By A. M. Sullivan
CHAPTER IX.
From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)
« Chapter VIII. | Contents | Chapter IX. (continued) »
CHRISTIAN IRELAND.—THE STORY OF COLUMBA, THE "DOVE OF THE CELL."
THE five hundred years, one-half of which preceded the birth of our Lord, may be considered the period of Ireland's greatest power and military glory as a nation. The five hundred years which succeeded St. Patrick's mission may be regarded as the period of Ireland's Christian and scholastic fame. In the former she sent her warriors, in the latter her missionaries, all over Europe. Where her fierce hero-kings carried the sword, her saints now bore the cross of faith. It was in this latter period, between the sixth and the eighth centuries particularly, that Ireland became known all over Europe as the Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum—"the Island of Saints and Scholars."
Churches, cathedrals, monasteries, convents, universities, covered the island. From even the most distant parts of Europe, kings and their subjects came to study in the Irish schools. King Alfred of Northumberland was educated in one of the Irish universities. A glorious roll of Irish saints and scholars belong to this period: St. Columba or Columcille, St. Columbanus, St. Gall, who evangelized Helvetia, St. Frigidian, who was bishop of Lucca in Italy, St. Livinus, who was martyred in Flanders, St. Argobast, who became bishop of Strasburg, St. Killian, the apostle of Franconia, and quite a host of illustrious Irish missionaries, who carried the blessings of faith and education all over Europe. The record of their myriad adventurous enterprises, their glorious labors, their evangelizing conquests, cannot be traced within the scope of this book. There is one, however, the foremost of that sainted band, with whom exception must be made—the first and the greatest of Irish missionary saints, the abbot of Iona's isle, whose name and fame filled the world, and the story of whose life is a Christian romance—Columba, the "Dove of the Cell."[1]
The personal character of Columba and the romantic incidents of his life, as well as his preeminence among the missionary conquerers of the British Isles, seem to have had a powerful attraction for the illustrious Montalembert, who, in his great work, "The Monks of the West," traces the eventful career of the saint in language of exquisite beauty, eloquence, and feeling. Moreover, there is this to be said further of that Christian romance, as I have called it, the life of St. Columba, that happily the accounts thereof which we possess are complete, authentic, and documentary; most of the incidents related we have on the authority of well-known writers, who lived in Columba's time and held personal communication with him or with his companions.
The picture presented to us in these life-portraitures of Iona's saint is assuredly one to move the hearts of Irishmen, young and old. In Columba two great features stand out in bold prominence; and never perhaps were those two characteristics more powerfully developed in one man—devotion to God and passionate love of country. He was a great saint, but he was as great a "politician," entering deeply and warmly into everything affecting the weal of Clan Nial, or the honor of Erinn. His love for Ireland was . something beyond description. As he often declared in his after-life exile, the very breezes that blew on the fair hills of holy Ireland were to him like the zephyrs of paradise. Our story were incomplete indeed, without a sketch, however brief, of the "Dove of the Cell."
« Chapter VIII. | Contents | Chapter IX. (continued) »
NOTES
[1] Columbkille; in English, "Dove of the Cell."
Truelove's Journal: A Bookshop Novella
From a sad, comfortless childhood Giles Truelove developed into a reclusive and uncommunicative man whose sole passion was books. For so long they were the only meaning to his existence. But when fate eventually intervened to have the outside world intrude upon his life, he began to discover emotions that he never knew he had.
A story for the genuine booklover, penned by an Irish bookseller under the pseudonym of Ralph St. John Featherstonehaugh.
FREE download 23rd - 27th May
Annals of the Famine in Ireland
Annals of the Famine in Ireland, by Asenath Nicholson, still has the power to shock and sadden even though the events described are ever-receding further into the past. When you read, for example, of the poor widowed mother who was caught trying to salvage a few potatoes from her landlord's field, and what the magistrate discovered in the pot in her cabin, you cannot help but be appalled and distressed.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger
This book, the prequel to Annals of the Famine in Ireland cannot be recommended highly enough to those interested in Irish social history. The author, Mrs Asenath Nicholson, travelled from her native America to assess the condition of the poor in Ireland during the mid 1840s. Refusing the luxury of hotels and first class travel, she stayed at a variety of lodging-houses, and even in the crude cabins of the very poorest. Not to be missed!
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Henry Ford Jones' book, first published in 1915 by Princeton University, is a classic in its field. It covers the history of the Scotch-Irish from the first settlement in Ulster to the American Revolutionary period and the foundation of the country.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Join our mailing list to receive updates on new content on Library, our latest ebooks, and more.
You won't be inundated with emails! — we'll just keep you posted periodically — about once a monthish — on what's happening with the library.