Monthly Archives: July 2016

Columbanus’ penitential discipline and his independence of action infringed upon the powers of the local Frankish bishops, and he probably had few friends among them. When he insisted on celebrating Easter according to the British calculations he was accused of … Continue reading →

Columbanus, it has been said, was born of the old Leinster Pretani, about the year 543. His biography was written on the continent in the last monastery he himself founded, and while it contains much detail of his career in Europe, it … Continue reading →

One of the great religious figures of Ireland was Columba (Columb-Cille) claimed to have been a prince of the “Northern Uí Néill”; his father, it is said, being the great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages. It is more probable … Continue reading →

Most of the early monastic settlements in Ireland would have been quite basic arrangements — My late friend, Cardinal Tomás O Fiaich, aka Tom Fee, said we should picture them like modern holiday camps, with rows of wooden accommodation chalets grouped around … Continue reading →

In 398 AD St Ninian had established the first Christian Church in what is now Scotland at Candida Casa (now Whithorn) in Galloway. Although little is known about this great Christian Saint of the Novantes, or the earliest history of … Continue reading →

Our brief résumé of the richness of the Ulster Tales would be incomplete without mention of one of the oldest stories of romance, adventure and treachery in Western European literature — the story of the ‘Fate of the Children of … Continue reading →

Statue of “The Dying Cúchulainn ” by Oliver Sheppard (1911), now at the GPO, Dublin. The image of Cúchulainn is invoked by both Irish nationalists and Ulster Loyalists. Largely due to the efforts of the deluded Irish patriot Patrick Pearse, Irish nationalists … Continue reading →

Among the great works of early Irish literature are a group of tales known as the Ulster Cycle, written in the Pretanian Abbot Comgall’s monastery of Bangor and traditionally felt to depict the North of Ireland in the first few centuries … Continue reading →

Ancient tradition has it that a few generations before the reign of Niall, three brothers, the ‘Three Collas’, relatives of the then “king of Tara”, Muiredach Tírech, first initiated the attack on Ulster, though some scholars now feel the actual … Continue reading →

In the second century AD there came from upper Egypt one of the greatest of ancient scientists, known to us today as Ptolemy the Greek. He wrote a magnificent work comprising eight books, the Geographia Hyphegesis, in which he not … Continue reading →