Open [38.2 MB]

Fruits of the Irish Apostolate in England
These bald facts Bede invests with an air of picturesque-
ness and adds certain details. Colman, he says, departing
from Britain, took with him all the Irish he had assem-
bled in the isle of Lindisfarne, and also about thirty of
the English nation, who had been all instructed in the
monastic life; and leaving some brothers in his church,
he repaired first to the isle of Hii (lona) whence he
had been sent to preach to the English
nation. After-
wards he retired to a small Irish island of Inisboffin or,
as Bede calls it, Inisbofinde, the Island of the White
Heifer. Arriving there, Bede tells us, he built a monastery
and placed in it the monks he had brought of both nations ;
who, not agreeing among themselves, by reason of the
Irish in the summer season, when the harvest was to be
brought in, leaving the monastery
wandered about
through places with which they were acquainted; but
returned again the next winter, and would have what
the English had provided to be in common. Colman
sought to put an end to this dissension and, traveling
about far and near, he found a place in the island of
Ireland fit to build a monastery, which, says Bede, in
the Irish language is called Mageo, and bought a small
part of it of the earl to whom it belonged
to build his
monastery thereon ; upon condition that the monks resid-
ing there should pray to our Lord for him who had let
them have the place. Then building a monastery with
the assistance of the earl and all the neighbors, he placed
the English there, leaving the Irish in the aforesaid island.
Bede tells us that this monastery continued up to his
day possest by the English inhabitants; being the same
that, grown up from small beginning to be very large,
was generally called Mageo; and as all things had long
before been brought under a better method (referring to
237