Lake of Learning

When you think of Killarney what comes to mind is its lakes, mountains and crowded tourist streets but for 950 years its centre was quiet Inisfallen, one of its small islands. It was a hive of activity for centuries, run by Celtic monks. Their home, Lough Leane, meant ‘Lake of Learning’ and it produced, among other achievements, the monumental ‘Book of Innisfallen’, a year-to-year chronicle of Ireland from 433 to 1450. It has 2,500 entries and an account of pre-Christian Ireland from the time of Abraham to the coming of St Patrick. It is now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

(There have been numerous attempts to get the annals back to Ireland. However, they have returned to Killarney only once – a brief loan in 1983.)

It all began in 640 when Finnian the Leper came there from Waterville and (previously) Deerynane.  Both foundations were on small islands in spectacular settings.

Among the young men who studied at Innisfallen was Brian Boru, later High King of Ireland 1002 to 1014. He was tutored by Maelsuthain Ua Cearbhaill of the Eóganacht who became one of his most trusted advisors. Maelsuthain also began the Annals project, gathering the history of Ireland from records stored across the country and beyond. 

How was such a small island, in a remote Kerry lake, able to gather factual information on that scale in an age we consider ‘Dark’?  

A web of monastic schools had spread across the country by men like Brendan the Navigator who had lived a hundred years before Finnian (and was from Kerry).

Despite long distances and slow travel, news and the exchange of material passed quickly from one community to the other and being on a lake island seems to have been no obstacle.  

Today thousands of tourists enjoy the boat ride out to the island and wander through monastic remains dating from the 10^th century. They examine the unique Hiberno-Romanesque doorway, dating from the 12^th century, and wonder how the island’s 21 acres of thin soil were enough to provide for the monks’ needs.

Unless they have a knowledgeable guide to tell them there is little to inform them further about the monks who laboured there for 950 years, studying, teaching, recording and reflecting on the happening in the wide world beyond theirs.  

Now no one lives on the island so in the late afternoon when the tourists depart by boat it is returned to the monks.

Bing Crosby celebrated the tourists’ fascination with Killarney in his song, ‘How can you buy Killarney?’ but Thomas Moore captured a different side with his poem:  

‘Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well!May calm and sunshine long be thine;How fair thou art let others tell,To feel how fair shall long be mine.’