Note 67 — ON AN OLD STONE-ROOFED CELL OR ORATORY IN THE ISLAND OF INCHCOLM.[16]

"That these buildings (St. Columb's House at Kells and St. Kevin's at Glendalough), which are so similar in most respects to each other, are of a very early antiquity, can scarcely admit of doubt; indeed, I see no reason to question their being of the times of the celebrated ecclesiastics whose names they bear."—(Dr. Petrie's Ecclesiastical Architecture, p. 430.) In his late edition of Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, Dr. Reeves, when describing the Columbite monasteries and churches founded in Ireland, speaks (p. 278) of Kells as "having become the chief seat of the Columbian monks" shortly after the commencement of the ninth century. Among the indications of the ancient importance of the place which still remain, he enumerates the fine old Round Tower of Kells, its three ancient large sculptured crosses, the "curious oratory called St. Columbkille's House," and its great literary monument now preserved in Trinity College, Dublin—namely, the Book of Kells. He quotes the old Irish Life of St. Columba, followed by O'Donnell, to show that it is there stated that the saint himself "marked out the city of Kells in extent as it now is, and blessed it;" but he doubts if any considerable church here was founded by Columba himself, or indeed before 804. He grounds his doubts chiefly on the negative circumstance that there is "no mention of the place in the Annals as a religious seat" till the year 804. But the Annals of the Four Masters record two years previously, or in 802, that "the church of Columcille at Céanannus (or Kells) was destroyed" (vol. i. p. 413), referring of course to an old or former church of St. Columba's there; whilst the Annals of Clonmacnoise mention that two years afterwards, or in 804, "there was a new church founded in Kells in honour of St. Colume."—(See Ibid., footnote.)[68] The learned editor of the Annals of the Four Masters, Professor O'Donovan, has translated and published, in the first volume of the Miscellany of the Irish Archæological Society, an ancient poem attributed to St. Columba, and which, at all events, was certainly composed at a period when some remains of Paganism existed in Ireland. In this production the poet makes St. Columba say, "My order is at Cennanus (Kells)," etc.; and in his note to this allusion Dr. O'Donovan states that at Kells "St. Columbkille erected a monastery in the sixth century."—(Miscellany of Archæological Society, vol. i. p. 13.) Some minds would trust such a question regarding the antiquity of a place more to the evidence of parchment than to the evidence of stone and lime. The beautiful Evangeliarium, known as the Book of Kells, is mentioned by the Four Masters under the year 1006 as being then the "principal relic of the western world," on account of its golden case or cover, and as having been temporarily stolen in that year from the erdomh or sacristy of the great church of Kells. In the same ancient entry this book is spoken of as "the Great Gospel of Columcille," and whether originally belonging to Kells or not, is certainly older than the ninth century, if not indeed as old as Columba. The corresponding Evangeliarium of Durrow, placed now also in Trinity College, Dublin,—"a manuscript" (says Dr. Reeves, p. 276) "approaching, if not reaching to the Columbian age,"—is known from the inscription on the silver-mounted case which formerly belonged to it, to have been "venerable in age, and a reliquary in 916" (p. 327). In the remarkable colophon which closes this manuscript copy of the Evangelists, St. Columba himself is professed to be the copyist or writer of it, the reader being adjured to cherish the memory "Columbæ scriptoris qui hoc scripsi." In the Ulster Annals, under the year 904, there is the following entry regarding Kells: "Violatio Ecclesiæ Kellensis per Flannum mac Maelsechnalli contra Donchad filium suum, et alii decollati sunt circa Oratorium."—(Dr. O'Conor's Rerum Hibern. Scriptores, tom. iv. p. 243.) Is the scene of slaughter thus specialised the Oratory or "House of St. Columb," which is still standing at Kells?[69]