Senán in it is the antithesis of the preternaturally austere saint of other modern tales and of the Lives.[1]
St. Columba, the apostle of the Hebrides, who died in 597, is remembered as the builder of Crumlin oratory, opposite the Aran Isles, from which he came, landing at Lacknaneeve ("the saint's rock") on the shore below. At the opposite (eastern) side of the great terraced hills of limestone, he gave his name to Glen Columbcille, where he built the church and left the (six) marks of his fingers on a block of stone by the roadside.
St. Maccreiche, a venerable monk about 580, was, according to his Life, brought to Corcomroe from Emly, with St. Luchtighern of Tomfinlough, to go on an embassy to Aedh, king of Connacht, to recover certain cattle "lifted" by the king's subjects. He and his disciple Mainchin are locally remembered as building the churches of Kilmacreehy, Kilmanagheen, and Inagh; their heads are carved on the former church, where they lie buried on either side of the chancel (Plate V.). Maccreehy (but his name is forgotten) chained the destructive Demon-Badger or Bruckee (Broc-sidhe) in its cave Poulnabruckee, near Rathblamaic church in Inchiquin, and hurled it into Rath Lake. The tale is also told in older written legend, and the head of the Bruckee is supposed to be represented in the carvings of large-eared dragons at Rath and Kilmacreehy.[2]
St. Colaun of Tomgraney, who died at that place on Oct. 24th, 551, of yellow jaundice, gives his name to Tobercolaun, the well-house on the road between his church and Bodyke. Some call him St. Colman.[3]
St. Luchtighern Mac Ua Trato[4] of Tomfinlough or Fenloe in south-east Clare, though appearing in the Calendars and the Life
- ↑ It has been maintained that the early Irish adopted a form of humour consisting in attributing incongruous acts to persons notoriously incapable of them; see S. H. O'Grady's preface to Silva Gadelica, vol. ii., p. xviii. This view has been contradicted by others, who ascribe the instances to the defective ideas of the narrators; see Folk-Lore, vol. iv., p. 380. Both views are probably in some cases correct.
- ↑ See vol. xxi., plate xiv., and also The Journal of the North Munster Archaeological Society, vol. iii., p. 204.
- ↑ Annals of Ulster, Clonmacnoise and Tighernach, 548-51.
- ↑ The Calendar of Oengus (loc. cit.), p. lxxvii. The patronymic may be corrupt.
