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building of the oratory

without commencing the work, and during this time their en- LECT. XX. tertainment was never the worse. Gobban used every morning story of the to press them to go to the wood; and what he said every day was: Let us go in the name of the Heavenly Father to-day'. of St. Then at the end of the year he said: 'Let us go in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost'.

"They went then at the end of the year to the wood, Saint Moling and Gobban, and having found a suitable tree, they began to cut it down. The first chip that flew from the tree truck Saint Moling on the eye and broke it; he drew his cowl over it; and, without informing them of what had happened, he bade them work well, while he should return home to read his office: this he did, and had his eye miraculously healed. Grobban and his assistants soon returned from the wood; and the oratory was built forthwith.

"In the meantime Gobban's wife, Ruadsech Derg, had received a milch cow as a present from the saint. This cow was soon after stolen by a notorious thief named Drac, who infested the neighbourhood. The woman went to Saint Moling to complain of this. The saint sent a party of his people in search of the thief; and they found him roasting the cow at a large fire on the brink of the Barrow. When he saw them he quickly climbed a high tree which stood near; but one of the men wounded him with a spear, and he fell down into the river and was drowned. The party took up the carcase of the cow, one side of which had been put to the fire; and they rolled it up in the hide, and carried it back to the saint, who by his prayers called it to life again, in the same condition that it had been before, except that the side which had been to the fire remained of a dark gray colour ever after. Gobban's wife having heard that the cow had been recovered, came gain to the saint requesting that it should be restored to her. To this request, however, Saint Moling did not accede; and the woman returned in high anger to her husband.

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"Gobban had just finished the building of the oratory at this time; and his wife addressed him, and said that she would not henceforth live with him, unless he should demand from the saint as the price of his work what she should name. It shall be done so', said Gobban. 'Well then', said she, the oratory is finished, and accept not any other payment for it but its full of rye'. It shall be so done', said Gobban. Gobban went then to Saint Moling; and the latter said to him, 'Make thy own demand now, because it was thy own demand that was promised to thee'. 'I shall', said Gobban; and it is, that its (the oratory's) full of rye be paid to me'. 'Invert it', said Saint Moling, and

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Moling.

LECT. XX. turn its mouth up, and it shall be filled for thee'. So Gobban apStory of the plied machinery and force to the oratory, so that he turned it the oratory upside down, and not a plank of it went out of its place, and not a joint of a plank gave the smallest way beyond another.

building of

of St. Moling.

"Saint Moling, on hearing his exorbitant demand, sent im-
mediately to his paternal relatives, the Ui-Deagha, on all sides,
for assistance to meet it; and he spoke the following poem:
"Grief has seized upon me,

Between the two mountains,
Ui-Deagha by me upon the east,
Ui-Deagha by me on the west.
"There has been demanded from me
The full of a brown oratory

(A demand that is difficult to me)
Of bare rye grain.

"If you should pay this to him,
He shall not be much a gainer;
It shall not be malt, of a truth,
It shall not be seed, nor dried.
"The Ui-Deagha, to serve me,
Will relieve me from grief;
Because I must desire

To remain here in sorrow.

"On receiving this message the Ui-Deagha assembled, from the east and from the west, to him, until the hill was covered with them. He then explained to them the demand which had been made upon him. If we had the means', said they, 'you should have what you want; but in fact we have not among all Ui-Deagla more than the full of this oratory of all kinds of corn'. That is true', said he; and go ye all to your houses for this night, and come back at rising time on to-morrow, and reserve nothing in the way of corn, and nuts, and apples, and green rushes, until this oratory be filled'. They came on the morrow, and they filled the oratory, and God on this occasion worked a miracle for Saint Moling, so that nothing was found in the oratory but bare rye grain. So Gobban took away his corn then; and what he discovered it to be, on the next day, was a heap of maggots".

The second of the two instances on record of the building of a wooden Duirtheach, or oratory, though not in connection with the name of any architect, and although the passage describing it has already been published in Dr. Petrie's Essay on the Round Towers (page 348), is, however, so valuable in relation to my subject, that I cannot omit to give it here.

It is found", [says Dr. Petrie]" in an account of the cir

6

Rumand on

Va Sua

cumstances which occasioned the writing of a poem for the LECT. XX. Galls, or foreigners of Dublin, by the celebrated Irish poet Quatrain of Rumann, who has been called by the Irish writers the Virgil of the oratory Ireland, and whose death is thus entered in the Annals of of Rathan Tighernach at the year 747: Ruman Mac Colmain, Poeta naigh optimus quievit. It refers to the building of the duirtheach mór, or great oratory of Rathain Ua Suanaigh, now Rahen, [near Tullamore] in the King's County; and the original, which is preserved in an ancient vellum MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, is said to have been copied from the Book of Rathain Ua Suanaigh: Rumann, son of Colman, i.e. the son of the king of Laegairé, [in Meath], of the race of Niall, royal poet of Ireland, was he that composed this poem, and Laidh Luascach is the name of the measure in which he composed it. He came on a pilgrimage to Rathan in a time of great dearth. It was displeasing to the people of the town that he should come thither, and they said to the architect who was making the great duirtheach [or oratory], to refuse admittance to the man of poetry. Upon which the builder said to one of his people: Go meet Rumann, and tell him that he shall not enter the town until he makes a quatrain in which there shall be an enumeration of what boards there are here for the building of the duirtheach. And then it was that he composed this quatrain:

"O my Lord! what shall I do

About these great materials?

When shall be [seen] in a fair jointed edifice

These ten hundred boards?'

