Clare Island Survey — History and Archaeology . 2 65 



The cliff at the hut-site has fallen so recently that the rock is raw and 

 bare, and the debris lies loose and dry on the edges ; none of the rich orange 

 lichen, or bosses of sea-pink, that we see elsewhere, has had time to grow 

 on the new surface, whether of the cliff or of the earth bank above it, on 

 which the hut rested. Next to the west of the arch of strata opposite 

 the neck, appears another fresh surface ; it is probable that the fall of the 

 southern cliff, to the right, took place very long ago. The great blocks of the 

 fallen neck choke up the gully below ; the weak point was evidently the 

 curved strata of the neck, of which only a knife-edge remains to landward. 

 The name Dunnahineena (some think) means Finnguine's Fort (Dunadh). 



There is a Lough na Veeneeny on the westward side of the island. 

 The coast, though low, is pretty; the labyrinth of rocks and bogs in 

 Cloonamore, opposite which is the dim, has been already noted. 



St. Column's Cell and Church. 



The story has often been repeated from the record of the Venerable Bede, 1 

 how in a.d. 667 Colman,the saintly Abbot of Lindisfarne, for thirty-seven years 

 a Columban monk of Iona, and probably a native of Connacht, whither he 

 retired, entered into the unhappy Easter controversy. This was at the time 

 a subject of bitter dispute, threatening to separate the Church in Ireland and 

 its daughter in Scotland and northern England from all communion with the 

 other western churches. "We need not repeat the discussion of Wilfred of 

 York with Colman, before King Oswy, but respect for St. Peter made the 

 King decide against the Irish usage, despite his love and veneration for the 

 abbot. Colman, defeated but attached to his national observances, deter- 

 mined to leave Lindisfarne. He opened the grave of his great predecessor, 

 Aidan, and secured some relics of that abbot ; and then, accompanied by 

 a number of British and Irish monks, who adhered to him against royal and 

 episcopal decisions, he retired, with all the Irish and thirty Saxons, to Iona, 

 and rested, comforted by the sympathy of its monks. Then again they 

 faced the waves and storms round Donegal and across the broad bay of Sligo. 

 down the coast, and rested not till they came to Inishbofinde, the Isle of the 

 White Cow. There they chose a site for their rude little church (probably, 

 like that of Lindisfarne, of hewn timber) and their little cells, of which all 

 trace has now disappeared. 



The place was well chosen, not far from a fine crescent strand, in a 

 sheltered valley, near a lake and possibly among a friendly population of 



1 Ecclesiastical History, Liber iii, c. 25, and iv, c. 4. Usshei's " De Primordia," p. S3-4. Annals 

 of Ulster, 676. The Four Masters. 667 ami 674. Roderick O'Flalierty, " hlar Coiinaujrlit," p. 115. 



K. I. A. PROC, VOL. XXXI, I 2 



