ON ST. COLMAN OF KILROOT, BISHOP, IN IRELAND,
IN THE SIXTH CENTURY.
HISTORICAL SYLLOGE.
The youth, training, and age of St. Colman, bishop of Kilroot.
Colman, bishop of Kilroot, in Ireland. (S.)
St. Colman, known from the sacred calendars, It escapes no one that the Scots of Albion and the Scots of Ireland have sometimes been confused: whence it has happened that, whenever the deeds of certain Saints of the same name are not very well known, there is no way of distinguishing them except that these are said to be venerated by the Scots, those by the Irish. For which reason we do not know for certain whether the St. Colman who was reported on the preceding day among those passed over from the Martyrologies of the Scots is the same as the St. Colman whom the sacred Irish calendars commemorate on today's date. The opinion of those who affirm it pleases, however, first of all because the Martyrologies which mention the one are silent about the other, and the days of cult are as near as possible to each other. But at the 24th of November an occasion will return of speaking of this matter. Further, St. Colman, bishop of Kilroot, is named on the 16th day of October in the Festilogy of Blessed Marianus Gorman, in the Martyrology of Tallaght, and in the Martyrology of Donegal, namely those which, copied by Brother Michael Clery and sent from Ireland to Louvain, were formerly used by Colgan (see the preface to the reader before the Acts of the Saints of Ireland), and are now preserved in the Burgundian library at Brussels Numbers 1502, 1504, 5095.. In the Festilogy of Blessed Marianus Gorman he is called simply Colman, but in a slightly different character Irish words are written beside it which in Latin run thus: Colman, bishop of Kilroot in Dal-Araidhe, beside Lough Localaig in Ulster. In the Martyrology of Tallaght Colman of Kilroot comes forth; in that of Donegal Colman, bishop of Kilroot in Dal-Araidhe, beside Lough Localaig.
[2] he lived in Dal-Araidhe, Dal-Araidhe, moreover, cannot be confused, so the Rev. Mr. Lanigan speaks almost word for word Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, chapter V, note 24, volume I, page 217., with Dalriada. The former, namely, comprised the southern part of the county of Antrim and inclined toward the south-east; the greater part of the county of Down besides, if not the whole of this county, belonged to it. It extended, moreover, from Newry as far as Mount Mis in the barony of Antrim.
Dalriada, however, comprised the northern part, another which looks toward the north-west, and a third toward the south. So Lanigan from Harris Antiquities, page 48. and the Bishops Page 8.. Gough, however, in the additions to Camden's Britannia Volume III, page 627. writes that the region of Dal a Radia consists roughly of the present baronies of Belfast, Toome, and Massereene, and then illustrates several places of this tract; among which, however, he does not mention a place called Kill-ruadh. This border of land, which lies in Ulster between the lake Lough Neagh and the bay of the sea called Carrickfergus Bay, and which Colgan in the Index of his Trias Thaumaturga writes was called in his time Hive Tach, St. Patrick had cultivated before St. Colman, as is related in several of his Lives published by Colgan; nay, that apostolic man had even caused a church to be built in the place Elom Sixth Life of St. Patrick in Colgan, chapter CXXXVI.. This land was inhabited by the Cruthni, sprung from the Picts, and the ancient nation of the Dal-Araidhe. So at least Lanigan thinks Ecclesiastical History, chapter V, note 25., commenting on the Life of St. Patrick. And there our St. Colman is related to have fixed his seat. (Compare Vallancey, Collectanea de rebus Hibernicis Volume III, page 326..)
