"Acclesia Cathedralis Banch Colmani Alonensis et Carris Rotunda." " CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST COLMAN, CLOYNE, AND ROUND TOWER." A Monastery for friars following the rule of St. Augustin, was founded here by O'Callaghan." Cloyne, 13 In the barony of Imokilly, a poor village, yet is a bishop's see; with a good cathedral. Smith, vol. 2, p. 302. Called by the Irish writers Cluainumha. 13 Cloyne. The account given by Archdall of this ancient and venerable see is meagre in the extreme. The see of Cloyne was founded by St. Colman Mac Lenin, who was closely allied by blood with the reigning family of Munster. His genealogy in the Book of Lecan traces back his family to Mogha Nuadhat; but the Martyrology of Donegal leaves us in uncertainity as to whether he was descended from that Prince, or from another distinguished chieftain named Lughaidh Lagha. In his early years he was famed for his rare poetic talents, and was honoured with the title of Royal Bard of Munster. In after times he dedicated his minstrelsy to religion, and composed several poems on sacred subjects-a fragment of one of these, being an elegant metrical Life of St. Senanus-was known to Colgan, who describes it as "stylo vetusto et pereleganti patrio sermone conscriptum." (Acta SS., page 339). In the Book of Lismore, there is another short poem in Irish, composed by St. Colman, in praise of St. Brendan. It thus begins: "Brendan, flame of victorious lightning; He smote the chafer, he ploughed the waves At the request of St. Ita, St. Brendan, on a certain occasion, went forward to meet the youthful Colman, and admonished him to enter on a life of penance, saying "God has called thee to salvation, and thou shalt be as an innocent dove in the sight of God." Colman, throughout the remainder of his life, was docile to the inspirations of grace, and became illustrious among the saints of Ireland by his learning and virtues. Towards the close of his earthly pilgrimage, hearing of the fame of the school of Lough Eirce, he wished, though himself a master in the paths of perfection, to visit that monastery, and to enrol his name among the disciples of St. Finbarr. Our annalists do not mark with precision the year in which St. Colman founded the Monastery of Cloyne. It was certainly not before the year 550, for it is recorded that, at the inauguration of Aodh Caomh, King of Cashel, about that time, our saint took part as the royal minstrel of Munster. There seems, however, no ground for doubting the acccuracy of the statement made by O'Halloran in his History of Ireland (vol. 3rd, page 76) on the authority of the Psalter of Cashel, that Eochaidh, Monarch of Ireland in the year 560, founded the Church of Cloyne for St. Colman. According to the Annals of the Four Masters, St. Colman died in the year 600 (ie., 601 of our present computation), and the 24th of November is the day on which his festival is marked in all the ancient calendars, and on which it is still observed in the Diocese of Cloyne. Our patron of Cloyne must not be confounded with another St. Colman, who was honoured on the same day : both these saints are thus commemorated by St. Ængus in his Feliré, at the 24th November : 'With Cianan of Daimliac, A beautiful ear of our wheat, With Colman of Dubh-chuillenn." : The Martyrology of Donegal preserves the following quatrain, from the ancient poem Naemhsheanchus, on the Saints of Ireland : "Colman, son of Lenin, the full, A.D. 707. An abbey was founded here.t 978. It was plundered by the people of Ossory." 1089. Dermot, the son of Toirdhealbhach O'Brien, plundered this place." The old Latin Life of St. Brendan passes the following eulogy on St. Colman : "This Colman, the son of Lenin, was for learning and a holy life chief among the saints. He founded the Church of Cloyne, which is at this day a cathedral, and famous throughout the province of Munster." Cloyne was situated in the territory of Ui-Lethain, and in that sub-division which was called Ui-Mocaille, a name that is still retained in the barony of Imokilly. It is distant nineteen miles from Cork, and 'is seated in the heart of a rich and highly cultivated country, being embosomed in gently rising hills: it does credit to the choice of the ancient fathers who here took up their abode in very remote times."-Brash, "Journal of Kilkenny Arch. Soc." (New Series ii. 253). To distinguish this see from other churches of the same name-of which there were several scattered throughout Ireland-it was sometimes called by the name Cluain-mor, i.e., "The great Cloyne," but more generally Cluain-uamha, that is, "Cloyne of the caves." There are some very deep and interesting caves close by the old cathedral: it is probable St. Colman, or some of his religious, lived in them in olden times; and it is the popular tradition that many of the clergy and people found a safe retreat there when the country was ravaged by the Danes. The Protestant Bishop Bennett thus writes of the caves in 1813: "The town of Cloyne is situated on a small limestone eminence, gently rising in the midst of the valley, through which I suppose Cork Harbour to have once communicated with the sea, and this eminence, therefore, was once an island surrounded with water. On this spot St. Colman, before the year 600, is supposed to have founded his church, and the security of it