Colman of Cloyne: A Study (review)

The Bollandists hold that every saint's cult has two anchor points attached to the name: a place of burial/cult, and an anniversary; everything else, such as a vita, is an addition to that core. Thus in the case of Colmán of Cloyne, where we do not have a medieval vita, it is the feast and the link to a place, Cloyne in County Cork, Ireland, that form the anchors for the cult. What we have here is the attempt to gather all the traditions about the saint and, de facto, produce a modern study which is in many ways analogous to a medieval vita. The author moves through a series of source materials gathering what can be found in each that throws light on his subject. He begins with genealogies that can show us the extended family to which Colmán belonged, and this by extension can show why the cult emerged in a particular place and the extent of the cult. He then follows the growth of the cult in other documents such as annals, and at likely sponsors—or should it be patrons?—of the cult. This involves following the cult in literary and historical sources for a period of several hundred years up to the time of the twelfth-century re-structuring of the Irish church into dioceses. With that restructuring, Colmán became associated not with a family, its territory, and that of its associates, but with a geographically defined diocese, and part of the book is in effect a pre-history of church administration in that area that would become Cloyne.

This book is a good example of taking early medieval sources, mostly coming from other parts of Ireland, and then taking from them a particular local history. While in places one would have wished to see a greater familiarity with the methods of hagiography and a keener awareness of the religious role of saints in pre-Reformation society's self-understanding, this is offset by an intelligent use of a wide variety of sources and accurate references. The work also contains a new translation of the poems of Colmán (or attributed to Colmán) by Professor Donnchadh Ó Corráin (pp. 129–132), which is an additional bonus.

This book will be of value to anyone looking at early Irish saints and their cults; and when there seems no end to interest in a fanciful "Celtic spirituality," it is refreshing to look at a book like this which shows just how little we know about the period, and how grounded those "Celtic" Christians were in the realities of land, family, power, law, and church government.