|
|
 |
On the County Clare side of Lough Derg, and accessible from Mountshannon by the boats of East Clare Heritage (q.v.). It has a fine round tower but the top is missing, and the ruins of several small churches and cells, as well as part of 4 high crosses and a holy well. The cemetery on this island is still in use, the coffins being transported from the Clare side in small boats. There is a stone with a hole in it, through which lovers held hands and promised to be true. East Clare Heritage provides guided tours as well as transport.
The (much abridged) information below is taken directly from 'Holy Island - Jewel of the Lough' and is reproduced with kind permission of Gerard Madden. For more information about this booklet or other works about the area by Gerard (including an in-depth history of the O'Madden family) follow this East Clare Heritage link or the one to be found at the bottom of the page.
Holy Island or Inis Cealtra containing approximately twenty hectares is situated on Lough Derg, the largest lake on the Shannon. It lies at the mouth of Scariff Bay, an inlet of Lough Derg which gives its name to an unpleasant breeze known to fishermen in particular as the 'Scariff Breeze'. Mountshannon is the nearest village to the island, which is placed in the midst of some of the most beautiful scenery in the whole of Ireland.
Prior to 1849 it formed part of Co. Clare, but in that year it was transferred to Co.Galway. In 1899, soon after the passing of The Local Government Act, it was restored to Clare. Ecclesiastically it belongs to the Diocese of Killaloe.
Its name probably derives from two Irish words Innis and Celtair. Innis means an island and Celtair, which is old Irish, means a church. Hence we get Church Island and it is an easy step from there to its more common name Holy Island, when one considers the reputation it acquired for sanctity. Dr. Joyce, who was an authority on Irish place-names, interpreted the name as 'The island of Celtchair'. This name as well as references later on, suggest that the first christian hermits inherited an island that was already sacred to our pagan ancestors.
The recorded history of the island dates back to the sixth century. It was then, that a monastic community was established here by St. Colum Mac Cremthainn.
Colum died about 548 A.D. of the pestilence known as the 'Crom-Chonail'. He was first buried on Inis Cealtra and after seven years his body was transferred to Terryglass to fulfill his expressed wish.
St. Colum's immediate successor was his pupil Nadcaoimh, who was associated with the monastery of Terryglass. He was succeeded by Fintan who had also been a pupil of Colum. Colman Stellann came next - he was one of the clergy to whom the Pope elect John IV addressed a letter in 640, concerning a controversy that arose at the time over calculating the date of Easter. The Roman Church or the Western Church in general had arrived at a more accurate method of calculating the date than that which prevailed in the Celtic Church. It was sometime before this matter was finally settled, with the Roman and more accurate method being adopted. Colman Stellan died in 651.
Saint Caimin
St. Colman Stellan was followed as Abbot by St.Caimin, whose name is still revered in East Clare. Both the Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic buildings in nearby Mountshannon are dedicated to him, and the large number of people who bear his name in East Clare is ample testimony to that esteem.
St.Caimin's mother was known as Cumman and according to the Annals of the Four Masters A.D.662 she had numerous children i.e. 77; yes seventy seven! Many of them became famous churchmen and lay rulers. Some of St.Caimin's half brothers were Guaire Aidhne, (the hospitable), a legendary king of Connaught, St.Cuimmine Fota, (the long), Abbot and Bishop of Clonfert, and St.Colman of Kilmacduagh, who has an oratory seemingly dedicated to him at nearby Clonrush graveyard in Whitegate.
The 17th-century Irish Fransiscan historian Colgan states, (from a study of early life of the Saint), 'that he withdrew to Holy Island for the sake of greater solitude and there began a life of great austerity and continuous prayer, but the fame of his sanctity was soon spread abroad and his disciples became so numerous that he was compelled to organise them into a regular monastic community'.
There is a well known tale, which is found in the 12th century 'Book of the Dun Cow', concerning St.Caimin and his half brothers Guaire Aidne, King of Connaught and Cuimmine Fota, the Abbot and Bishop of Clonfert: The three men met in a Church on Holy Island and there discussed what each wished the Church to be filled with. Guaire wished it to be filled with gold and silver so that he might show generosity to the poor. Cuimmine Fota wished it to be filled with books so that students might learn the way of truth. Caimin wished the church to be filled with every kind of disease and sickness, so that all these diseases might be inflicted on his own body.
The three wishes were fulfilled. Guaire got wealth and Cummine learning. Caimin's wish was also granted, for all kinds of disease and sickness were inflicted on his body, - 'so that no bone of him joined another bone on the earth, but they melted and decayed with the anguish of every disease and every tribulation.'
There is not a great deal of information concerning the history of Holy Island during the two centuries following St.Caimin's death, but what references there are in the Annals indicate that the monastery continued to flourish. The archaelogical evidence in itself supports this, eg. the wealth of stone recumbent slabs dating from the 8th to the 12th centuries.
The Norsemen, Vikings or Danes
Towards the end of the 8th century, Ireland and the Celtic Church were to meet with a new and terrible enemy. I refer to the invasion by the Norsemen more commonly called the Danes in East Clare. There is a curious cave on the Galway/Clare border, not far from Holy Island still called the Danes Den. Monks from the Island probably hid there during one of the many raids. In a direct line between this cave and the Island, at Bohatch, graves have been found by the mountain side. They are box like structures, (cist graves), and are situated close to a well known Portal Dolmen.
Holy Island and Brian Boru
The 9th and 10th centuries were indeed sad and troubled times for the Irish Church, but gradually the Irish Kings recovered and began to turn the tide on the invaders. They suffered a heavy defeat by Brian Boru, at the battle of Clontarf 1014, from which they never recovered.