must have received no small addition from the circumstance of a cave, which is on the most elevated part of it, extending in various branches underground to a great distance. The cave is now in the field called the Rock-meadow, forming part of the bishop's demesne, a little east of his garden wall, and they having been long neglected, and the drains from it choked up, it is generally full of water in winter, yet there is a large arched passage, running some hundred yards, leading to another mouth in the shrubbery north of it. A third, but smaller opening, is also visible in the high ground above the pond; a fourth, near the road to the commons ; and these, or similar entrances, gave the name to the whole of this land of the field of the caverns." Elsewhere he writes: "The rock-shrubbery ends at the mouth of a cave of unknown length and depth, which branches to a great distance under the earth, and is sanctified by a thousand wild traditions." Brash further informs us, that "it is generally believed that the caves at Cloyne, and the great stalactitical caves at Carrig-a-Crump, about two miles distant, are connected, which is not improbable. The latter caves have never been thoroughly explored, though penetrated to a distance of one mile." Speaking of the Cathedral, Dr. Bennett writes-"It is a respectable building, with a handsome nave and transept, and a small choir. By the style of the building I should suppose it not older than 1250. In the eastern part of the churchyard, which is large and well planted, still remain the ruins of a small stone edifice, standing east and west, thirty feet long, and nineteen in breath, known by the name of St. Colman's Chapel, and, probably, one of those oratories or early churches still to be seen at Killaloe, or St. Donat's, treated of by Ledwich in his 'Antiquities.'" Elsewhere the same writer adds: "In 1706 the Chapter passed an order to pull down the battlements of the church, as being too heavy for the side walls, thus depriving the cathedral of its ancient respectable appearance, and making it look, as much as they could, like a barn.” An old MS. in the British Museum, which is believed to have belonged to Sir James Ware (Clarendon Collection, 4,796), contains a curious account of the graveyard of Cloyne: "The best bloods of Ireland," it says, "have chosen Cloyne for their place of burial, because its founder, being a holy bishop, had such power with God, that what souls had dwelt in the bodies buried under that dust would never be adjudged 1159. O'Dubery, abbot of Cluanavama, died this year; in the annals of Inisfall, he is called bishop Dubrein.* Annal. Inisfal. to damnation." To corroborate this statement, we may mention that St, Cormac mac Cullenan, king and bishop of Cashel, directed in his will, as Keating informs us, that his body should be interred at Cluain-Uamha, because it was the burialplace of Colman mac Lenan; if that could not be accomplished, he was to be buried at Disert Diarmada. Nearly opposite the west end of the Cathedral, at a distance of thirty yards, stands the beautiful round tower of Cloyne. Its present height is a little more than a hundred feet; its diameter at the doorway is nine feet two inches, with a thickness of wall of three feet eight inches. At the upper floor the diameter of the tower is seven feet two inches, with a thickness of wall of two feet nine inches. The tower is divided internally into storeys by seven offsets taken from the thickness of the wall; so that, drawn in section, the internal line of wall would show a zig-zag outline. The tower was originally crowned by the usual conical stone roof, which is stated to have been destroyed by lightning on the night of the 10th of January, 1749. Bennet gives the following description of this storm :"A storm of lightning, with thunder, on the night of January 10th, 1749, passed through the country in a line from west to east, and, after killing some cows in a field south of Cork, struck the round tower of Cloyne. It first rent the vaulted arch at the top, threw down the great bell, together with three galleries, and descending perpendicularly to the lowest floor, forced its way, with a violent explosion, through one side of the tower, and drove some of the storeys, which were admirably well jointed, through the roof of a neighbouring stable. The door, though secured by a strong iron lock, was thrown to the distance of sixty yards, and quite shattered to pieces. A few pigeons that used to roost on the top of the steeple were scorched to death, not a feather of them being left unsinged. With the same bad taste which distinguishes all the works of our modern architecture, the vaulted stone roof of the tower was never repaired, but the height was lowered more than six feet, and a vile battlement, in imitation of the worst English churches, substituted in its stead.' Wilkinson, treating of the "Ancient Architecture of Ireland," p. 71, states that "the material of this tower is reddish-coloured sandstone of the country, in good preservation; much of it is very carefully worked to the curvature of the tower with a chisel-pointed hammer; the masonry of the doorway is put together in a laboured manner, and finely chiselled, each stone being apparently worked as it was required; the stones are flat-bedded and of considerable size;" and, subsequently, he