Macaijstek — The Histori/ and Antiquities of luis Cealtra. 103 



Caimin, both written by himself in that old church now represented by the 

 ruins of St. Caimin ? This book, with his beautiful hymn to the Blessed 

 Virgin, would be enough to recommend the seat of such piety and learning to 

 the attention of every good and enlightened Christian." There is no evidence 

 that this letter was intended for publication at all, so I do not intend to 

 criticize it further than to note that the church mentioned had no existence 

 till about oOO years after St Caimiu's time, and that the " book of Caimin,'' 

 hymn and all, is mythical. Inis (Cealtra has quite enough real recommenda- 

 tions, and can afford to dispense wiili imaginary ones. I would not drag this 

 letter from its obscurity, were it not that it is such an excellent example of 

 the way in which statements become copied from book to book, without veri- 

 fication, and become transformed in the process into something that would 

 have greatly astonished the original author. But no doubt the myth of the 

 Hebrew scholarship of St. Caimin will survive its refutation, and will con- 

 tinue to reappear lalong with the monument of St. Patrick's nephew on Incha- 

 goill, and other hoary fictions) in the popular books of the future, as of the 

 past. 



A certain Coelan of Inis Cealtra, of whom we know practically nothing, is 

 mentioned in connexion with a Life of St. Brigid, in Latin hexameters, printed 

 by Colgan as his " Sexta Vita." In one MS. this is ascribed to a certain 

 " Ghilienus " ; but the attribution to Coelan has been questioned. This poem 

 contains a reference to Inis Cealtra, which occurs in the course of an account 

 of how St. Brigid miraculously crossed the Shannon — 



Altera ualde mihi uirtus miranda uidetur 

 Quae fuit iu magna Siuaimi fluminis unda: 

 Intra quam Kelltra est oonueiitus rite uiroruni 

 Prudentum sacro Benedict! dogmate florens — 



which if genuine would imply that the rule of Inis Cealtra followed that of 

 St. Benedict. It is not inconceivable that the two lines in question are an 

 interpolation, from which form of modification the rest of the poem (so-called) 

 is not, it would appear, altogether free ; indeed the Bollandists' seem to have 

 doubts as to the authenticity of the whole document. The general consensus 

 of opinion seems to be that Coelan tiourished iu or about the eighth century, 

 though there does not seem to be any very solid ground on which to build 

 even this indefinite hypothesis. In any case, his is the only voice that we 

 hear from Inis Cealtra for nearly 200 years after the death of Cairoin.- 



After Coelan, we hear a few names of members of the community. 



' Vita Brigittae, Feb. 1, commentarius praeuius, sect. 2. 



- If there be any other reference to Inis Cealtra in the Trkis Thauraaturga, it is 

 successfully concealed by a misprint in the Index. 



[16*] 



