St. Columba's Day: Colmcille in his own words - ‘This is why I love Derry...for its host of white angels from one end to the other’
St. Colmcille
This is why I love Derry:
For its level fields, for its brightness,
For the hosts of its white angels,
From one end to the other.
There is not a leaf on the ground,
In Derry lovely and faultless,
That hath not two virgin angels,
Overthwart every leaf there.
They find no room on the land,
For the number of good gentle angels,
Nine waves distant therefrom,
It is thus they reach out from Derry.
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This is the Yew of the Saints
Where they used to come with me together.
Ten hundred angels were there,
Above our heads, side close to side.
Dear to me is that yew tree;
Would that I were set in its place there!
On my left it was pleasant adornment
When I entered into the Black Church.
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Since I have heard this lamenting
Why do I still live my life days?
The loud wail of the people of Derry,
It hath broken my heart in four fragments.
Derry of the Oaks, let us leave it
With gloom and with tears, heavy-hearted;
Anguish of heart to depart thence,
And to go away unto strangers.
Forest beloved,
Whence they have banished me guiltless!
On the women of Niall’s clan a blemish
And on each man of them, is my exile.
Great is the speed of my coracle,
And its stern turned upon Derry;
Woe to me that I must on the main,
On the path to beetling-browed Alba.
The seagulls of Loch Foyle,
They are before me and in my wake;
In my coracle with me they come not;
Alas it is sad our parting.
The parting of body from soul
Is the parting of me from my kinsfolk.
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Though I am affrighted, truly,
By death and by Hell;
I am more affrighted, frankly,
By the sound of an ax in Derry in the West.
A selection of verses that tradition attributed to Colmcille taken from Manus O’Donnell’s ‘Betha Colaim Chille’, written in the sixteenth century.
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St. Baithin mac Cuanach
The while he was in Carraic Eolairc,
Columbcille (without falsehood)
Used to catch fish without labour,
Repast for his guests from Loch Foyle.
God it was that so shaped it,
I tell thee with understanding.
There was put new milk
And the taste of wine on the water.’
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St. Mura of Fahan
Columcille was his name from Heaven,
The son of Fedlimid, by angels,
Without error or falsehood, without twisting.
Crimthann his name in the world.
On a Thursday, the case was no falsehood,
He was with the angels of Heaven
When they cut from him ‘Crimthann’ away,
And Columbcille did they name him.
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Saint Caillin of Fenagh
Holy Columbcille shall come after me;
He shall leave to you blessings and fortune.
He is the one man, the best one,
That shall be born yonder till Doomsday.
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Saint Mochta of Louth
A man-child shall be born in the north
At the setting of ages;
A flame shall measure high Erin
And Alba for him.
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Saint Patrick to Fergus Cennfada
A man child shall be born of his race
He shall be a sage, a prophet, a poet,
A loveable lamp, [pure], clear:
He shall utter no falsehood.
He shall be a sage; he shall be pious;
He shall be an abbot of the King of Graces.
He shall be lasting and shall be ever-good.
The Eternal Prophet shall console him.