarne, sailed back to lona. To provide a iew home for his Irish and Saxon monks was his next effort. Siiling again from lona he landed on the island of Innishoffin, off the western coast of Ireland. As the new monastery and the chnpel and schools sprang up, the saint, no doubt, flattered himself that here would he en * his days, and in death lie by the side of his two saintly predecessors in the See of Lindisfarue. But Saxon and Celt even then found it difficult to agree. So taking with him the Sax<>n monks, St. Colem.in once more set sail and landed on the coast of Mayo. Here, iv a large plain, covered with great oaks from wh.ch the place derived its name — Mayo means the pUin of the oaks — he selected the site of the future m ntistery and school, which thus g;\s i'.s name of " Mayo of the S;ixon = .'' Th t the school soon attaine la European reputatioi we know from auth' mir. history. We miy not believe that Alfr. d the Gieat ever visited Mayo, or that he seat his .-on to bo educated by Irish monks, or that Alfred's son, who i-j said to have died during hi^ scholastic cou:\e, Hi s side, by side with the two sons of a French king beneath a mound vn.ich is still pointed out to the inquiring traveller. But the tradition of uself in a strong testimony to the fame which the school long enjoyed. We know enough from Venerable Bede, an. l from Adamnan, to convince v? that few of the great Irish schools attained greater renown or success. Twice it was plundered, and twice burned down, but each time a new monastery and schoolarosj from the ashes of the old. It was only in the rei^n of Eliz ibeth that it fell to rise no more. The moral which the Archb;9hop derived from the chapter of schuol his ory was that when an Irish monk or an Irish fiiar undei takes to build a school he receives gr^at encouragement from the memory ot the Mi".cess of the great Irish schools of old, end when he makes on appeal for this purpose he has strong claims, not only on Irishmen, but also on the descendants of all tho^e who in Irish schools, like that of " Mayo of the fcJas.Gn.-i,'' received hospitality, gratuitous education, and the highest culture then attainable.