Colman Elo

Origins and early life

The Latin Life of Colmán (Trinity College Dublin MS E.3.11, with copies in Marsh's Library and the Codex Salmanticensis) opens with his descent: a man of venerable life, of the noble race of the Uí Néill, his father named Beogna; when the region of Meath was laid waste by the Leinstermen the family fled into the vale of Hoichle — Glenelly, in County Tyrone — and there the saint was born. The chronology built on the annals places his birth about 555. His tribal surname moccu Sailni attaches him to the Dál Sailni, an Antrim people, the Book of Lecan carrying his pedigree from Fedhlim Saillne their ancestor. The Martyrology of Donegal, at his feast, makes his mother Mór, daughter of Fedhlimidh and sister of St Columba — the tradition behind Orthodox England's description of him as Columba's nephew.

Ministry / ascetic struggle

The Life relates that about 580, at the instance of St Columba, Aedh Sláine — lord of the southern Uí Néill and afterwards joint high-king — granted Colmán the land of Fiodh Elo, "the wood of Elo," in Fir Cell, where the church of Lann Elo, now Lynally near Tullamore in County Offaly, was built; from it the saint is surnamed. The glossators of the Félire explain the name doubly: Ela as the name of a woman who dwelt in that place before him, or as the name of a river. He was also the founder of Muckamore in County Antrim — the house by which the York calendar styles him — and the tradition carried by Jocelin's Life of Patrick and by Ussher makes him joint patron, with Mac Nissi, of the church of Connor, in the country of his father's people.

Adomnán gives Colmán two chapters. In the first (i.5), Columba, sitting in his mother-church on Iona, suddenly smiles and declares that "Columbanus, son of Beogna," beginning his voyage to Iona, is at that moment in great peril in the surging whirlpool of Corryvreckan: sitting in the prow he raises both palms to heaven and blesses the terrified sea, and the Lord frightens him thus not that his ship should be sunk, but to rouse him to pray the more intently, and he will arrive safely after the danger. In the second (ii.15), Colmán and Baithéne together ask the saint to obtain of the Lord a favourable wind for the morrow, though they are to sail opposite ways; and each receives his wind in turn through Columba's prayer. The chapter-title of the first episode styles Colmán bishop, but the second calls him presbyter, and Reeves notes the tradition that he was still a presbyter at the time of Columba's death; the calendars remember him as abbot.

Martyrdom or repose

The annals record his death at his monastery of Lynally — the Annals of Ulster and the Four Masters under the year 610, Tighernach's reckoning yielding 611 — in the fifty-sixth year of his age; the York calendar carries 611.

Veneration and later cultus

His memory stood high from the beginning: the Martyrology of Óengus (c. 800) gives September 26 to him in the quatrain, in Whitley Stokes's rendering, "Colmán from Land Elo, with perfection of high studies, so that he is — splendid cry — the great John of Erin's sons"; the gloss explains, "he was like unto John for his wisdom and his virginity." The Martyrology of Donegal keeps him the same day.

Hymnographic and literary legacy

The Old Irish tract Aipgitir Chrábaid, the "Alphabet of Piety" (Orthodox England: "the Alphabet of Devotion"), a foundational text of early Irish spiritual instruction, is ascribed in its manuscript tradition to Colmán mac Béognae. The medieval Latin Life named above is of the usual legendary character and several centuries removed from the saint; it is cited in this entry only through Reeves's notes.