Lawlok — The Cathnch of St. Columba. 323 



battle was fought. It is Colum Cille's chief relic in the land of Cinel Conaill 

 Gulban. It is encased in gilded silver, and it is not lawful to open it. And 

 if it be taken thrice right-hand wise round the host of Cinel Conaill, when 

 about to engage in battle, they always return safe in triumph. It is on the 

 bosom of a comarb or a cleric who is as far as j)o.ssible free from mortal sin 

 that it should be borne round the host." 



There is no doubt that reference is made in this passage to the beautiful 

 shrine, of which a description is given below,' and which is said, in the 

 eighteenth-century inscription on its outer cover, to have contained the 

 "pignus sancti Columbani," commonly called the Caah, handed down to 

 Daniel O'Donel from his forefathers. Manus O'Donnell tells us that the 

 book which, till a century ago, it concealed from view, is the transcript made 

 by Columba's hand from St. Finnian's book. Can we accept his statement ? 



Let us note, in the first place, that the statement itself has considerable 

 weight as evidence. For O'Donnell is obviously reporting the tradition of 

 the tribe to which both he and St. Columba belonged. Apart from that 

 tradition, he had no reason to assume that the shrine contained a book. For 

 two centuries, ever since the present lid had been made for it,- it had not 

 been possible to test the accuracy of the tradition on that point. The 

 tradition itself had apparently been forgotten when Daniel O'Donel repaired 

 the shrine ;^ it was certainly lost by the beginning of the nineteenth century, 

 when Sir William Betham was informed that it contained such things as 

 St. Columba's bones. But there is now no doubt that when Manus O'Donnell 

 declared that it was a book-shrine he was right. And, apart from this, we are 

 becoming more convinced as time goes on that the absolute rejection of such 

 traditions is unscientific. 



Moreover, the conclusions to which we have been led in an earlier part of 

 this essay supply valuable confirmation of the truth of Manus O'Dounell's 

 statement. We have seen that in the eleventh century Cathbarr O'Donnell 



were the bell of St. Patrick, the Misach of Cairnech (Reeves, 329), St. Columba's crozier, 

 called the Cathbhnaidh (ibid., 332 f.), and St. Caillin's cross (O'Donovan, "Hy-Many, " 

 p. 82). St. Darerca is said to have left to the tribes around her monastery various 

 articles that had belonged to her, to serve a like purpose, though the term cathach is not 

 applied to them (Acta S. Darercae, 30 : Cod. Sal., col. 184). To which may be added 

 St. Declan's bell (Life of St. Deolan of Ardmore : Irish Texts Society, vol. xvi, p. 51), and 

 St. Grellan's cross ("Hy-many," p. 81). Neither of these last two is called a cathach. 

 It is remarkable that thirty-five years before O'Donnell wrote, Columba's cathach 

 w.as carried into battle by the O'Donnells on an occasion when they suffered defeat 

 (Four Masters, s. a. 1497). 



1 Appendix I. See also above, p. 243 f. 



2 See below, p. 395. 

 ' Above, p. 2-H. 



I 46*1 



