The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore

The Life of St. Mochuda of
Lismore

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Title: The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore
Author: Saint Mochuda
Release Date: February 4, 2004 [EBook #10937]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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OF ST. MOCHUDA OF LISMORE ***

Produced by Dennis McCarthy

LIFE OF ST. MOCHUDA OF LISMORE
(Edited from MS. in Library of Royal Irish Academy).
Translated from the Irish With Introduction
by
REV. P. POWER, M.R.I.A. University College, Cork.

PREFACE
It is solely the historical aspect and worth of the two tracts herewith
presented that appealed to their edition and first suggested to him their

preparation and publication. Had preparation in question depended for
its motive merely on considerations of the texts' philologic interest or
value it would, to speak frankly, never have been undertaken. The
editor, who disclaims qualification as a philologist, regards these Lives
as very valuable historical material, publication of which may serve to
light up some dark corners of our Celtic ecclesiastical past. He is
egotist enough to hope that the present "blazing of the track,"
inadequate and feeble though it be, may induce other and better
equipped explorers to follow.
The present editor was studying the Life of Declan [Project Gutenberg
Etext #823] for quite another purpose when, some years since, the
zealous Hon. Secretary of the Irish Texts Society suggested to him
publication of the tract in its present form, and addition of the Life of
Carthach [Mochuda]. Whatever credit therefore is due to originating
this work is Miss Hull's, and hers alone.
The editor's best thanks are due, and are hereby most gratefully
tendered, to Rev. M. Sheehan, D.D., D.Ph., Rev. Paul Walsh, Rev. J.
MacErlhean, S.J., M.A., as well as to Mr. R. O'Foley, who, at much
expense of time and labour, have carefully read the proofs, and, with
unselfish prodigality of their scholarly resources, have made many
valuable suggestions and corrections.
P.P.

INTRODUCTION--GENERAL
A most distinctive class of ancient Irish literature, and probably the
class that is least popularly familiar, is the hagiographical. It is, the
present writer ventures to submit, as valuable as it is distinctive and as
well worthy of study as it is neglected. While annals, tales and poetry
have found editors the Lives of Irish Saints have remained largely a
mine unworked. Into the causes of this strange neglect it is not the
purpose of the present introduction to enter. Suffice it to glance in
passing at one of the reasons which has been alleged in explanation,
scil.:--that the "Lives" are uncritical and romantic, that they abound in
wild legends, chronological impossibilities and all sorts of incredible
stories, and, finally, that miracles are multiplied till the miraculous
becomes the ordinary, and that marvels are magnified till the narrative
borders on the ludicrous. The Saint as he is sketched is sometimes a

positively repulsive being--arrogant, venomous, and cruel; he demands
two eyes or more for one, and, pucklike, fairly revels in mischief! As
painted he is in fact more a pagan deity than a Christian man.
The foregoing charges may, or must, be admitted partially or in full,
but such admission implies no denial of the historical value of the Lives.
All archaic literature, be it remembered, is in a greater or less degree
uncritical, and it must be read in the light of the writer's times and
surroundings. That imagination should sometimes run riot and the pen
be carried beyond the boundary line of the strictly literal is perhaps
nothing much to be marvelled at in the case of the supernatural minded
Celt with religion for his theme. Did the scribe believe what he wrote
when he recounted the multiplied marvels of his holy patron's life?
Doubtless he did--and why not! To the unsophisticated monastic and
mediaeval mind, as to the mind of primitive man, the marvellous and
supernatural is almost as real and near as the commonplace and natural.
If anyone doubts this let him study the mind of the modern Irish
peasant; let him get beneath its surface and inside its guardian ring of
shrinking reserve; there he will find the same material exactly as
composed the mind of the tenth century biographers of Declan and
Mochuda. Dreamers and visionaries were of as frequent occurrence in
Erin of ages ago as they are to-day. Then as now the supernatural and
marvellous had a wondrous fascination for the Celtic mind. Sometimes
the attraction becomes so strong as