# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Colman, Ela

​COLMAN, ELA or ELO, Saint (553–610), son of Beogna and Mor, the sister of St. Columba, was of the race of the Hy Neill. He is also termed Mac ui Seilli, having been twenty-second in descent from Fedhlim Sailne, head of the Dal Sailne or Dal Sailli. His parents lived in Meath, which being then devastated by the king of Leinster, they took refuge in Glen Foichle, now Glenelly, county of Tyrone, where Colman was born. The child was placed under the charge of a senior named Coemán, of Enach-truim, now Annatrim, near Slieve Bloom, in the Queen's County, and after a time he was sent to another monastery that he might see the piety and learning of its inmates. This place is not named, but may have been Hy, where his uncle, St. Columba, had not long before established his famous monastery. If this is so, the incident recorded in Adamnan's 'Life of St. Columba' ​may be assigned to this period : 'Another day St. Columba while in his mother church called out, smiling a little, "Columbanus (Colman), son of Beogna, who has commenced his voyage to us to-day, is at present in great danger in the tempestuous waves of the Charybdis of Brecan." ' The Coire Brecain, as it was termed by the ancient Irish, or the Whirlpool of Brecan, was the channel between Ballycastle, in the county of Antrim, and the island of Rathlin. It was the terror of mariners, 'being at certain times so disturbed by the action of the tides that even in the absence of wind no small craft could live in it.' Having escaped these perils he arrived at Hy, and appears to have remained there until he was ordained a presbyter, when he was sent forthwith some disciples to found an establishment for himself. First proceeding to that part of Ulster where lay the holy Bishop Macnisse of Condere, now Connor, he founded the abbey of Muckamore in the barony of Lower Massarene ; here ' he stayed many days, and blessed the people of that city' (civitas, i.e. monastery). He has since been accounted joint patron with Bishop Macnisse of Connor. Returning to his own province of Meath, he presented himself before an assem- bly in which were Aedh mac Ainmire, king of Ireland, Aedh Slane, lord of the Hy Neill, St. Columba, St. Cainnech, and many others. He was honourably received by them, and appears to have made a request that land should be granted to him, on which St. Columba said, 'Give a portion of good land to our brother Colman that he may found a monastery.' They replied, 'Let him choose wherever he likes in the territory of the Hy Neill.' Aedh Slane, who was the next heir to the throne, and subsequently king of Ireland, offered a great wood in the south quarter of Fercall, in the King's County, called Fidh Elo, the wood of Ela. 'Thence shall I be named,' said Colman, i.e. Colman Ela. Then bestowing his blessing and receiving the freedom of that place from the authorities before many witnesses, he built a monastery in the middle of the wood, in a place where there was an abundance of water and pleasant fields. This was Land-Elo, the church of Ela, now Lynally, in the King's County, about a mile to the south-west of Tullamore, where he lies ; Ela according to some having been the name of a stream, or, according to the 'Lebar Brecc,' of a woman. This transaction occurred about A.D. 580, when Colman was twenty-seven years of age.
The monks appear to have been much distressed for food at times. On one occasion, at Epiphany, St. Colman told the steward to furnish supplies for the festival. He answered that he had an abundance of spring water, but nothing else. Just at that moment, however, a crowd of people appeared bringing provisions. The difficulty of transporting food was equally great ; a farmer having loaded his wagon with supplies was only enabled to convey it through the wood by a miracle ; a monk visiting his relatives at a distance, and telling how St. Colman and his community were perishing of hunger, obtained large supplies of butter and other viands, but his friends were unable to take them to the monastery because a hostile tribe lay between. When four of his disciples were sent to dwell in a certain place, three of them died of hunger, and the fourth, refusing all nourishment, shared their fate 'that he might go to Christ.' On another occasion, travelling through Dalaraidhe in the present county of Antrim, and arriving at the river Min, he found people assembled for the purpose of battle. He and his party went to the deepest part of the river. Here some of the people asked him in the name of Christ to make peace. Others, who belonged to the strongest side, seized the boats that the saint might not go across to make peace, but according to the story he walked across for the purpose. From this he and his party went to the house of Edan, son of Oengus, where they passed 'the holy Lord's day.' St. Colman seeing a man splitting wood on the pavement commanded him to rest from such work, for it was the Lord's day. Another day, finding them about to drown an illegitimate child, he rescued him and baptised him by the name of Chellan and had him taught the scriptures. He was about forty years of age when he paid his second visit to Hy, and it was on his parting from St. Columba that the latter said to those around, 'The holy man Columbanus (Colman), to whom we gave our blessing when leaving, shall never see my face again in this world,' which was fulfilled, for St. Columba died the same year (595).
