Stones of Aran (64 page)

Next to Leaba an Spioraid Naoimh, on its south, is a low grassy platform with a stone surround, which archaeological reports refer to as Leaba Bhreacáin. By it there stands a large
squarish
slab with an incised cross in a double circle; one quadrant is missing, and the others are lettered thus:
SCI BRE
…
NI
, which, when the contraction indicated by the line above the first group of letters is unriddled, and the missing letters plausibly supplied, is a dedication to St. Brecán. This stone was found in “St. Brecán’s grave” in about 1825 when it was opened for the burial of some Galway ecclesiastic, but whether the grave, as opposed to the bed, of St. Brecán is this present enclosure, or one in the south-east corner of the graveyard, is not clear, for archaeologists, Ordnance Survey and local tradition are at sixes and sevens over the names of these enclosures. Underneath the slab was found a little stone cresset lamp, now in the National Museum, with the inscription
OR AR BRAN N AILITHIR
, “a prayer for Bran the Pilgrim,” which I mentioned apropos of Oileán Dá Bhranóg in my first volume. A fragment of another inscribed cross-slab stands in this bed,
reading
OR AR MAINACH
, “a prayer for Mainach.”

There are fourteen more stones and slabs with inscriptions or
crosses of various forms scattered around the graveyard. The “Seven Romans” stone stands with two others by what Colie says is Breacán’s grave, in the south-east angle of the cemetery wall. It is a slab about three feet high and one across, with a broadly grooved cross dividing its face into four cantons, inscribed
VII
RO MA NI
. George Petrie, who first recorded it, took it to be the gravestone of seven pilgrims from Rome. However, it seems unlikely that a group of seven all died or were buried together. Macalister, writing in 1913, considered that the inscription was a dedication to “the seven martyred sons of Symphorosa, who are named in the Irish martyrologies of Oengus and of Gorman,
under
date 27 June.” Recently Peter Harbison has pointed out that in early Medieval Latin the word “Romani” can mean those
spiritually
dependent on Rome, and quotes the “Irish Litany of
Pilgrim
Saints,” written around 800, which starts by invoking “thrice fifty coracles of Roman pilgrims.” He suggests that the stone may have been commissioned by pilgrims from Rome or, more probably, a group of Irish who had made the pilgrimage to Rome, to mark their stay in Aran. In either case he sees the stone as evidence for the thesis that Aran was an important station in an established pilgrim-route linking a rosary of the holy places of Atlantic Ireland—Mount Brandon and Skellig Michael in Kerry, St. Macdara’s Island off south-west Connemara, Inishmurray in Sligo, Glencolmcille in Donegal—all more easily reached by sea than by land. This pilgrimage would have been at its height in the twelfth century, but may have persisted until much later—it was in 1607 that the Pope granted a plenary indulgence to all who visited the churches of Aran on the Feast of Sts. Philip and James, and on the Feast of St. Peter’s Chains. If so, we can picture the long (thatched?) buildings of the Seven Churches as the hostel offices, dormitories and refectories for an international coming and going of pious backpackers.

Another intriguing possibility, that does not preclude the above, is that the Seven Churches was an Augustinian monastery. I have come across two scraps of evidence. Firstly, a report sent to
Rome in 1658 by the Archbishop of Tuam, John de Burgo, who had been expelled by the Cromwellians, stating that there was once a monastery of Canons Regular of St. Augustine in Aran, “whose name has slipped my memory in my exile in France.” Secondly, a note on Eoghanacht added to the census of 1821 by Patrick O’Flaherty: “There are near this village ruins of 7 churches and a monastery of the Augustinian Order with a burial ground annexed.” These are the only mentions of an Augustinian
foundation
in Aran I know of; together they amount to—a speculation.

The Seven Churches is of course not the ancient name of this foundation; papal documents of 1302 and 1466, for instance, refer to it as “Dísert Brecan,” a
dísert
(literally, a desert) being a
common
term for the site of a hermitage. Brecán (Breacán in modern Irish) himself is one of the obscurer saints, and no early
Life
of him survives. Outside of Aran, he is associated with Kilbreckan in County Clare, and Cill Bhríocáin in Ros Muc, Connemara. A Brecán associated with King Guaire in Durlas near Kinvara, and another with Ardbraccan in County Meath, are perhaps not to be identified with “our” Brecán, although the latter’s coarbs or
successors
in Clare later asserted their rights to tribute from his namesakes’ foundations. These claims are made in a poem
purporting
to have been composed by the saint himself, but probably dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth century, of which the sole surviving copy is written for some reason on a flyleaf of a
manuscript
on astronomy dating from 1443. Brecán, on his deathbed, addresses himself to his pupil and great-grand-nephew, on the essential matter of tributes due to him and his heirs:

The saint’s continued protection of the ruling families in his territories, he makes clear, is provisional upon the payment of these dues to his successors: “May their enemies not destroy them, provided they pay my taxes.” The king of Meath had given Brecán his harness and saddle, and his successor is entitled to the same, which as he points out, “is not too onerous.” In Clare, Brecán had baptized the Maol Domhnaigh (Muldowny) clan, and for this his coarbs should have the right to a circuit (of free hospitality, I
presume
) every seven years, also a tunic from every maiden, a present from every ecclesiastical tenant, a large horn from every housewife, a lamb from every sheepfold; in return Brecán bequeaths good fortune and excellence of feasting to the handsome family and well-being to their cows. Various other clans are similarly assessed. In the Kinvara area of Doorus and Durlas he was in conflict with another saint, and had to curse the cows of the region so that “they would feel the torment of thirst at the onset of bulling and lactation,” but he got a screpall (threepence) from every household there. The contentious territoriality of this saint matches well with his role in the Aran story of his dividing the island with St. Enda. The poem ends by stamping the seal of divine authority on his testimony:

Thus the poem claims royal origins for Brecán, and the
medieval
genealogies do indeed situate him as the son of Eochaidh Bailldhearg of the Dal gCais, who himself had been baptized by St. Patrick. The poem itself gives further details, no doubt drawn from earlier sources now lost. We learn that the saint’s original name was Bresal, and that he was a cavalry soldier before his baptism. He was fostered and reformed by Pupu mac Birn, who some old sources identify with St. Enda’s successor Nem and with Enda’s companion on the visit to Rome, Pupeus. Then he
established
his
dísert
at a place called Iubhar, where everyone was pleased when he expelled the devils. (Another medieval reference to Iubhar specifies that it was in Aran. The name means “
yew-tree
,” and the only Aran place-name with such an element in it today is Eochaill, yew-wood, a few miles to the east of Dísert Brecán.)

The purpose of this confabulation is clearly to legitimize the claims of the foundations ascribed to St. Brecán. The link with the royal line of the Dal gCais, which culminated in Brian
Borumha
, would have redounded to these foundations’ prestige. But one detail of the poem, perhaps a chance survival from a more ancient tradition, seems to give the saint a pedigree from another dimension altogether. When he came to Aran, he tells us:

This “little tale” is read by the modern editor of St. Brecán’s poem as “the account of his destruction of a reigning idol, Brecán,
whose name he took, and of his conversion of the pagan
sanctuary
into a Christian
dísert
.”
But that is to drag the episode out into the light of history, whereas surely we are on the cusp
between
history and mythology here, and what is happening under our eyes is the transformation of a local Celtic deity into a
wonder-working
Christian saint. This event took place in the realm of interpretations, not on the solid ground of Aran.

Some fourteen hundred years later an attempt was made to install the cult of the golden calf in the valley of the Seven Churches. Next to the grey shed I have mentioned, in which a few girls of the village made dolls for sale at Shannon Airport, an “advance factory” arose in 1973, a factory, that is, built in advance of knowledge of any prospective lessee, in the hope that the grants and tax-breaks on offer from the government would tempt some company to locate part of its operations in this highly
disadvantageous
industrial
dísert.
Soon it was announced that a
Birmingham
jewellery firm would be taking over the premises, for the manufacture of keeper-earrings and other little items of gold. For some reason we, like many others, were dubious about this
company
, but an executive of Gaeltarra, the forerunner of today’s Gaeltacht Development body, assured us that their
bona
fides
had been checked out in Hatton Garden, which sounded impressive. An extraordinary number of public representatives and
journalists
were flown out to witness the opening of the new factory, and to hear the Minister say, “The establishment of such an industry in a relatively isolated region is not only a major breakthrough in the development of our Gaeltacht islands, but, in this time of world economic depression, it can be regarded as a truly historic occasion.” Apart from the factory premises, Gaeltarra was investing £170,000 in training and equipment grants in the new enterprise, which was expected to provide over eighty full-time and some part-time jobs. However, Dara the postman with his usual sceptical delivery remarked to me, “They’re all here to see it open, but none of them will be here to see it closed!”