adds, " that the masonry of the doorway is so carefully put together, that a file alone would produce such careful work in the present day.' In a paper read twelve years ago before the Kilkenny Archæological Society (New Series, ii., 265), we find it stated that "the round tower at Cloyne is locally known by the Irish-speaking people as Giol-cach; and the same term is locally applied at Ardmore, at Kineth, and at Ratto, in Kerry," Within the past few days this statement has been confirmed and further illustrated by the Rev. Richard Smiddy, in his interesting work on the "Druids, &c., of Ireland." At page 199 he writes: "The universal popular name of the round tower in Munster, Connaught, and the other Irish-speaking parts of Ireland, is cuilceach or culctheach: this name is formed from cuilc, a reed,' and theach, a house,' that is the reedhouse, or reed-shaped structure. Thus, the people have always said, with constant, unerring accuracy, when speaking of these structures, cuilceach Cluina, 'the round tower of Cloyne;' cuilceach Colmain, the round tower of St. Colman ;' cuilceach Deaglain, the round tower of St. Declan,' at Ardmore, and so on." To explain the origin of the name, he further adds: "There is growing in the bogs and rivers of Ireland a large kind of cuile, or reed, with a conical head, which, in form and shape, resembles the lines of the round tower, and which, I am sure, was originally taken as the model for it." The writer in the transactions of the Kilkenny Archæological Society, already referred to, also states: "I was never more struck with the poetic applicability of this term to our round towers than at Charles Smith, in his history of the county of Cork, says that St. Ite founded nunnery here, a little west of the Ratto, in Kerry, when I stood on the ancient causeway opposite the tower, and heard the same name applied to the tall, slender, symmetrical pillar, with its perfect conical spire, as to the tall, graceful reeds, with their spiral feathered caps, which lined the banks of the Brick, and of the canal which runs up nearly to the base of the tower" (p. 265). In the "Book of Rights," page 87, Cluain-uamha is mentioned as one of the royal residences of the Kings of Cashel, and subsequently is added : "Of the right of Cashel in its power Are Bruree and the great Muilchead; Seanchua the beautiful, Ros-raeda the bright: And to it belongs the noble fort of Cluain-uamha." The following facts, omitted by Archdall, have been gleaned from our Ancient Annals and the Wars of the Danes" : A.D. 821. Cucaech, abbot of Cluain-uamha, died. A. D. 822. A party of marauders plundered Cork, Inis-Temhni, Begery Island in Wexford harbour, Cloyne, and Rosmaelain. The barren rock, called Scelig Michil, i.e., St. Michael's Rock, the abode of a solitary named Edgall, was also invaded by them, and, as they found nothing else to take, they carried him off into captivity, in which he died in the following year. Keating says the invaders, on this occasion, were White Lochlann, that is, Norwegians. A.D. 835. Between the years 824 and 835 the greater part of the churches of Erin were plundered by the Danes. The monasteries and churches were the reputed repositories of wealth, as they were the centres of civilization throughout our island. They thus became the chief aim of the plunderers, and even at this early date the marauders made their way to the ecclesiastical establishments in some of the most remote parts of the country. The long list of the places plundered by them on this occasion ends with the names "Cell-Uasaille, now Killossy, or Killashee, near Naas, county Kildare; Glendalough, county Wicklow; CluainUamha, county Cork; and Mungairet, now Mungret, county Limerick." A. D. 857. Maelcobha Ua Faelain, abbot of Cluain Uamha, died. Lynch's MS. gives us in this year the additional entry :-" Robertachus bonus episcopus de Cluain-Uamha obiit." A.D. 884. Reachtaidh, learned Bishop of Cluain-Uamha, died. A.D. 888. Cluain-Uamha was again plundered by the Danes, and Fergal, son of Finachta, its bishop and abbot, and Uanan, son of Cerin, its sub-abbot, were killed. A.D. 1056. Daighre O'Dubatan, anchorite of Cloyne, died at Glendaloch. A. D. 1071. A fleet with Dermot O'Brien sailed round Ireland: he devastated Cluain-Uamha, and took away the relics of St. Finbarr from Cill-na-clerich. A.D. 1075. O'Carrain, archinnech of Cluain-Uamha quievit in Christo. A.D. 1094. O'Molvain, Bishop of Cluain-Uamha, died. A.D. 1099. Uamnachan Ua-Mictire, comharb of Colman, son of Lenin, died. A.D. 1137. Cluain-Uamha and Ardagh of Bishop Mel were burned, both houses and churches. A.D. 1149. Nehemiah O'Moriertach, bishop, died. He flourished in 1140, as we learn from St. Bernard in Vita S. Malachiae, who gives him the title "Epis copus Cluan-vaniae," which, in some of the printed texts, is corrupted into "Duenvaniae." Bishop Nehemiah is described by an old writer in "Tyndal's Vision" as "a plain and modest man, excelling in wisdom and chastity." A.D. 1159. O'Duberg, also called O'Dubrein, abbot of Cluain-Uamha, died. A.D. 1162. Diarmid Ua-Laighnen, lector of Cluain-Uamha, was killed. He is called by Lynch "Dermicius Ö’Leighnin, archidiaconus Cluanensis et Momoniae, Doctor." A.D. 1167. Ua-Flannain, bishop of Cluain-Uamha, died. A.D. 1192. Matthew O'Mongach, bishop of Cloyne, died. He was Legate of |