Towards the close of his life St. Colman visited Clonard and Clonmacnois, and expressed an anxious wish to be buried at the former place. His death took place on 26 Sept. 610, about the fifty-sixth year of his age ; in after years his remains were taken up and enclosed in a shrine of such marvellous workmanship that it was regarded as miraculous. In the ' Lebar Brecc ' he is famed as one of the three great Colmans of Meath, the others being Colman of the Coffer, and Colman son of Luachan ; in the ' Calendar of Oengus ' he is
Colman of Lann Ela,
With perfection of high readings,
So that he is splendid and praiseworthy,
The great John of Ireland's sons ;
​i.e. 'like John for wisdom and virginity.' The crosier of St. Colman was preserved at Lynally in the seventeenth century.
[Vita Colmaneli MS. E. 3, 11, Trin. Coll. Dublin; Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, Reeves's ed., pp. 29, 42, 124, 262; Book of Rights, p. 181; Annals of the Four Masters, i. 488, ii. 1414; Ussher's Works, vi. 530; Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, vii. 82; Martyrology of Donegal, p. xliv.]
T. O.
COLMAN, Saint (d. 676), bishop of Lindisfarne, sometimes confused with St. Colman, an Irish martyr put to death in Austria, and erroneously credited with the conversion of Penda, king of the Mercians (Forber, Kalendar of Scottish Saints, 303), was probably a native of Mayo. He became a monk of the Scottish (Irish) monastery of Hy or Iona, and left it to preach the Gospel to the English. He was consecrated bishop of Lindisfarne in 661 after the death of Finan. On his succession the dispute between the Roman and Celtic parties on the date of Easter and on other usages became especially violent. The Northumbrian court was divided by the quarrel; King Oswiu, who greatly loved Colman, and who had been baptised by the Celtic monks, upheld the doctrine of his early masters. His queen Eanflsed, and his son Alchfrith [q. v.], who was associated with him in the kingship, were on the side of the Roman party which found its ablest advocate in Wilfrith. In 664 the kings held a synod at Strenaeshalch (Whitby), in the convent presided over by the abbess Hild, to settle the dispute between the churches. Thither came Colman and his Irish clergy, and on their side were Bishop Cedd [q. v.] and the abbess. Colman, who was then acting as bishop in Yorkshire during the vacancy of the see (Eddius, Vita Wilfridi, c. 10), was the spokesman of the Scottish party, and Wilfrith conducted the debate on the other side. In answer to Wilfrith, who sneered at the isolated position of the Celtic church, and derided its teaching, Colman warmly replied that he and his party were followers of St. John, and later on argued that men so holy as Columba [q. v.] and his successors could never have acted in opposition to the divine will. Wilfrith declared that St. Peter was to be preferred to Columba, and in the peroration of his speech quoted Matthew xvi. 18 as a proof of the dignity of the chief of the apostles. Then King Oswiu asked: 'Is it true, Colman, that these things were said by the Lord to Peter?' And when the bishop said that it was true, he asked again whether he could assert that his Columba had received any such power. 'No,' replied Colman. Then the king declared that he would be on the side of the doorkeeper of heaven lest when he should come to the gates he should find none to let him in. All agreed in the king's decision, and so Colman and his party were defeated (Bæda, Hist. iii. 25).
Colman would not yield to the decision of the synod, indeed it is said that he dared not do so for fear of his countrymen (Eddius, c. 10). Finding that his doctrine was slighted and his party despised, he determined to return to Ireland to take counsel with his friends there. It is often asserted (Dict. of Christian Biog. i. 599) that the place where he intended to take refuge was Hy, and that he went thither to seek the advice of the ' family ' of Columba. Bseda, however, who says (Hist. Eccl. iv. 26) ' in Scottiam regressus est,' never uses ' Scottia ' except in the sense of Ireland (Skene), and it may therefore be considered certain that Colman set out for Ireland in order to seek the opinion of the abbots of the great monasteries there on the course to be pursued on the overthrow of the Celtic church in England. Before he left he asked and obtained from Oswiu, 'who loved him for the wisdom that was in him,' that the brethren who were to remain at Lindisfarne might be under the charge of Eata, abbot of Melrose. Then he took with him part of the bones of Aidan [q. v.], the founder of the house, leaving the rest in the church, and bidding the monks lay them in the sacristy, and departed in company with the Irish monks and such of the English brethren as clung to the Celtic usages and wished to follow him. Instead of going straight to Ireland, he and his party went to Hy, and dwelt there for four years. His route is perhaps marked by the dedication of the church of Fearn in Angus to St. Aidan, and that of Tarbet in Easter Ross to St. Colman. During his stay at Hy he must have told the abbot Cummene the particulars of his dispute with Wilfrith, and how he appealed to the holiness and the miracles of Columba, and so probably led the abbot to write his 'Life' of the saint which is still extant, and is embodied in the 'Life of Adamnan ' (Skene). In 668 he and his company left Hy and sailed for Ireland, taking with them the sons of Gartnaith, the king of Alban, and 'the people of Skye,' i.e. the Columban clergy there, who after a while returned to their old home (Tighernac). They settled in Inisboufinde, or, as it is now called, Inishbofin (the island of the white heifer), in the barony of Murrisk, off the coast of Mayo, and there Colman built a monastery. After a while, however, the monks of the two nations disagreed because the Irish left the