[3] and he was bishop of Kilroot. The place Killruadh, where St. Colman is asserted to have been bishop, is mentioned by Colgan in the notes to the Life of St. Corbmac Page 756, note 43. and in the Trias Thaumaturga Page 386, note 16.. But scarcely anything can be learned from it which is not given out in the announcements of the Martyrologies. The lake, however, beside which Kill-ruadh had been built, he calls not Localaig but Lochlaodh or Loch-loedh. From the notes, moreover, which Ward of the Order of Minors formerly sent to Rosweyde, and which he himself had collected from a compilation which our predecessors have mentioned Volume VI of June, page 116, and volume I of September, page 662., I take these words: St. Colman, whom he (St. Macniscius) freed from death by a miracle, was bishop of Kill-ruadh, which is now an obsolete see, situated in the region of the Araidhe, on the shore of the Pool of the Bullock, commonly Loch-Laodh, in Ulster, where his feast is kept as patron on the 16th of October. Further, Kill-ruadh signifies the cell of the spring or stream, and, Loch designating a lake and Laodh a calf, Loch-Laodh indicates the lake of the calf. So much for the place which St. Colman hallowed by his dwelling.
[4] As a little boy he is said to have been saved by St. Macniscius; I forbear to designate all the Saints named Colman from whom our Saint must be distinguished, since, by the testimony of Colgan (in the notes to the Life of St. Colman the bishop at the 18th of February), more than one hundred and thirty are numbered in the Martyrologies and other records. We have no Life of this Colman of ours, nor do I see one cited by others. His deeds must therefore be gathered from elsewhere: but would that it were permitted to put the sickle into another harvest than the biographies of the Irish Saints, abounding more in prodigies than in deeds; no other field, however, presents itself. Behold, therefore, what is extant about our Saint in the Life of St. Macniscius the bishop Acta SS. at the 3rd of September, page 665., published from the Salamanca codex: Note how he (St. Macniscius) freed a boy from death. Wishing to free the little son of a certain wicked man, who had killed his (the friends') father, seized by the friends of that man and destined to death, and not being able, he asked for a truce, that the boy should not be killed before he himself should reach a heap of stones which stood at a distance; which he obtained. And when he arrived there and was praying there, the aforesaid boy, thrown up into the air to be caught on the points of spears, was at once snatched by Angels, and laid in the bosom of the holy pontiff, free from all injury: whom he then nourished, and diligently taught in the divine Scriptures and the institutes of religion. He is the bishop Colman who founded the church named Kell-ruaid. That this miracle is to be counted among those which our Velde, in the preliminary Commentary, number 9, declares to be more astonishing than true, everyone will acknowledge.
[5] he was not a disciple of St. Patrick: Colgan, in the Trias Thaumaturga Page 269., pronounces that St. Colman was first a disciple of St. Albeus, then of St. Patrick; which things, however, cannot hang together, as our predecessors have already often shown, since they determined that St. Albeus was later than St. Patrick. Compare Papebroch in the appendix to the Life of St. Patrick Acta SS., 17th of March, page 582. and Suysken in the commentary on St. Albeus Acta SS., 13th of September, page 29.; and indeed these reckon that St. Albeus was first sent to preach to the Irish after the year 460. Lanigan indeed does not agree in everything with the praised hagiographers; but, what suffices for the present, he admits that St. Albeus was a very small boy about the year 431, and reckons that he was made bishop only about the year 470; now according to the chronology of Papebroch, which I do not know whether Lanigan rather wrongly disliked Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, chapter § XII., St. Patrick died about the year 460 Acta SS., 17th of March, page 525.; and indeed according to Lanigan himself, who determines that St. Patrick died about the year 472 Ecclesiastical History, in the place cited., Colgan's assertions about our St. Colman could scarcely stand, as is clear to anyone attending to the age of St. Patrick and St. Albeus. Whence Colgan drew these things he does not tell; but Papebroch, at number 1 of the Patrician appendix, warns the reader that many things were defined by Colgan from conjectures in the prodigious and horrid catalogue of the disciples of St. Patrick; and there the aforesaid assertion about St. Colman is found.
