The Haunted Abbot (2 page)

In those days most of the professional or intellectual classes were members of the new Christian religious houses, just as, in previous centuries, all intellectuals and members of the professions had been Druids. Fidelma became a member of the religious community of Kildare, established in the late fifth century by St Brigid. But by the time the action in this story takes place, Fidelma has left Kildare in disillusionment. The reason why may be found in the title story of the Fidelma short story collection
Hemlock at Vespers
.

While the seventh century is considered part of the European Dark Ages, for Ireland it was a period of Golden Enlightenment. Students from every corner of Europe flocked to the Irish universities to receive their education, including the sons of many of the Anglo-Saxon kings. At the great ecclesiastical university of Durrow at this time, it is recorded that no fewer than eighteen different nations were represented among the students. At the same time, Irish male and female missionaries were setting out to return a pagan Europe to Christianity, establishing churches, monasteries, and centres of learning throughout Europe as far east as Kiev, in the Ukraine, as far north as the Faeroes, and as far south as Taranto in southern Italy. Ireland was a byword for literacy and learning.

However, what we now call the Celtic Church was in constant dispute with Rome on matters of liturgy and ritual. Rome had begun to reform itself in the fourth century, changing its dating of Easter and aspects of its liturgy. The Celtic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church maintained their independence from Rome in such matters. The Celtic Church of Ireland, during Fidelma’s time, was much concerned with this conflict so that it is impossible to write on church matters without referring to the philosophical warfare between them.

One thing that was shared by both the Celtic Church and Rome in the seventh century was that the concept of celibacy was not universal. However, there were always ascetics in the Church who sublimated physical love in a dedication to the deity, and at the Council of Nice in AD 325 clerical marriages had been condemned (but not banned) by the Western Church. The concept of celibacy arose in Rome mainly from the customs practised by the pagan priestesses of Vesta and the priests of Diana.

By the fifth century, Rome had forbidden its clerics from the rank of abbot and bishop to sleep with their wives and, shortly after, even to marry at all. The general clergy were discouraged from marrying by Rome but not forbidden to do so. Indeed, it was not until the reforming papacy of Leo IX (1049-54) that a serious attempt was made to force the Western clergy to accept universal celibacy. The Celtic Church took centuries to give up its anti-celibacy attitude and fall into line with Rome, while in the Eastern Orthodox Church priests below the rank of abbot and bishop have retained their right to marry to this day.

An awareness of these facts concerning the liberal attitudes towards sexual relationships in the Celtic Church is essential towards understanding the background to the Fidelma stories. The condemnation of the ‘sin of the flesh’ remained alien to the Celtic Church for a long time after Rome’s attitude became a dogma. In Fidelma’s world, both sexes inhabited abbeys and monastic foundations, which were known as
conhospitae
, or double houses, where men and women lived raising their children in Christ’s service.

Fidelma’s own house of St Brigid was one such community of both sexes during her time. When Brigid established her community at Kildare (Cill Dara - church of the oaks) she invited a bishop named Conláed to join her. Her first surviving biography, completed fifty years after her death in AD 650, during Fidelma’s lifetime, was written by a monk of Kildare named Cogitosus, who makes it clear that it continued to be a mixed community after her death.

It should also be pointed out that, demonstrating their co-equal role with men, women were priests of the Celtic Church in this period. Brigid herself was ordained a bishop by Patrick’s nephew, Mel, and her case was not unique. In the sixth century, Rome actually wrote a protest at the Celtic practice of allowing women to celebrate the divine sacrifice of Mass.

Unlike the Roman Church, the Irish Church did not have a system of ‘confessors’ where ‘sins’ had to be confessed to clerics who then had the authority to absolve those sins in Christ’s name. Instead, people chose an
anam chara
- a ‘soul friend’ - clerical or lay, with whom they discussed matters of emotional and spiritual well-being.

To help readers more readily identify personal names, a list of principal characters is given. And in response to the numerous readers who have asked for help in pronouncing the Irish names and words, I have included a pronunciation guide. Thus armed, we may now enter Fidelma’s world. The events of this story take place in December 666. It was the new Irish Christian month of Nollaig, named from the Latin
natalicia
- birth festival - which only a few years before, the Irish had called Medónach Gemrid or ‘Middle Winter’.

As the Fidelma series has become increasingly popular, many English-speaking fans have written wanting assurance about the way to pronounce the Irish names and words.

