Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

The Culdces of Di^iiidical Days. 28
Higgins, in Celtic Druids, \v\\\ have Culdees only changed
Druids, and regarded the Irish
hereditary Abbots of lona,
the Coarbs or Ctirbs, as simply Corybantes. Latin writers
knew them as Colidei or God-worshippers. Bishop Nicholson
thought them Cool Dubh, from their black hoods. As
C and G are commutable letters in Irish, we have Gioila
De, Servant of God. The word Culdee was used by Boece
in 1526. Dr. Reeves, in the Irish Academy, calls the
Servus Dei by the Celtic Celi-De, and notes the name
Ceile-n-De applied to the Sligo Friars in the Four
Masters, 1595. Monks were reputed Keledei in the
thirteenth century. Brockham's Lexicon finds regulars
and seculars called so in the ninth century.
The Four Masters YQCovd that " Maenach, a Celce-Dc, came
across the sea westward to establish laws in Ireland." In
the poem of Moelruein, it is the Rule of the Cele-n-de. The
Keledei of Scotland, according to Dr. Reeves, had the same
discipline as the Irish Colidei. One Collideus of the Armagh
church died in 1574. One Celi-de of Clonmacnois, dying
in
The canons of York were Culdees in Athelstan's time.
Ceadda, Wilfrid's predecessor, was a Culdee. They were also
1059, l^ft several sons, who became Abbots after him.
called, from their mode of celebrating Easter, Quartadecivians.
The last known in Scotland were in 1352. As
Bede says, the Irish, being Culdees, would as soon communicate
with pagans as with Saxons ;
Latin or Romish Christianity.
the later following
Ireland, as reported by Giraldus, had a chapel of the
Colidei on an island of Tipperary, as he declared some
were on islands of Wales. They were in Armagh in 920.
Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, asserts that the Northern
Irish, "continued still their old tradition," in spite of the
declaration of Pope Honorius. In Tirechan's Life of St.
Patrick, Cele-de came from Briton to Ireland in 919 ; but