THREE miles an hour is a fair walking pace. As a young man, I walked the three miles from the centre of Clonmel to St Patrick's Well in one hour. Recently, with 75 years "under my belt", it took me an hour and a half.
St Patrick's Well has been a place of pilgrimage for Clonmel people for generations, and although there is no firm evidence that St Patrick was ever there, a matter referred to in a television programme, some time ago by Monsignor Michael Olden, a former president of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, now parish priest of 55 Peter and Paul's parish, Clonmel and a professional historian.
Be all that as it may, tradition is a powerful force and dies hard in Ireland, of all places. St Patrick's Well is time honoured and lies in one of the prettiest glens in all the County Tipperary. There is an ancient cross there, crudely wrought and believed by experts to date from the sixth or seventh century, which makes it one of the most ancient crosses in Ireland. There is, too, a ruined, roofless church, dating from pre Reformation times.
LA Helps Out
The well has its niche in modern history. Some years ago, the then Mayor of Los Angeles, Mr Sam Yorty, a Jew, visited Clonmel where his mother was born. He had often as a child heard her speak of St Patrick's Well which, when he visited, was in a rather neglected condition, surrounding flagstones uneven and broken and the well and the pool fronting it in need of cleaning.
Thanks to Mayor Yorty, money for the work was provided by the Irish Israeli Society of Los Angeles, and with the help of a local committee in Clonmel, the necessary work was carried out.
Across the fields from the well lies the townland of Inislonaght (from the Irish, Inis Leamhnachta, meaning the holm, or islet, of the new milk). This was the site of a Cistercian monastery in the 12th and 13th centuries.
What happened there is well - told by the late An tAthair Colmcille OCSO in his Comhcheilg na Mainistreach Moire, and is as a mirror held up to the turmoil that convulsed the Cistercian order in the early centuries.
Not a trace of the old monastery remains. A Church of Ireland church occupies a portion of the site of the monastery. The monastery of Inis Leamhnachta, or Mainistir na Siuire, as it came to be known, forms an integral part of the history of the Cistercians in Ireland.
Rude Reception
Briefly, the disputation that marked the order's early years stemmed from a hostility between the Norman and native Irish monks. One Stephen de Lexinton, a prominent Cistercian of his day, was dispatched to Ireland to sort out the difficulties. He visited numerous monasteries, but it appears that his most rude reception was in Inis Leamhnachta.
Stephen de Lexinton was strongly opposed to the Irish language, then spoken widely in Ireland. He ordered that nobody be accepted into the order unless he could speak French fluently and he further ordered that nobody be admitted unless he could confess his sins in Latin or French.
In the main he succeeded in having Norman as distinct from Irish abbots appointed to rule over the monasteries. It is with what happened at Inis. Leamhnachta that I am concerned here. It is a well nigh incredible story, and can only be explained by the wild times in which it occurred.
At the time of Stephen de Lexinton's visit to the monastery by the Suir, there was no abbot there. In charge was a prior. The first thing de Lexinton did was to dispatch from Clonmel to Inislonaght a lay brother and two journey companions. Apprised of what was happening, the prior ordered two ruffians to lie in wait in a house occupied by nuns which stood on the same site as the monastery. On their arrival, the lay brother and his companions were attacked physically, beaten severely, and the lay brother left almost dead. One of the party managed to make his way back to Clonmel.
A Persuasive Speaker
Stephen de Lexinton determined to go out to Inislonaght and challenge the prior, but fellow abbots who were in his company advised against this. A short time later, while Stephen de Lexinton was preaching in a church in Clonmel (probably old St Mary's, now a Church of Ireland place of worship) word came to him that the Inislonaght prior, some lay people and several monks were outside the church and determined on combat.
De Lexinton went out and addressed the party. He must have been a persuasive speaker, for after some time the prior's party deserted him, particularly, it is believed, because of his rude behaviour. Later, the prior was deposed and a new abbot from Furness elected over Inislonaght.
An tAthair Colmcille has the interesting note that while the site of Inislonaght monastery now and for centuries past lies in the diocese of Waterford and Lismore, it appears from the de Lexinton letters that at that time (1228) it was deemed to be in the archdiocese of Cashel.