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Ireland and the Making
of Britain
ertheless set him over his loved Durrow in the midst of
his own kin of the southern Hy Niall, who showed little
toleration to the stranger. Under the circumstances it is
not strange that Cormac should show that strong liking
for travel and the sea which was his most distinguishing
characteristic. Two extremely ancient poems in Irish
embody the expostulations of Columcille to his friend for
his abandonment of Durrow and the resultant colloquy.
The opening passage of one of them touches on Cormac's
navigations :
Thou art welcome, O comely Cormac
From over the all-teeming sea;
What sent thee forth; where hast thou been,
Since the time we were on the same path?
Two years and a month to this night
Is the time thou hast been wandering from port to port
From wave to wave; resolute the energy
To traverse the wide ocean. 1
Columcille's thoughts appear to have been continually
with Cormac, and on one occasion he suddenly calls on
the brethren to pray for the indefatigable navigator who
"sailing too far hath passed the bounds of human enter-
prise." On another occasion the brethren were talking
about Cormac. He had taken boat some time before
for the Orkney Islands and they were speculating from
appearances whether or not he had had a prosperous
voyage. The voice of Columcille breaks in on their colloquy.
They shall see Cormac that very day and have the
i Copies of these poems are preserved in the Burgundian Library at Brussels
in a volume of manuscript collections made in 1630, by Michel Ua Clerigh,
one of the Four Masters. Both the poems are found also in a MS.,
of the Bodleian Library. Laud 615 (pp. 34, 117), which contains a large collection
of Irish poems, 136 in number, for the most part ascribed to Columcille.
Reeves' Life of St Columba, by Adamnan, gives both Irish poems with
English translations, by Eugene O'Curry, from which the above passage is
taken. Their titles are given in Colgan's list of the reputed writings of Columcille
(Trias Thaum., p. 472a, num. 15, 16).
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