Chapter 7: Cunga Fheichín (Cong)

• Cong Village
  
• Annals of Cong
  
• Cong Abbey
  
• Cross of Cong
  
• Black Bell of Saint Patrick
  
• Monuments
  
• Caves
  

The Annals of Cong, which, if all collected, would almost form a history of Ireland, might commence with the battle of Moytura, stated by the bards, and believed by the early writers (where they assign dates to events), to have been fought in the year of the world 3303. For some centuries after that period, and down to the Christian era, the great plain to the west and north immediately adjoining this village, and on which the battle took place, was thickly studded with inhabitants, whose dwellings and monuments the tourist is now about to visit, and which are certainly amongst the most remarkable in the British Isles.It does not appear, either from history or tradition, that St. Patrick or his attendants visited Cong, or that his immediate successors approached nearer to it than Inis a' Ghaill; but, in the seventh century, St. Feichín of Fore,[3cp163-1] struck, perhaps, with the extraordinary resemblance which the natural features of Cong, and its underground rivers, etc., bore to his ecclesiastical home in Westmeath, is said to have blessed this neck of land, from which the extensive parish of Cong still takes its name, and to have erected a church here; and the good man left his track, and gave his name to several holy wells and churches in the district westward of this village. It is also said that, so early as A.D. 624, an Irish king, Domhnall Mac Aedh Mac Ainrnire, founded an abbey here, and that St. Feichín-was its first abbot.Colgan also states that Cong was "celebrated for divers churches, as their walls and remains at this day testify." Such may have been the case at the beginning of the seventeenth century, but they no longer exist, and the name of only one remains, attached to the field of the Cillín Breac,, or "little speckled church," to the south of the present abbey grounds.There is, however, a stone near the river side, in an old garden to the left of the second eastern bridge, which takes precedence of all other stones in Cong upon which the craft of man had been exercised in Christian times, and which, as known by the Irish name of Leac na bpoll, or the "flagstone of the holes," is here figured.It is a large triangular red grit flag, two feet thick, and eight and a half feet long in its greatest diameter, from under which a never-failing limpid spring issues. Its upper surface is hollowed into five basin-like smooth excavations, averaging twelve inches wide, and four and a half deep, and usually known as Bulláns, from the Latin bulla, a bowl; and which from their being invariably found in immediate connection with the most ancient churches, may be regarded as primitive baptismal fonts.

What desctiption of church St. Feichín erected here and dedicated to the Virgin before his death, in 664, or where it stood, is unknown, although Colgan states, in the Acta Sanctorum, that it was "his own monastery." But in truth the Irish church of that period was but the daimhliag, or domhnach, and the Culdees or early ecclesiastics lived either within it, or in stone cells, or clocháns, or in wooden houses, in the surrounding enclosure, and occasionally in the adjoining round tower.

Cong was originally a bishopric, and with those of Tuam, Killala, Clonfert, and Ardcharne, was named among the five sees of the province of Connacht, regulated by the Synod of Rath Breasail, in Laoighis in the year 1010; but the see was shortly afterwards removed to Enaghdun. Keating also styled it a bishopric.

In 1114 the Annals of the Four Masters state that Cunga Cill Beanáin and several other ecclesiastical establishments "were all burned this year." The bishopric removed and the cathedral burned; but the odour of sanctity still clinging to the venerable locality, hallowed by the remembrance of St. Feichín, a fine opening offered to the Augustinians to display their architectural taste, and to establish their ecclesiastical power in Connacht--so that probably between the fonner date and 1127-28, when the deaths of two of its Airenachs (or conventual superiors), Gilla-Ciaráin O'Roda, and O Dreada, are recorded, the abbey and monastery were founded.This magnificent establishment was erected for Canons Regular of the Order of St. Augustine, whose vase territories and rich possessions extended not merely throughout Connacht, but into severl counties in the South and East of Ireland. [fn83-1]

To fill up, however, the middle distance, and paint the foreground of the historic picture of Cong after the erection of its abbey and monastery, without stopping to notice the accession or to record the deaths of its dignitaries, we find it the peaceful sanctuary of the last monarch of Ireland during the ruthless times which followed the English invasion, when the O'Connors and O'Donnells, sometimes joining with, and sometimes fighting against, the Anglo-Normans, devastated the country, pillaging and burning the abbeys and churches, and then slaughtering one another; down through the dark period of Saxon misrule and legalized injustice, when the white-rocheted friars formed their last long-winding procession, as, passing out of their beauteous abbey they wound their way with lingering footsteps over the adjoining beidge, and took their Iompo-tuathail, or "left-handed turn," ere they cast a final look upon its tall tower and peaked gables, cutting sharp and clear against the western sky.

The Augustinian monks have departed--the bells have tolled their last peal; the altar lights are extinguished; a few valuables, snatched in haste, have been preserved, and Cong is a ruin--whence every sculptured stone that could be removed was built into the hovels around--and which was barely held together by the fostering arms of the luxuriant ivy, until lately cleared of rubbish, and its mullioned windows and decorated doorways carefully restored.

What an eventful period has intervened, during wich Cong and its environs were granted to the Kings and Binghams, or were possessed by the O'Donnells and the Brownes--when Macnamara the freebooter, and Webb, the murderer, left tales for the guides and their gaping auditors to batten upon--when it was attempted to alter and amend religious opinion by persecution and penal enactments--when law, if at all administered without the aid of the cudgel or the horse-whip, was an injustice: and clerical magistrates (not in the days of Cromwell) could command the regular army to remove from public view a stone bearing the name of two venerable, and perhaps pious, ecclesiastics, who flourished here some eight hundred years ago!

Governmental confiscations of property there where in abundance. Debts accumulated as the result of extravagance, contested elections, unsuccessful horse racing, Chancery suits transmitted for generations, bills of cost, interest on loans, and mortgages--the dowers of dowagers, and the jointures of grandmothers and aunts. All these kept the gentry poor; but they were tolerably loyal to the State, which sheltered them in a country where the king's writ did not run. The people were also poor, and likewire ignorant, improvident, and uneducated, although far superior to the same class in the sister country; but they were disloyal--not so much on account of Protestantism, tithes, Catholic disabilities, the want of educational resources, or any other real or sentimental grievance, but because they had never been conquered by either force, justice, or kindness. However, what diplomacy and the sword could not effect for so many centuries, a single night of blight, followed by a few years' failure of the tuber introduced by Raleigh, achieved. It cut off almost in a moment the food of an entire nation. the rent ceased; the mortgagees were unpain; the agents failed; the poor rates could not be collected. Pestilence followed the famine; the herds diminishedl the workhouses buried such of the dead as had not falled by the waysidel emigration helped off the remaining living; the Incumbered Estates Court sold up the bankrupt landlords, as in a sheriff's sale, and often at half the value of the land; the old properties changed hands; and, although hundreds of thousands were lost both to the owners and creditors, new blood was infused, and new life and energy thrown into the country. And so the old Abbey of Cong, and the adjoining estates, with many a mile to westward of this famed locality, were purchased with the produce of ability, honest industry, and commercial enterprise.