Discovered by supernatural Malachy. chy entertained for St. Patrick, St. Brigid, and St. revelation to St. Columba, made him anxious to discover the grave where the bodies of those holy persons reposed. But every effort which his ingenuity could devise proved unavailing, for no memorial remained which could assist him in the inquiry. All human means having failed, the good bishop had recourse to prayer; and with a holy importunity he earnestly besought God to make known to him the place in which the earthly remains of those three distinguished favourites of heaven were deposited. The prayer of the venerable prelate was at length favourably heard. On a certain night, while he offered up in the church his fervent petition to the Almighty, a ray of light, like a sunbeam, was seen by him to pass along the church, until it reached a particular part of the temple, when it ceased to advance. Persuaded that heaven had chosen this mode to reveal to him the subject which he so ardently desired to know, St. Malachy caused the place to which his attention had been thus drawn, to be immediately examined. His exertions were rewarded with the success which they so well deserved; for when the earth was removed, the bodies of the three saints were found deposited together in the same grave. By the bishop's direction the precious grave by Papal remains were then raised up, and placed in coffins which he had provided for them. As soon as this ceremony was completed, the bodies were consigned to the same tomb. De Courcy, the Lord of Down, being informed by the bishop of what had taken place, it was resolved that messengers should be sent to the Holy See to solicit permission to remove these sacred reliques from the grave where they reposed, to a more honourable part of the church. Removed to a more honourable authority. Urban the Third then filled St. Peter's chair; and it happened that De Courcy and St. Malachy were both personally known to him. That pontiff received their petition favourably, and immediately ordered Vivian, the Cardinal Priest of St. Stephen, to repair to Ireland, and assist at the celebration of the intended ceremony. The day fixed for the performance of the sacred rite was that on which the Church honours the memory of St. Columba. On that day the venerable remains of the three most illustrious saints of Ireland were accordingly transported, with the usual solemnities, to the place which had been prepared for them. At the ceremony, fifteen bishops and a numerous assemblage of other ecclesiastics attended; and in order that the memory of this interesting event might be preserved, they ordained that the anniversary of the translation should be kept thenceforward as a solemn festival throughout the churches of Ireland." Pope's festival in thereof. commemoration 7. Other sorts of reliques partook of the vene- Veneration for ration shown to the mortal remains of saints. Among these may be mentioned the mitre, the crosier, and some of the vestments of St. Cormac, which belonged to the church of the Franciscan monastery at Thurles"; the mitre of St. Ailbe, preserved for many ages, with great veneration, in the abbey of Emly; the bells of St. Senan, St. Nenn, and St. Evin, preserved respectively in the islands of Inniscattery, and Inis M'Saint, and in the abbey of Monasterevan; and the pastoral staffs of St. Finchu in Brigoun, and St. Muran in Fahan, richly ornamented with jewels and gilding; all of which were held to be endowed with miraculous powers, 21 GROSE'S Irish Antiq., ii. 85. other sorts of reliques. The Staff of Jesus; Miraculous donation of it to St. Patrick; and used for the common people to swear by",-an oath as recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis in 1185, esteemed much more binding than one upon the holy Gospels". But the most distinguished of these was the supposed crosier of St. Patrick, commonly known by the name of "the staff of Jesus," and held in the greatest respect; not only on account of the belief that it had been used by the apostle of Ireland, but from the traditionary legend which connected it with our Saviour himself. No mention is made of this by the saint's most ancient biographers; but the following is the history of this celebrated staff, as delivered by Joceline, in 1185:— "St. Patrick, moved by divine instinct, or angelick revelation, visited one Justus, an ascetick, who inhabited an island in the Tyrrhene sea, a man of exemplary virtue and most holy life. After mutual salutations and discourse, he presented the Irish apostle with a staff, which he averred he had received from the hands of Jesus Christ himself. In this island were some men in the bloom of youth, and others who appeared aged and decrepit; St. Patrick, conversing with them, found that these aged persons were the sons of the seemingly young. Astonished at this miraculous appearance, he was told, that from their infancy they had served God; that they were constantly employed in works of charity, and their doors were open to the traveller and distressed; that one night a stranger came to them, with a staff in his hand, and they accommodated him to the best of their power; that in the morning he blessed them and said, 'I am Jesus Christ, whom you have always faithfully served, but last night you received 22 ARCHDALL, pp. 656, 50, 262, 333, 58, 99. 23 GROSE, ii. 25. 69 me in my proper person.' He then gave his staff to their spiritual father, with directions to deliver it to a stranger named Patrick, who would shortly visit them; in saying this he ascended into heaven, and left us in that state of juvenility in which you behold us; and our sons, then young, are the old decrepit persons you now see."" Joceline goes on to relate that with this staff our apostle collected every venomous creature in the inland to the top of the mountain of Cruagh Phadraig, in the county of Mayo, and then precipitated them into the ocean". value; "When St. Malachy became primate," as re- Its imputed lated by an author lately cited", "Nigellus, who had usurped the primatial see, carried the staff away from Armagh; and such was the importance attached to the possession of it, that many persons in consequence adhered to the usurper. But Nigellus did not retain it long; it was again restored to Armagh," where it was made an object of superstitious veneration. In the time of Giraldus Cambrensis, in 1179, during a pillage of the city and abbey, it was stolen and carried to Dublin; a theft of such great importance in the estimation of that superstitious age, as to merit a record in the annals of the country, as the breaking of it had been recorded on a former occasion in 1027". Having then been presented to the cathedral of the Blessed Trinity, it was there preserved with reverential care, being the subject of a miracle on occasion of a great The subject of a tempest in 1461; when the chest, which contained the staff of Jesus and other reliques, being broken to pieces by the falling-in of the east window, the staff was found lying, without the least damage, on 24 ARCHDALL'S Monasticon, p. 150. 25 CAREW'S Ecccles. Hist. 26 ARCHDALL, p. 21. miracle. Pieces of the true cross in Ireland. Veneration for crosses and images. Specimens of images, favourite objects of idolatry. the top of the rubbish; but the other reliques were entirely buried under it. And there it remained till the suppression of the monasteries; and in 1538 was removed from thence with the other reliques, and in the publick high street destroyed by fire". A piece of the true cross, also, was preserved in several places with religious veneration. One of these had been presented by Pope Pascal the Second about 1110 to Murtogh, monarch of Ireland, and gave occasion for his founding, near Thurles, a Cistercian abbey, with the name, and in honour, of the "Holy Cross"." Another piece of it, which was presented to the Cistercian abbey of Tracton, in the county of Cork, by Barry Oge, in 1380, became there the object of popular devotion". Another was preserved in the neighbourhood of Dublin; for in a contest between two competitors for the priory of Kilmainham in 1482, it is related that one had been deprived by the great master of the order, under an accusation of pawning or selling divers ornaments of the house, particularly a piece of the cross". 8. Crosses of stone, and images, were dispersed generally over the country, and made objects of special reverence, and treated with all the outward demonstrations of religious worship. Out of the vast variety of each of these, a few individual instances may be selected. As a specimen of the general propensity to this idolatrous form of religion, it may be briefly noticed, that the walls of St. Patrick's cathedral in Dublin contained several niches, which the superstition of the times furnished with images of saints". Parti 27 WARBURTON's Hist. of Dub lin, vol. i. 181. 28 GROSE'S Antiq., i. 67. 29 SMITH'S Hist. of Cork, i. 218. 30 Cox, i. 177. 31 MASON, p. 8. |