Page 89 - Demo

Chapter three 89
Western Church agreed to adopt the customs of the Roman church.
Colm apparently retained some of this early pagan learning, for its known that when he
built his irst monastery, he refused to have it face East, in order to save an Oak grove stand- ing on the grounds-hence the name.
But, that being said, following the example of Patrick and Brighid, Colm too devoted himself to Christian missionary work, travelling the length and breadth of the land, preach- ing, exhorting, organizing communities and founding other monasteries. He founded fa- mous monasteries at Durrow in county Ofaly, Kells in county Meath, Swords in county Dublin, Drumclif and Skreen in county Sligo, Drumhone in county Donegal, and else- where-no less than thirty monasteries, it is said, in the northern half of Ireland alone. All of this before he was exiled from Ireland at the age of forty-two.
It is written that Colm’s exile was the greatest sorrow of his life. According to the ancient chronicles, the cause of his exile was that he had instigated the bloody battle of Cúl Dreimhne –Cooldrummon, near Drumclife, in county Sligo, where a host of lives were lost, in what has been referred to as ‘probably the irst copyright dispute in Ireland’.
The colourful reasons, which can scarcely be accepted as historical facts as to why Colm was blamed for this battle and its fall-out are as follows. When he was a pupil of St Finian of Moville, Colm had secretly made a copy of the Psalms, or Gospels, from St Finian’s Psalter, which copy, Finian, when he discovered it, claimed it as his. The dispute was brought before the High-King, Diarmuid, who quickly rendered a pithy verdict which afterwards became proverbial in Ireland -‘Le gach boin a boinín’-‘to every cow her calf’, in other words ‘to every book its copy.’ The hard-headed Colm and his equally stubborn kinsmen in Donegal took umbrage at the decision and refused to comply with it. In deiance of the High-King they retained the copy, which afterwards was, for several centuries, the Cathach, or ‘Battle-Book of Donegal’, and was carried by the warriors of that region into every battle as a talisman to ensure victory.
The second cause of the Battle of Cooldrummon was that every clergyman had the right to give sanctuary or protection to fugitives-his grounds, being exempt from search by civil authorities. Around this time King Diarmuid pursued and took away a fugitive, Prince Curan of Connacht, whom Colm had given sanctuary to after a game of hurling at Tara, during which Curan had struck and killed the son of the King’s steward. In another and probably apocryphal tale, such breach of sanctuary that King Diarmuid committed against St. Ruadan (Rowan) of Lorrha, near Lough Derg in Tipperary, the saint cursed Tara, and it