THE THIRTEENTH CENTENARY OF ST. COLUMBA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 15, 13 August 1897, Page 27

THE THIRTEENTH CENTEN A RY OF ST. COLU M B A.

HIS LIFE AND LABOURS. The thirteen hundredth anniversary of the death of St. Columba occurred on Wednesday, June it. S l . Columba, or, as he is generally called, Coluinbkille. that is. Columba of the Clrirch. was. sa\s the historian Haverty, born in Gartan. a wild district of the County of Donegal, about the year 7>\s or :>2l.and was connected with the royal families of Ireland and British Dalru la His father Fidhme was the grandson of Conall Gullun.son ot Niallof the Nine Hostages, and— by his mother Eroa— grandson of Loam. one of the sons" of Ere, who planted the Dalreadie colony in Scotland : and the saint\ mother Etherca was descended from Cathar Moi, Km- of Ireland. A. D. 120, and was thus of the royal race of Lenistor. On leaving her fosterage Columba commenced his studies at Mosille. at the head of Strangford Lough, where ho became a pupil of the famo.is Bishop St. Finnian : and from this seminary, when in deacon's orders, he proceeded to Lemper where after remaining .some time with an old bard named Gomman, ho entered the monastery or college founded by another St Fnmian at Clonard. Thence he proceeded to the Monastery of Mobhi Claramaeh. at Glas Naoidhen, the present Glasnevin. near Dublin ; but this community being broken up by the pestilence, which cirriul oif its principal in .V>4, he returned to the north, having previously been ordained priest by the Bishop of Clonfad. Already Columba was distinguished not only for learning and sanctity, and miracles are said to have been performed by him. In 54 5 or .">lt> he founded the Monastery of Doire-Chalgaigh, the Derry of modern times ; and about the year .">."3 he laid the foundation of his great monastery of Dramhagh, now Durrow, in King's County, the chief hem-e of his Order in Ire1 md. Meeting with hostility from Diarmaid. King of Ireland, he left Ireland at the d'^e of forty-two, after having founded a large number of monasteries. Accompanied by twelve companions, he landed at Ily, or lona, which was given to him by his relative Connall, King

of the Albanian Scots, and which became a great missionary centre. Oolumba made many journeys, during which he converted the Pi3ts to Christianity. Innumerable miracles are related of him. He is regarded as the Apostle of both the Picts and Scots of North Britain, and he has shared with St. Patrick and St. Bridget the honour of being the joint patron of his native land. lona for a long time gave missionaries and bishops to various parts of Britain, and the conversion of the Saxons was largely due to its monks, as it supplied the Saxon Church with many prelates and priests for at least a couple of centuries. Columba died in lona about June 1), 51)7. St. Columba, apart from the fame he had acquired as a religious, was a man of wonderful intellectual gifts and of varied accomplishment?. Even before the introduction of Christianity into Ireland, the Bardic Order was a highly cultivated class, subsidised and supported by public grants By degrees, however, the conduct of its members became so arrogant as to call for repressive measures from the governing class. Accordingly, a council of the head chiefs of Ireland was summoned to meet at Druim-Ceat, in the County Derry, in .V.MJ, to decide, among other questions, whether the Bardic Order should not be abolished entirely. Columba, who was himself a poet of no mean pretentious, and who was eminently the patron of learning in all its branches, set sail with a few of his monks from lona to attend the council at Druim-Ceat. Though then a very old man, he pleaded the cause of the higher education — then represented by the Bardic Order — so earnestly and so eloquently, that compromise was effected, and the Bardic Order was retained to carry on that highly perfected literary style of the old Celtic poets — that, as we are assured by the most competent modern critics, has left its impress, not only on early Latin verse, but also on even mediaeval and modern English literature. Columba was, however, more than a poet— he was also a lover of the fine arts ; and while there is a slight difference of opinion as to his being the illuminator of the famous " Book of Kells," nobody denies him the honour of having been the artibt of the equally famous " Book of Durrow." — Catholic Tunis,