Page 88 - Demo

88 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
Colm’s studies ended when in 544, Ireland was swept and its monastic schools emptied and scattered by the dread pestilence called the Buidhe Chonail –‘the Yellow Cornstalk’-‘the Yellow Plague.’ So called from the colour of those affected by it, the Buidhe Chonail was a terrible affliction which left thousands of dead in its wake-including the aforementioned Ciaran of Clonmacnoise. Some accounts say that the plague lasted for ten years, having spread all over the world, and ‘taken off,’ it is said, ‘a third of the human race.’As a result, Colm was forced to return home, whereupon arrival he was given a gift of a grant of land by a princely relative, and it was there in 545 that he erected his first monastery, Doire, mod- ern Derry-which means ‘Oak Grove’ or ‘The Hill of the Oaks’. The church was afterwards called ‘Dubh Regles’-‘the Black Church,’ from the colour of the monks dress.
It was here, the old tales tell, that the stirrings of Colm’s heritage and his youthful hard- headedness and good humour began to show themselves. As royalty, he was probably edu- cated when very young in the old ways, in other words, the ways of the Druids, and also in the customs of Ireland previous to the coming of Christianity-as incidentally were most of Ireland’s saints. Consequently, this knowledge, this twist of paganism as it were, when coupled with a union in Christianity created a hybrid autonomous, simple, yet apostolic religion-The Celtic Church. These Celtic Christians, of whom it is said ‘beneath their cloak of Christianity they concealed a secret doctrine’, became known by the ancient name Na Ceili Dé-Cultores Dei, Worshippers or Friends of God, later to be known as the Culdee Church and its followers Culdees.
The theory is sometimes proferred that in AD36, Joseph of Arimathea and his follow- ers, ‘the family of Christos,’having fled first to France, then to Britain and some to Ireland, amalgamated with a sect of Druids who were awaiting the arrival of ‘Yesu,’ the name of the special one who would symbolise their future. These people became known as the ‘Cul- dees,’ and it is recorded that they set up a church at Glastonbury. This was the first recorded charter given to any land dedicated in the name of Jesus Christ in the west. The lands in question were defined as ‘Hallowed Acres of Christendom’and not only is this recorded in the British Royal Archives, it is also recorded in the Doomsday Book.
Furthermore, at the time, in both Ireland and in those parts of Britain influenced by the Irish missionaries, the date of celebrating Easter did not coincide with that observed in the rest of Christendom, or other Christian countries. A difference also existed as to the form of the tonsure worn by the monks. These matters gave rise to a controversy which was settled many years later in 664, at the Synod of Whitby, when the majority of the hierarchy of the
ffffff