[6] but he is reported to have lived under the discipline of St. Albeus, Not every foundation is so lacking for calling St. Colman a disciple of St. Albeus: for in the Salamanca manuscript codex, which was formerly in the Bollandian Museum and is now kept at Brussels in the royal Burgundian library, there exists a Life of St. Albeus in which the following is narrated about our Colman: After this St. Albeus, like a most prudent bee with a burden of honey, returned to his homeland with God as companion. And when he had come to the sea and had no ship ready, he blessed the sea, and with all his people, walking over the sea with dry feet, they came as though over dry land, and made harbour on an island in the northern part of this island. And there, at Albeus' bidding, one of his household, named Collan (read Colman), built a cell which is called Cellroid. And since that place had no water, St. Albeus blessed a certain stone there, from which a rivulet of water at once burst forth. Then Colman said to Albeus: "This water is scanty." To whom Albeus said: "Although it is scanty, yet it will be everlasting." Whence to this day the name of that stream is Buanan cille ruaid (folio 92). But it must be noted that this Life of St. Albeus is sprinkled with so many fables that Father Suysken Acta SS. at the 12th of September, page 27 and following. judged it unworthy to be published. As regards St. Colman, however, forty or fifty companions are attributed in this Life to St. Albeus Folio 91., among whom twelve Colmans, twelve Comgens, and twelve Fintans; and all these are said to have gone to Rome with St. Albeus. There exists another Life of St. Albeus, and Ussher used it Antiquitates Britannicæ, edition of the year 1687, page 414.. It is, however, altogether not of better note, and seems to be only an epitome of the former, wherefore I forbear from reporting its words.
[7] and by some to have been preferred to St. Boetan. In the life of St. Corbmac, which Colgan published at the 26th of March Page 751 and following., there occur the following words, which he interprets in the notes beneath of our St. Colman: St. Boedan, or Boetan, the sixth son of Eugenius (and brother of St. Corbmac) … betook himself to the more remote borders of Ulster: where, being honourably and devoutly received by Fiacha Araidhe, born of the noble stock of Sodan, who was then ruling in the parts of Dal-Araidhe, he built there a church … which … the descendants of Sodan endowed, and especially the noble families of Cinel-decill, Clanscoba, and Sil-noiridhin, which consecrated themselves and their descendants to him as patron, as devoted clients. In the course of time, however, the family of Cinel-decill, falling away from the holy man, turned their devotion and affection to Cuanus and St. Colman, attaching their services and clientship to them. Since St. Corbmac is determined by Colgan In the notes to the Life of St. Corbmac, page 755. to have flourished at the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century, and the abbot St. Boedan seems to the same Colgan Life of St. Boedan at the 23rd of March, page 728. to have been illustrious after the beginning of the sixth century, and Lanigan [Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, chapter X, §4.] does not exclude St. Corbmac from the second series of Saints, which extends from about the year 542 to about the year 599, the aforesaid interpretation of Colgan does not conflict with the chronology to be indicated.
[8] He must be reckoned to have lived about the beginning of the sixth century. For if it be admitted, by force of the testimony reported above at number 4, that St. Colman, not yet out of boyhood, was known to the bishop St. Macniscius, it suffices that he was born before about the year 513, about which St. Macniscius died, being 80 years old or a little more Acta SS. at the 3rd of September, page 663 and following.. If, however, credence is given to the Life of St. Albeus, whose disciple St. Colman is said to be, his discipleship must be referred to before the year 527, at which time they relate that St. Albeus passed to those above Ibid., at the 12th of September, page 30 and following.. He could therefore have lived with St. Boedan, and nothing in the Lives of the Saints indicated, such as they are, prevents his being said to have been illustrious for his virtues about the middle of the sixth century. We have sought in vain among the Irish historians who are in our possession for what afterwards became of the episcopal see of Kill-ruadh. Ware, in the Antiquities of Ireland Chapter XVI., mentioning several antiquated sees and indicating their fortunes, does not make even a word about Kill-ruadh. Whence the pen must be laid down by us in this place, holding it enough to have illustrated the memory of St. Colman so far as the uncertain histories permitted.