"This was the number of boards there, ie. one thousand boards; and then he could not be refused [admittance], since God had revealed to him, through his poetic inspiration, the number of boards which the builder had.

Rumand for

"He composed a great poem for the Galls of Ath-Cliath Poem of [that is, the Foreigners of Dublin] immediately after, but the the Galls Galls said that they would not pay him the price of his poem; upon which he composed the celebrated distich in which he

said:

"To refuse me, if any one choose, he may';

upon which his own award was given him. And the award which he made was a pinginn [or penny] from every mean Gall, and two pinginns from every noble Gall so that there was not found among them a Gall who did not give him two pinginns, because no Gall of them deemed it worth while to be esteemed a mean Gall. And the Galls then told him to praise the sea, that they might know whether his was original

of Dublin.

LECT XX. poetry. Whereupon he praised the sea while he was drunk, when he spoke [as follows]:

"A great tempest on the Plain of Lear" [i.e., the sea]. "And he then carried his wealth with him to Cell Belaigh in Magh Constantine [or Constantine's Plain, near Rathan], for this was one of the churches of Ua-Suanaigh, and the whole of Magh Constantine belonged to him. For every plain and land which Constantine had cleared belonged to [Saint] Mochuda; so that the plain was named after Constantine. At Mention of this time Cell Belaigh had seven streets of Galls [or foreigners] of foreigners in it; and Rumann gave the third [part] of his wealth to it because of its extent; and a third part to schools; and he took a third part with himself to Rathain, where [in course of time] he died, and was buried in the same bed [or tomb] with UaSuanaigh, for his great honour with God and [with] man".

seven streets

at Cill Belaigh.

This extract contains for us an undeniably curious piece of history. First, it gives us a clear idea of the materials of which the great oratory at Rathan was built, and of the size of it, which could not have been inconsiderable, since there were no less than one thousand planks prepared for its use.

It also supports the old account, which states that Constantine, the king of the Britons (perhaps of Ailcluaidé in Scotland) retired from the care of his government, and entered the monastery of Rathan, under Saint Mochuda, who preceded UaSuanaigh. All our old martyrologies give this fact, and assign the 11th of March as the festival day of this royal penitent.

A second curious fact established, to my mind at least, by this story, is that of the existence of "seven streets" exclusively inhabited by foreign pilgrims or students at Cill Belaigh, in the middle of the eighth century. And a third remarkable fact is that of the residence in Dublin of a large population of foreigners so early in this century; for it is only towards the close of that and in the beginning of the succeeding century that our annals begin to notice the descent on our coasts of the hostile foreigners whom we call Danes. There is no doubt, however, but that there were foreigners settled in Dublin, and in other parts of the cast and south-east of the island, in the peaceful pursuits of trade and commerce, long before the fierce invaders of the ninth entury.

LECTURE XXI.

[Delivered July 14th, 1839.]

(VII.) OF BUILDINGS, FURNITURE; (continued). Of the Gobban Saer; mistakes concerning him; explanation of his name; he was a real personage. Old Irish writers fond of assigning a mythological origin to men of great skill or learning. The legend of Turbhi, the father of Gobban Saer; observations of Dr. Petrie on this legend; error of Dr. Petrie. Story of Lug Mac Eithlenn, the Sabh Ildenach or "trunk of all arts". Tuirbhi a descendant of Oilioll Oluim. References to Gobban Saer in ancient Gaedhelic MSS. ;-one in the Irish life of St. Abban; the name of the place where Gobban built the church for St. Abban not mentioned; another in the life of St. Moling. The name of Gobban mentioned in a poem in an ancient Gaedhelic MSS. of the eighth century;-original and translation of this poem (note); original and translation of a poem of St. Moling from the same MS. which is also found in a MS. in Ireland-great importance of this poem (note). Oratories generally built of wood, but sometimes of stone. Ancient law regulating the price to be paid for ecclesiastical buildings;—as to the oratory; as to the Damh-liag or stone church; explanation of the rule as to the latter (note); as to the Cloicteach or belfry. Explanation of the preceding rule quoted from Dr. Petrie; reasons for reexamining these rules. Dr. Petrie's opinion about the Round Towers unassailable. Law regulating the proportionate stipends of ollamhs;-stipends of the ollamh-builder; Dr. Petrie's observation on the passage regarding the stipend of the ollamh-builder; dwelling houses omitted from the list of buildings; mistake made by Dr. Petrie about the passage concerning the ollamh-builder; author's correction of this mistake: meaning of the word Coictighis,-new interpretation by the author. Artistic works of the ollamh-builder, the Iubroracht or working in yew-wood; carving in yew-wood at Emania and Cruachan, and in Armagh cathedral. Romantic origin of work in yew wood-legend of Fintann, son of Bochra; no trace of the doctrine of metempsychosis among the Gaedhil; legend of Fintann, continued. List of articles of household furniture mentioned in the laws regarding lending or pledging. Law regarding the house of a doctor.

Saer.

Ir would have interrupted too much the thread of the last lecture, as well as unreasonably prolonged its length, if I had introduced what I have to say concerning Gobban Saer, when I of Gobban alluded to his works in connection with the wooden oratory of Saint Moling. I shall, therefore, begin the present lecture with some observations concerning this remarkable man. This is the more necessary because his name has been associated so long with modern legendary lore, that, I believe, many persons are content to doubt his existence altogether, and to look upon him as an impersonation of building or architecture in our national mythology. Some writers, again, whose want of acquaint- Mistakes ance with the ancient language, and whose ignorance of the about him; genuine history and archaeology of the Gaedhils, betray them into so many fanciful speculations, nay, even into the assump

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