Irish belongs to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It is closely related to Manx and Scottish Gaelic and a cousin of Welsh, Cornish and Breton. It is a very old European literary language. Professor Calvert Watkins of Harvard maintained it contains Europe’s oldest
vernacular
literature, Greek and Latin being a
lingua franca
. Surviving texts date from the seventh century.

The Irish of Fidelma’s period is classed as Old Irish. After AD 950, the language entered a period known as Middle Irish. Therefore, in the Fidelma books, Old Irish forms are generally adhered to, whenever possible, in both names and words. This is like using Chaucer’s English compared to modern English. For example, a word such as
aidche
(‘night’) in Old Irish is now rendered
oiche
in Modern Irish.

There are only eighteen letters in the Irish alphabet. From earliest times there has been a literary standard but today four distinct spoken dialects are recognised. For our purposes, we will keep to Fidelma’s dialect of Munster.

It is a general rule that stress is placed on the first syllable but, as in all languages, there are exceptions. In Munster there are three exceptions to the rule of initial stress. If the second syllable is long then it bears the stress; if the first two syllables are short and the third is long then the third syllable is stressed (for example
amadán
- ‘fool’ - is pronounced amad-
awn
); and where the second syllable contains
ach
and there is no long syllable, the second syllable bears the stress.

There are five short vowels -
a
,
e
,
i
,
o
,
u
and five long vowels -
á
,
é
,
í
,
ó
,
ú
. On the long vowels note the accent, like the French acute, which is called a
fada
(literally, ‘long’), and this is the only accent in Irish. It occurs on capitals as well as lower case.

The accent is important for, depending on where it is placed, it changes the entire word.
Seán
(Shawn) = John. But
sean
(shan) = old and
séan
(she-an) = an omen. By leaving out the accent on the name of the famous film actor, Sean Connery, he has become ‘Old’ Connery!

These short and long vowels are either ‘broad’ or ‘slender’. The six broad vowels are:

The four slender vowels are:

There are double vowels, some of which are fairly easy because they compare to English pronunciation - such as
ae
as in say or
ui
as in quit. However, some double and even triple vowels in Irish need to be learnt.

Most people will have noticed that many Irish people pronounce the word film as fil’um. This is actually a transference of Irish pronunciation rules. When
1
,
n
or
r
is followed by
b
,
bh
,
ch
,
g
(not after
n
),
m
, or
mh
, and is preceded by a short stressed vowel, an additional vowel is heard between them. For example,
bolg
(stomach) is pronounced bol’ag;
garbh
(rough) is gar’ev;
dorcha
(dark) is dor’acha;
gorm
(blue) is gor’um and
ainm
(name) is an’im.

b
,
d
,
f
,
h
,
l
,
m
,
n
,
p
,
r
, and
t
are said more or less as in English.

In Irish the letters
j
,
k
,
q
,
w
,
x
,
y
or
z
do not exist and
v
is formed by the combination of
bh
.

Consonants can change their sound by aspiration or eclipse. Aspiration is indicated by using the letter ‘h’ after them.

Consonants can also change their sound by being eclipsed, or silenced, by another consonant placed before them. For example
na mBan
(of women) is pronounced nah m’on; or
i bpaipéar
(in the paper) i b’ap’er or
i gcathair
(in the city) i g’a’har.

p
can be eclipsed by
b
,
t
;
t
by
d
,
c
by
g
,
f
by
bh
,
b
by
m
, and
d
and
g
by
n
.

 

For those interested in learning more about the language, it is worth remembering that, after centuries of suppression during the colonial period, Irish became the first official language of the Irish state on independence in 1922. The last published census of 1991 showed one third of the population returning themselves as Irish-speaking. In Northern Ireland, where the language continued to be openly discouraged after Partition in 1922, only 10.5 per cent of the population were able to speak the language in 1991, the first time an enumeration of speakers was allowed since Partition.

Language courses are now available on video and audio-cassette from a range of producers from Linguaphone to RTÉ and BBC. There are some sixty summer schools and special intensive courses available. The television station Teilifís na Gaeilge broadcasts entirely in Irish and there are several Irish language radio stations and newspapers. Information can be obtained from Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge, 46 Sráid Chill Dara, Baile Atha Cliath 2, Éire.

Readers might also like to know that
Valley of the Shadow
, in the Fidelma series, was produced on audio-cassette, read by Marie McCarthy, from Magna Story Sound (SS391 - ISBN 1-85903-313-X).

Sister Fidelma
, of Cashel, a
dálaigh
, or advocate of the law courts of seventh-century Ireland

Brother Eadulf
, of Seaxmund’s Ham, a Saxon monk from the land of the South Folk