"Ye know more about your Master than that other one, and talk as if you'd lived in His house. So I'm going to mind you this time out."" But I found no stories remembered at Doolin, near Toomullin, in 1905; the well was known as St. Brecan's in 1839. At Cloony and Kilbrecan his name is only recalled as that of the church-founder. Doora church near Kilbrecan was called Durinierekin in 1189.[1] In Aran the most definite tale is that Brecan and Enda agreed to set out from their churches at opposite ends of the island and to fix the boundary of their districts at the point at which they met. Brecan celebrated a mass early and set out, with the untiring energy ascribed to him in the Clare tales; but Enda prayed, and the feet of Brecan's horse stuck fast in the rock near Kilmurvey, in the valley across the island below the great fort Dun Aengusa, until Enda came. At that point the island is fated to be broken asunder,—no improbable contingency, in view of the geology and the violent seas, for a great tidal wave, faintly recalled in tradition in 1878, passed over the island at this point before 1640.[2] The fourteenth-century Life of Endeus does not name Brecan, so that evidently there was then the idea of the saints' rivalry; the Life is, however, sadly lacking in personal and local colour. The Lives of St. Enda and of his sister St. Fanchea tally perfectly with the popular account of St. Enda's angry, impatient character. Apart from his brother saint he is only remembered as the patron of Killeany church near Lisdoonvarna and the builder of its altar, on which lie the curious "cursing stones" already illustrated.[3]
Sixth-Century' Saints.—Greatest of all the saints at this period was Senán, son of Gerrchin of Iniscatha or Scattery, who died about 550. His Life[4] is of great interest, and gives what seems
- ↑ Charter of Donaldmore O'Brien, King of Munster, to Forgy Abbey (Clare), as quoted in a later charter of 1461, MSS. F. 1. 15., Trinity College, Dublin; see Handbook vi., The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, pp. 67–9.
- ↑ Roderic O'Flaherty, A Chronographical Description of West or H -Iar Connaught, p. 78.
- ↑ Vol. xxii., Pl. v.
- ↑ J. Colgan, Acta Sanctorum etc. (1645), Tom. I., March 8th. The metrical Life is attributed to St. Colman of Cloyne, and a prose Life to his successor Odran, but the latter is probably many centuries later. See also "Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore," edited by Whitley Stokes in Anecdota Oxoniensia.
