300 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



It may be well to point out at once that the inconsistencies of O'Donnel 

 do not present a fatal objection. The true inference from them is that he 

 made use of contradictory traditions ; and variety of tradition is an argument 

 in favour of an underlying basis of historical fact. Thus, for example, 

 O'DonneU bears unconscious witness to the tradition that the sentence of 

 banishment was passed on Columba by Molaise of Inishmurray. That, no 

 doubt, gave rise to the later story that the banishment was decreed by 

 Molaise of Damh luis. Incidents in the life of one saint are readily 

 transferred to another of the same name.' But there is less probability 

 that other traditions, current in the fourteenth century, which made Finnian 

 of Maghbile or Brendan of Birr the author of the sentence, sprang from 

 it. It is more likely that both it and they came from a yet older tradition, 

 in which the confessor who pronounced the sentence was anonymous. And 

 that carries us back a long way. For the tradition that named the saint of 

 Inishmurray is imbedded in the Preface to the Amra Coluim Cille preserved 

 in the Leabhar na hUidiire. This part of the Leabhar na hUidhre is of the 

 eleventh century ; the Preface is probably earlier ; earlier still must have 

 been the poem from which the Preface quotes a single stanza ;' and prior to 

 it was the story of the anonymous confessor. But quite independent of this 

 ancient tale is the companion story of the Archangel Michael. 1 1 obviously 

 springs from a belief that St. Columba determined to leave Ireland without 

 any suggestion save the prompting of his own heart. Now, all these 

 traditions, going back to a period not removed by a very great interval 

 from St. Columba himself, agree in telling that the exile was a penance for 

 some misconduct of the saint ; and most of them connect it with the battle 



' When, in the course uf tliu development of the legend, a name was given to the 

 confessor of St. Columba, it was natural that Molaise of Inishmurray should be selected. 

 He was tlie principal saint of the district of Carbuiy, in which the battle was fought ; 

 and St. Columba's tribe, the Cinel Conaill, was nearly related to the Cinel Cairbre, the 

 former tracing its descent to Conall, and the latter to Cairbre, sons of Niall of the Nine 

 Hostages. Damh Inis was situated in the territory of a tribe of different stock, the Fir 

 Jlanach. 



^See above, p 295. The Preface was written by scribe A (see R. I. Best, "Notes on 

 the Script of Lebor na hUidre," in Eriu, vi. IGl ff.), from whose hand scribe M (Mael 

 Muire of Clonmacnoise, ob. 1106) took up the pen on two occasions. Thus the quatrain 

 mentioned in the text may go back to the early eleventh or late tenth century. Earlier, 

 in its present form, it seems, we cannot place it for linguistic I'easons (though Zimmer 

 would have dated the Preface in the ninth century : " Sitzungsb. der k. preussisohen Ak. 

 der Wissensch," li (1910), 1035 f.). But it must be conceded that the remainder of the 

 poem may be later. It is, as Mr. E. J. Gwynn tells me, a composite structure, the older 

 substratum of which may belong to the tenth or eleventh century. Cp. above, p. 295, 

 note '. 