Brian was born nearby, at Killaloe on the southern shore of the lake, and helped in re-establishing and refurnishing ecclesiastical foundations in Ireland.
Brian's brother, Marcan was Abbot of Holy Island, Terryglass and Killaloe, at the time of his death in 1009, and is mentioned in the Annals of Ulster as 'Coarb of Colum' not of Caimin as one might expect.
Another O'Brien, Gormflaith, daughter of Ua Focarta and wife of Toirdelbhach O'Brien, who assumed the Kingship of Munster in 1064, died in Killaloe and was buried on Holy Island in 1076 (Annals of Innisfallen). She was wealthy and generous, but a gap in the Annals of Innisfallen, leaves us uncertain whether it was the Church of Killaloe or Holy Island which benefitted from her gift of 'countless wealth'.
Time of Change
A wind of change was beginning to blow in the 11th century which was to result in the transformation of the Celtic Church from a monastic one to the diocesan and parochial one, such as we are familiar with today.
It is generally believed that Saint Patrick in the 5th century intended the Irish Church to develop along those lines, but from the 6th to the 12th century the Irish church was monastically structured.
Territorial jurisdiction lat with the Abott who in Irish was called 'Coarb' meaning heir and that is how the successors of the founder were styled, Abbatical succession was on the lines of the secular system - the most suitable member of the family was chosen.
The Synod of Rathbreasail in 1111, presided over by Muichertach Ua Briain, divided the country into two ecclesiastical provinces and into Dioceses as we know them today. This was the beginning of the end for the monastic system. O'Halloran in his 'History of Ireland' quotes from an ancient document to the effect that the Council of Kells in 1152 under the Presidency of Cardinal Paparo, legate of Pope Eugene III, assigned Inis Cealtra as one of the nine suffragen sees given to Tuam Diocese.
Holy Island now became a parish consisting of the island and a portion of the mainland. The parish church was ojn the Island. The Papal Taxation of 1302-06 provides us with the earliest list we have of Diocesan parishes. Holy Island was taxed at three marks, Tuamgraney two marks, Moynoe (Scariff), twenty shillings and Clonrush (Whitegate), ten shillings.
From the Reforms of the 12th & 13th Centuries to the Consfications of the 17th century
The first 18 years of the 14th century were marked by the continuation of a civil war in Thomond - presently County Clare.
The Coarb in this period was
primarily a farmer and the ecclesiastical rectors were normally chosen from members of his family. The Coarb paid a chief rent to the Bishop and he acted as custodian of the relics and collected the rectorial tithes. At nearby Tuamgraney the Coarb was always an O'Grady. There is no mention of a Coarb for Holy Island even though it lay in O'Grady territory.
The family of Maol-Ompile, anglicised Molampy of Danish Origin, provided the ecclesiastical rectors on Holy Island over a long period. The name still survives on the Tipperary side. The O'Hogan family of Castletown-Arra in Tipperary were also found there as rectors.
With the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century and the introduction of Protestantism, the Island suffered ravages comparable with those that it suffered six hundred years before at the hands of the Vikings. The churches were unroofed at this time and have remained so ever since. One church, St.Caimin's has recently been re-roofed by the Board of Works.
In 1615 during the 'Royal Visitation' the churches are reported to have been in ruin.
The prebend of 'Enniskalty' to which the rectory of the Island belonged was valued at £40 and was in the hands of one Thomas Edens, minister and preacher, sometime student of Oxford - 'a man of good life and conversation'.
The rectory was impropriated ie. (in the hands of a layman); the patron being the Earl of Cork - its value was £22 - the vicarage was vacant. The cure was not served, 'being an Island and but one house'.
The Earl of Cork, Richard Boyle, was not alone in the matter of appropriating Church lands, but owing to various Government positions he held, he had a distinct advantage over others. In 1632 he claimed Holy Island and the quarters or ploughlands of Kilcornan and Drumarten as his inheritance. Drumarten is part of the modern townland of Cappaduff in Mountshannon. In that year he gave 'Murrogh O Coman, Sir Rowland De Lahoyde's priest forty marks sterling' for the release of a deed to half the Island and he gave his cousin John Brady, Raheen, Tuamgraney possession.
In 1633 Richard Boyle gave leases for two lives a piece to six of the O'Hurley's who along with the MacNamara's 'pretended a possession and title to my Island of Innishcaltra and quarter of land called Dromarten parcell of the possessions of the spitall of Anye'. (The Lismore Papers: Edited by Rev. Alexander B. Grosard 1886)
After the disastrous Confederate War and Cromwell's bloody campaign, the parishes of Inis Cealtra, Scariff (Moynoe) and Tuamgraney were again granted to the Earl of Cork, Richard Boyle.
In 1664, when the subsidy roll was compiled the whole parish of Inis Cealtra was rated under the name of George Thornton.
After 1700, the Daly family of Dunsandle, County Galway were in possession of the Island and parish of Mountshannon. Once again, the above information is reproduced with kind permission of Gerard Madden, for more details of the booklet that this information was taken from - 'Holy Island - Jewel of the Lough' and other works about the area and it's inhabitants please follow the link to East Clare Heritage at the bottom of this page.
For more details post 1700, please refer to the town of Mountshannon.
East Clare Heritage - Local histories, genealogy and info about Inis Cealtra tours
Mountshannon - information about the town closest to Holy Island
Other towns of County Clare - list and links to towns and villages of Co.Clare
|
|
|
