Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise
The ninth of September in the Orthodox Church is the feast day of Saint Ciarán ‘the Younger’ of Clonmacnoise, the sixth-century Irish monastic whose holy life and scholarly witness made him an important forefather of holy hermits like Saint Cóemgen of Glendalough and missionaries like Saint Comgall of Bangor. This alone would make him worthy of veneration among the saints of Great Britain as well, but there is also the connexion several historians and hagiographers have made between him and the Cornish Saint Piran of Perranzabuloe.
The younger Saint Ciarán [also Kieran] was born in Fuerty in County Roscommon around the year 512, being the son of an itinerant carpenter and wheelwright named Beoit and his wife Darerca. He is still the patron saint of Connacht, the historical region which contains Roscommon. Ciarán was one of eight children, and one of two of their children who embraced a celibate religious vocation, and he was baptised and taught in Christianity by a presbyter of the Church whose name was Justus. Ciarán was content in any manner of work – he did take well to his studies, but he spent much of his time working as a cowherd to support his family, who were common-born and not well off. In those days a cowherd would have to use their voices and the mysteries of music to build a relationship with their animals, and thus it should come as no surprise that even this early on in his life, Ciarán demonstrated a care and a special affinity for animals both wild and domestic.
Justus it may have been, who recommended him to Saint Fionnán of Clonard, who took the youngling Ciarán as his Padawan – or rather, a novice monk at his monastery. There Saint Ciarán distinguished himself with zeal and care in his studies, as well as advancing in the ascetic disciplines. Among Saint Fionnán’s students, Ciarán became known as a worker of wonders. One of Fionnán’s students and Ciarán’s friends was Saint Ninnidh ‘Laobh Dearc’, who came to class one day without a Bible. Saint Ciarán lent him his when he was asked. Saint Fionnán tested his class on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, and poor Ciarán only knew half the answers. The other students teased him and called him ‘Ciarán half-Matthew’, but Saint Fionnán rebuked them and said: ‘Call him rather Ciarán half-Ireland, for he will have half the country and leave the rest to us!’
He later also studied under Saint Éanna of Inishmore in the small archipelago of Aran. However, he received a vision from God of a great tree growing in the midst of a verdant island, spreading its branches over every shore, giving off beautiful blossoms and sweet fruits for the nourishment of its people, with birds plucking off some and carrying it to other lands. He recounted this vision to his spiritual father. Saint Éanna interpreted the vision as being a sign that Ciarán himself must return to Ireland and found a monastery in the centre of the Irish land – Ciarán himself was the tree that must bring the light of Christ to the whole of the island.
Ciarán returned to Ireland and lived for some time with his brothers Odhrán and Luachaill at a place named Isel. Ciarán was so generous and open-handed with everyone who came to visit there, that his brothers asked him at length to leave them. They told him: ‘Leave us, brother. We cannot live in the same place with you and feed and keep our brethren for God, because of your unbounded lavishness!’
He took his leave of them, with his books in a saddlebag on his back. A helpful stag walked alongside him, and allowed Saint Ciarán to burden it with his books. He settled on Lough Ree in Shannon, where he placed himself under the discipline of Saint Senán of Iniscathy. He spent this time of his life founding oratories and monastic cells on various lake-islands in central Ireland, and may have spent some time on Hare Island. One hagiographical story to Saint Ciarán’s account is that a monk under his discipline once lost a Gospel book of his in the lake, and grieved greatly over his negligence. Later that summer when a cow went down to the lake to drink, the strap on the binding of the Gospel caught on the cow’s hoof, and the cow brought it ashore when it finished drinking. When Saint Ciarán recovered the book, it was discovered that the water had not damaged the book at all – not one page was damaged and not one letter was blotted or missing.
Around the year 544, Saint Ciarán took nine companions and settled with them in Offaly on the banks of the Shannon, where he founded the great monastic complex of Clonmacnoise. Again, the saint was led here by a vision he had, that Clonmacnoise would be the place where many souls would ascend from earth to heaven; and that it would be a site of pilgrimage much favoured by those who love the Lord. According to another tale, Saint Ciarán was led to a more beautiful place, but he chose Clonmacnoise instead because the subtler beauties of that place would prove less distracting to his monastic brothers. The hagiographies have it that he was assisted in building this monastery by the future high king of Ireland, Diarmait mac Cerbaill.
Clonmacnoise followed a discipline of strict asceticism under Saint Ciarán. This rule was apparently quite popular; just as Saint Fionnán had predicted in the saint’s youth, fully half of the monasteries in Ireland submitted to the rule of Saint Ciarán. And they did this because Ciarán himself was sincere in following his own rule, and never imposed upon his brothers anything he was unwilling to take on himself. He prayed and fasted; he did heavy menial labour alongside his brothers; he studied the Scriptures; and he gave generously to the poor with the same abandon that had caused his brothers to dismiss him. He also advocated for the kinless and rootless in courts of law where they had no other to speak for them.
The closeness that the Celtic holy men had with nature is fully evident with Saint Ciarán, as we can tell even from the above account. When he was at school he used to take written tasks from his spiritual father from the mouth of a tame fox. There was a dun cow that accompanied the saint throughout his entire life, from his youth as a cowherd for his father. This cow provided the monastery at Clonmacnoise with milk sufficient to satisfy all the brothers. After this cow died a natural death, it was said that its skin was used to make the binding for a unique and precious mediæval text containing a history of the Britons, several poetic works and a life of Saint Colum Cille: The Book of the Dun Cow, a fragment of which still exists and was placed in the care of the Royal Irish Academy in 1844.
Saint Ciarán himself did not live much longer after he founded the monastery at Clonmacnoise. A plague was then sweeping through Ireland, carrying off many souls. Saint Ciarán was among those who reposed in 545, having been abbot at Clonmacnoise for several months. Before he died, he gave instruction to his nine disciples not to bury him, but instead to leave his bones exposed on a hilltop, the same as would be done for a deer. Despite his short abbacy, he was proclaimed as one of the greatest of the Irish saints by his contemporaries and friends, including by Saint Colum Cille and Saint Cóemgen. Certainly Clonmacnoise, which started merely from the cells of Ciarán’s nine students, grew into one of the largest monastic complexes in Ireland – a veritable city of saints housing as many as 2,000 monks at one time, which continued unbroken from the sixth century until the sixteenth, when it was vandalised and destroyed under the orders of the English king Henry VIII. It was not only a centre for ascetical pursuits, but also for fine art and craftsmanship. Clonmacnoise became known for the quality of its illuminated manuscripts; its masonry; and its fine works in silver, bronze and iron. It boasted a monastic school and instruction in the seven liberal arts which went largely unmatched in Ireland throughout the mediæval period, and rivalled the best schools in the rest of Western Europe. Many kings of Tara and Connaught chose to be buried within the pale at Clonmacnoise – the dwelling of an ordinary cowherd with extraordinary gifts of humility and generosity. Holy father Ciarán, blessed teacher of the Irish nation, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!
From childhood thy life was resplendent with miracles, O Father Ciarán,
Showing forth thy boundless love for God
By loving and caring for His creation, both men and animals.
Leaving thy carpenter father, thou didst seek training
In the ascetical life from Ireland’s spiritual giants
Before founding the great monastery of Clonmacnoise,
Whence the Lord, in His great mercy, called thee to Himself in thy thirty-third year.
Wherefore, O venerable one, intercede with Christ our God
That we too may be found worthy of His mercy.
Ruins of Clonmacnoise, County Offaly, Ireland
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