The story of Fedelmid Mac Cremthanin, King of Munster (820- 846) and Abbot of Cork and of Clonfert still puzzles me.
On the one hand, he was described as ‘scribe and anchorite (hermit)’ and the Annals of Ulster listed him as ‘the best of the Irish’.
Yet In 836 Fedelmid seized the oratory in Kildare from Forindam, the abbot of Armagh, and had him and the congregation imprisoned. In 837, he took on himself the abbacies of Cork and of Clonfert. In Cork the previous abbot, Dúnlaing son of Cathusach, was allowed to die in prison without access to the sacraments. He had no hesitation attacking monasteries. Clonmacnoise suffered particularly, but also Durrow, Gallen, and Kildare. He often destroyed church buildings and property and slaughtered ecclesiastical tenants much in the manner of Viking raiders.
How could he be both saintly scholar and ruthless king?
I went to Derrynaflan in Tipperary to see if I could find any clues. In that ‘community on the bog’ he began as a ‘scribe and hermit’, a follower of the strict Ceili De (Servants of God) reform movement led by Maelruan of Tallaght who had died in 792. It was worth going to Derrynaflan just to experience the ‘island in a bog’, and I will return to it in a later post, but I had to go elsewhere for information on Fedelmid.
He was living at Derrynaflan, though not a priest, when he was called to be King of Cashel and Munster. His qualifications for kingship were his membership in one of the lesser royal families and his reputation as a distinguished monk. The Viking incursions had become a major threat and combining the resources of state and religion seemed a good idea.
Fedelmid himself viewed the Viking incursions as a punishment for laxity in the church and that may explain why he treated some monasteries so badly. Did they refused to accept his reforms? Or perhaps they had sided with the northern O’Neills in their efforts to become High Kings of Ireland. Fedelmid had his own plan to unify the country against the Norsemen and from 820 to 841 he was the most powerful king in the country though never officially High King.
Fedelmid never got around to confronting the Vikings himself and it is difficult to say whether he contributed to reforming the Church.
Despite his unfortunate dealing with certain monasteries, the Leabhar Muimhneach remembered Fedelmid as pious and classed him among the ‘saints in the Irish tradition’. He is included in the ‘genealogies of the saints’, and his feast-day is recorded in the Martyrology of Tallaght and the Martyrology of Donegal.
I began my search in forlorn Derrynaflan where Fedelmid started his own journey, and went on to the Rock of Cashel where he ruled as king, in the hope of finding an explanation for his behaviour but (spoiler alert!) I still can’t explain how a merciless king could also be regarded as a saintly scholar.
If he was ‘the best of the Irish’ what does that say about the others?
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