A
thousand years ago there was an extraordinary cluster of monasteries in the
Shannon Estuary and right up the river, including the great ecclesiastical
schools of Clonmacnois and Clonfert.
One of the best known was at Scattery
Island, or Inis Cathaigh, in the mouth of the Shannon. This is where Senán,
patron saint of County Clare, founded a monastery back in 534. And more power
to St Senan because he rid the Shannon of its monster. You might not know the
Shannon had a monster, but Inis Cathaigh means the island of Cata and
Cata was a most fearsome creature with a horse’s mane, gleaming eyes, thick
feet, nails of iron and a whale’s tail. A sort of maritime Gruffalo. Senan defeated
the brute and founded his monastery in celebration. Today, you can still see
that settlement through the remains of his oratory, his house, seven chapels
and a round tower which, measuring 120 feet high, is one of the tallest in
Ireland.
Onwards up the Shannon to the
island of Inishlosky near the Tipperary-Clare border. The island was
populated by monks from Montpellier in the south of France. However, shortly
after they founded their church, they had to evacuate the island because of
rising waters. Flooding on the Shannon has clearly been an ongoing problem
since time began.
Lough Derg – the
one on the Shannon, rather than the well-known pilgrim site in County Donegal –
is the biggest lake on the river. It was home to three island monasteries, the most
famous being Holy Island. Its Irish name ‘Inis Cealtra’ means “island of
the burials” and refers to the island’s busy ‘Saints’ Graveyard.’ This fertile,
50-acre island was somewhat prior to the
1920s when they built the power station at Ardnacrusha and the water
level in Lough Derg rose – another instance of the changed landscape in which
we live.
Holy Island, Lough Derg
Holy Island’s first
recorded inhabitant was a hermit named MacCriche who resided here in 555
AD and, it is said, lived upon a honey-like juice, drawn from a tree, which
possessed the headiness of wine. Hermits like MacCriche didn’t necessarily just
pray, meditate, bathe their bunions and smoke fish all day. They were well
read, well educated, intelligent people with a good head for engineering, maths
and such like. Maybe you’re trying to repair a road or build a new bridge and
you hear of a hermit called Fintan who’s good at geometry. Offer him some alms
and maybe he’ll help.
MacCriche was clearly onto
something because within 150 years or so, two monasteries had been established
on the island. The first was founded by St. Colum in the 6th century. In the
7th century, a second monastery was founded by St Caimin, a Benedictine monk. I
suspect he may have been inspired to succeed due to a bad case of sibling
rivalry. According to the Annals of the Four Masters, his mother had 77
children. In any case, he turned his monastery into a celebrated scholastic
institution, a great centre of learning and art. Among those who reputedly
studied here was St Donagh. One day Donagh decided to head out from Inis
Cealtra on a pilgrimage to the Apostle’s tombs in Rome. During this long and
arduous journey, he popped into a town called Fiesole, north of Florence. As
chance would have it, he arrived just as Fiesole’s citizens were about to elect
a new bishop. When Donagh strolled into the cathedral, the bells began to ring
and the lamps and candles burst into light. Putting two and two together, the
citizens figured Donagh was a pretty magical guy and elected him their bishop.
Given that the citizens had drowned their previous bishop, it’s possible that
demand for the job was not high.
Donagh remained Bishop of Fiesole
for over half a century and became an advisor to one of Charlemagne’s
grandsons. Donagh, or Donatus, remains one of the most revered saints in
Tuscany and you’ll find his name in numerous churches and place names
throughout the region. Now, you might scoff and say ‘what baloney’ and fair
enough. Were these people real? Did Donagh exist? Did the saints exist!? I
don’t know. We’re told that they did, but there’s certainly much room for
doubt. And, yet, something was happening in all of these places, these
monasteries, be they small island retreats or the big monastic schools. The
people of Ireland used to believe in nothing but pagan gods. However, by the
close of the 9th century, I think you’d be hard pushed to meet an Irishman or
woman who didn’t say their bedtime prayers to anyone except the Christian God.
Part in parcel with that is a
wonderful fact that if all the world’s a stage, nobody has taken all the props
and scenery away. As such, Holy Island still holds a very well-preserved Round
Tower, an Anchorites’ cell, a holy well, and the ruins of six churches. This
was the stage on which the monks once strutted and fretted in the time of
Donagh of Fiesole and such like.
Island monasteries were also
established further up the Shannon on Lough Ree and Lough Key. On Lough Key,
the best known are on Holy Trinity Island and Church Island. Inchmacnerin
Abbey on Church Island was supposedly founded in the 6th century AD, by Columba
(Saint Colum Cille), the patron saint of Derry who brought Christianity to the
Scots.
Lough Ree is apparently home to
52 islands, some little more than an acre big, some over 200 acres. I imagine
the feet of monks trod upon each and every one of those 52 islands in ancient
times but, in terms of what’s known, Inchmore, the largest island on the
lake, was home to a fifth century hermit called Lioban, son of Lossenus. Inchbofin
also traces its monastic heritage to a 5th century hermit, Rioch, and there is
an outside chance that Lough Ree itself is named for Rioch. Staying on Lough
Ree, Inchcleraun, also called Quaker Island, is home to the ruins of a substantial monastic school
founded by Diarmaid the Just in 560 AD, while St Ciaran, the sort of headmaster
of Clonmacnoise, is credited with founding the monasteries on Hare Island and
Saints Island.
Clogas Church, Inchcleraun Island
I spent a night on Lough Ree in
the summer of 2021, slumbering on a boat called Turgesius, listening to the
water splashing against the hull. It became pretty stormy for a while but then
came complete peace. Total silence but for the bleat of a distant sheep as the
morning light blossomed. Or the cry of a gull scooting along the wind-rippled
waters. It’s a haven for marsh birds – wigeon and lapwings, swans, herons and
so on. I saw a very content egret rain-bathing (it wasn’t sun-bathing weather)
on one of the shallow bed markers and buoys in those serene waters. It was
joyous. Just quietly gliding by those lovely moisture-filled islands. You can see
why those early hermits, churchmen and churchwomen embraced a place like Lough
Ree, with its relatively tame isolation, and how they favoured it as place for
their ascetic retreat.
The island monasteries had their
hey-day in the 8th centuries, before the Vikings came in strong, but
they would bounce back from those attacks. In due course, I will home in on how
the Christian church had a reboot under orders like the Augustinians and the
Cistercians before the tyrant king Henry VIII closed down the whole shebang in
the 1540s. But, for now, I hope this tale has helped you to see how Ireland’s
waterways played such a crucial role in our history from the beginning of known
time to an age when the beacon of light shone from Gaelic Ireland, a beacon
that would keep Christianity lit during the strange centuries that followed the
fall of the Roman Empire in Europe.
