The Ancient Hymn-C harms of Ireland. 423
is disposed to accept his verdict. Connected also with the visitation of the Plague is St. Colman's curious Irish hymn, with Latin phrases intermixed, Sen De ( " Blessing of God " ), which is said to have been com- posed by St. Colman mac Ui Cluasaigh, a scholar from Cork, and by his fellow-students, to save themselves from that visitation of the Yellow Plague that occurred in the time of King Aedh Slane (c. 600). According to the Preface, which is amply supported by other authorities, the pestilence " ransacked all Ireland, and only one man in three was left alive." Colman and his fellow-students took to flight before it, and sought refuge on an island, according to the universal Irish belief that pestilence could not cross the water, and that at a distance of " nine waves " from the shore they were safe. A most curious story in one of the prefaces to this hymn relates that .this visitation of the Biiide Connaill or Yellow Plague came in consequence of a struggle between the oligarchy and democracy, owing to the great increase in the population, which caused a scarcity of agricultural land. The nobles of Ireland, supported by three well-known abbots, and with their two joint-kings at their head, fearing a famine, assembled together and prayed and " fasted " before God to get the population reduced.^ The plague came in answer to their prayers, but it is satis- factory to note that, instead of merely cutting off the superfluous common people, as the combined church and state of the day desired, it selected as its first victims every one of the important personages who had demanded its aid.^ This long hymn, to which there are various
- In the Life of St. Gerald of Mayo, he is said to have disapproved of the
action of the abbots, and refused to join with them.
^The worst outbreaks of the Biiide Connaill or "Great Death," as the Yellow Plague was variously called, occurred in Ireland in the years 543 and 562, and again during 664-669. During this later outbreak the two joint- kings of Tara died, and the Abbots of Clonard, Fore, Clanmacnois, and other monasteries. Four Abbots of Bangor, Co. Down, succumbed to it in succession.
