Beccán mac Luigdech was a 7th-century Irish composer of Christian poetry and monk of Iona. He is known for having composed two vernacular poems, Fo réir Choluimb ("Bound to Colum") and Tiugraind Beccáin ("The last verses of Beccán"), which were written c. 640 in praise of St Columba, the founder of Iona.[1] Along with Amra Choluim Cille, the fragment of the Life of St Cumméne (Cummian) and Adomnán's Life of Columba, the poems offer a contemporary glimpse of the monastic familia of Iona in the 7th century.[1] Beccán has been identified with the Beccán solitarius ("hermit, anchorite") who along with Ségéne, abbot of Iona, was addressed in a letter written by Cumméne in c. 632–33 concerning the Easter controversy.[2] He may also be the Beccán of Rùm, whose death is recorded in the entry for 677 in the Annals of Ulster.[1]
References edit
Secondary sources edit
- Charles-Edwards, T.M.. Early Christian Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
- Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí. Early medieval Ireland, 400-1200. London: Longman, 1995.
Further reading edit
- Fo réir Choluimb, ed. and tr. Fergus Kelly in "A Poem in Praise of Columb Cille." Ériu 24 (1973). pp. 1–34.
- Tiugraind Beccáin, ed. and tr. Fergus Kelly, "Tiughraind Bhécáin." Ériu 26 (1975). pp. 66–98.
- Clancy, Thomas Owen and Gilbert Márkus. Iona. The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery. Edinburgh, 1994. pp. 129–34.
- Walsh, M. and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, (ed. and tr.). Cummian's Letter de Controversia Paschali and the De Ratione Conputandi. Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Studies and Texts 86. Toronto, 1988. pp. 7–15.
- Herbert, Máire. Iona, Kells and Derry: the history and hagiography of the monastic Familia of Columba. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.