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   DONAHOE'S MAGAZINE.

   Vol. XV.    BOSTON, FEBRUARY, 1886.     No. 2

     "THE future of the Irish race in this country, will depend largely
     upon their capability of assuming an independent attitude in
     American politics."--RIGHT REV. DOCTOR IRELAND, _St. Paul_, _Minn._





The Columbian Abbey of Derry.


One bright sunny day last summer I found myself in the city of Derry,
with some hours to spare. I passed them in rambling aimlessly about
whither fancy or accident led me,--now on the walls, endeavoring to
recall the particulars of that siege so graphically described by
Macaulay, now in the Protestant Cathedral musing on the proximity of
luxuriously-cushioned pew and cold sepulchral monument along which the
sun, streaming through the stained windows, threw a mellow glow that
softened but did not remove the hideousness of the death's emblems on
them--now wandering down the busy street and admiring the beauties of
the Casino College, which, like the alien cathedral a little distance
up, rejoices in the patronage of St. Columb and is built on the site of
his old monastery. Here I lingered long, trying to picture to myself the
olden glories of the spot on which I stood, for

   "I do love these ancient ruins;
   We never tread upon them
   But we set our foot upon some reverend history;"

although here not an ivy-clasped gable, or even a mossy stone remains to
claim the "passing tribute" of a sigh, or a vain regret for the golden
days of our Irish Church. Yet its very barrenness of ruins made it
dearer to my heart, for one never clings more fondly to the memory of a
dear friend than when all mementoes of him are lost. As warned by the
stroke of the town-clock, I hurried down to the station to be whirled
away to Dublin, I thought that perhaps my fellow-readers of the MAGAZINE
would bear with me while I gossiped for half an hour on the story of
this grand old monastery, the mother-house of Iona.

You know where Derry is, or if you don't your atlas will tell you, that
it is away up in the north of Ireland, where, situated on the shores of
the Lough Foyle, coiling its streets round the <DW72>s of a hill till on
the very summit they culminate in the cross-crowned tower of St.
Columb's Cathedral, it lies in the midst of a beautiful country just
like a cameo fallen into a basket of flowers. The houses cluster round
the base of the hill on the land side, spread themselves in irregular
masses over the adjoining level, or clamber up the opposite rise on the
brow of which stands St. Eugene's Cathedral, yet unfinished, and the
pile of turrets which constitute Magee College. A noble bridge spans the
Foyle, and through a forest of shipmasts one may see on the other side
the city rising up from the water, and stretching along the bending
shore till it becomes lost in the villa-studded woods of Prehen.

The massive walls, half hidden by encroaching commerce, the grim-looking
gates, and the old rusty cannon whose mouth thundered the "No" of the
"Maiden City" to the rough advances of James, in 1689, give the city a
mediaeval air that well accords with its monastic origin. For, let her
citizens gild the bitter pill as they may, the cradle of Derry--the
Rochelle of Irish Protestantism--was rocked by monks--aye, by monks in
as close communion with Rome as are the dread Jesuits to-day.

Fourteen hundred years ago the Foyle flowed on to mingle its waters with
ocean as calmly as it does to-day, but its peaceful bosom reflected a
far different scene. Then the fair, fresh face of nature was unsullied
by the hand of man. "The tides flowed round the hill which was of an
oval form, and rose 119 feet above the level of the sea, thus forming an
island of about 200 acres."[1] A Daire or oak grove spread its leafy
shade over the whole, and gave shelter to the red deer and an unceasing
choir of little songsters. It was called in the language of the time
"Daire-Calgachi." The first part of the name in the modern form of
Derry, still remains--though now the stately rows of oak have given way
to the streets of a busy city, and the smoke of numerous factories
clouds the atmosphere.

One day, in the early part of 546, there visited the grove, in company
with the local chieftain, a youth named Columba, a scion of the royal
race of the O'Donnells. He was captivated by its beauty. It seemed the
very spot for the monastery he was anxious to establish. He was only a
deacon; but the fame of his sanctity had already filled the land, and
the princes of his family were ever urging him to found a monastery
whose monks, they hoped, would reflect his virtues and increase the
faith and piety of their clan. This seemed the very spot for such an
establishment. The neighborhood of the royal fortress of Aileach, that

       "Sits evermore like a queen on her throne
   And smiles on the valleys of green Innishowen,"

promised security; the river an unfailing supply of fish; the woods
material to build with; and, better than all, the lord of the district
was his cousin Ainmire, from whom Columba had only to ask to receive. He
did ask the island for God, and his request was joyfully complied with.

It was just three years after the deacon-abbot of Monte Casino had
passed to his reward, that the young Irish deacon began his monastery.
To erect monastic buildings in those days was a work of very little
labor. A wooden church, destined in the course of time to give place to
a more durable edifice--the seat of a bishopric--was first erected. Then
the cells of the monks were put up. They were of circular form and of
the simplest construction. A stout post was firmly planted in what was
to be the centre, and a number of slighter poles were then placed at
equal distances round it. The interstices--space however having been
left for a door--were filled up with willow or hazel saplings in the
form of basketwork. From the outer poles rafters sprang to the
centre-posts, and across them were laid rows of laths over which a fibry
web of sod was thrown, and the whole thatched with straw or rushes. The
inside of the wall was lined with moss--the outside plastered with soft
clay. A rough wooden bed--and in the case of Columba himself and many of
his monks--a stone pillow, a polaire or leathern satchel for holding
books, a writing-desk and seat, formed the furniture of this rude cell,
which was the ordinary dwelling of monk and student during the golden
age of the Irish Church.

Only a few weeks elapsed from the time that the first tree was felled
till the new community, or rather order, took up their abode in it, and
the swelling strain of their vespers was borne down the Lough by the
rippling breeze and echoed by the religious, whose convents, presided
over by SS. Frigidian and Cardens sentinelled the mouth of the Lough at
Moville and Coleraine. The habit of these monks--similar to that of Iona
and Lindisfarne, consisted of "[2]the cowl--of coarse texture, made of
wool, retaining its natural color and the tunic, or under habit, which
was also white. If the weather was particularly severe an amphibalus, or
double mantle, was permitted. When engaged at work on the farm the
brethern wore sandals which were not used within the monastery."

Though their time was mainly devoted to prayer, meditation and the
various other religious exercises, yet their rule made them apply every
spare moment to copying and illuminating MSS. or some other kind of
manual or intellectual labor, according as their strength and talents
permitted. By this, people were attracted to the spot. Houses sprang up
in the neighborhood of the monastery, that continually increasing in
number, at length grew into a city, just as from a similar monastic germ
have sprung nearly all the great German cities.

Columba in the busy years that elapsed between 546 and his final
departure from Ireland in 563, looked upon Derry as his home. It was his
first and dearest monastery. It was in his own Tyrconnell, but a few
miles from that home by Lough Gartan, where he first saw the light, and
from his foster home amid the mountains of Kilmacrenan, that, rising
with their green belts of trees and purple