2 66 Proceedings of f/ie Royal Irish Academy. 



simple islanders, perhaps even kinsmen of the abbot. It promised endless 

 peace to all ; but the Irish, whether grown restless from their journey, or in 

 search of old friends, wandered away, and left all the work to the Saxons ; 

 even the harvest was neglected, and quarrels arose. Colman saw that two 

 incompatible races (no longer held together by the tradition of an old- 

 established monastery) were better apart. He took the thirty Saxons and 

 moved inland to Mayo, where he bought a site for his third monastery ; there 

 the English monks could be ruled on their own lines, as the Irish were on 

 theirs. He ruled over the two houses till his death on August 8th, 674 or 676. 

 The first date is that of the abbacy of St. Choenchomra, Cohnan's successor at 

 Bofin, and therefore probably the real one. Choenchomra was reverenced also 

 as a saint on July 23rd. St. Baetan succeeded him as Abbot of " Inismore " 

 r or Inishbofin), and died on January 14th, 711 or 712. On that day another 

 abbot, of unknown date, Luighbe, is venerated at Inishbofin. Whether 

 Colman died or was buried on this island, or at Mayo, does not seem to be 

 recorded ; probably the more important abbey on the mainland was his 

 resting-place, but, of course, relics must have been preserved on Bofin. 



There are great difficulties in following out the history of the island ; the 

 name is not uncommon, and may lead to confusion, especially with the islands 

 of the same name in Co. Donegal and Lough Bee, the last with an interesting 

 early church and a late abbey, embodying a decorated romanesque window 

 from a building of the period about 1100. It is rarely that the scanty records 

 give us any clue as to what " Inisbofin " is intended. The rectory of Inishbofin 

 was impropriate to the Marquess of Clanrickard, a sure sign that it was at one 

 time monastic property. 



The church is described in the Ordnance Survey Letters 1 as "very old and 

 curious," but it deserves neither epithet. It is a very commonplace building, 

 with no trace of carving or ornamental features, and probably no part remains 

 that is over five hundred years old. Whether the heaps of loose stones in 

 the graveyard are, as certain imaginative writers have fancied, the remains of 

 the cells of Colman's monastery, there is nothing to show. The only possibly 

 early object which may well date from the time of the founder is the 

 primitive bullaun stone, or font, now lying in the south window. The coign 

 stones of the door and windows have all been removed, the sill of the north 

 window is alone in situ, the splay arch of the east window is not of cut stone, 

 nor could I find a single block with moulding or carving among the weeds and 

 debris. The church is 70 feet 6 inches long (including the buttress 5 feet) and 

 23 feet wide outside ; it is divided by a gabled wall, though this was evidently 



1 Mayo, vol. i, p. 484. Rev. John 0' IJanlon conjectures that Choenchomra w as not of this Inisbofin. 



