Above: Image from St Clement’s Church, Rodel in Harris: Wikimedia Commons.
The Archangel Michael, connected in Uist of course with Là Fhèill Mhìcheil or Michaelmas (29 September) and with the tradition of the srùthan Mhìcheil, is widely celebrated in church dedications and place-names throughout the Christian world. He is, in that sense, a Universal Saint, and so, like St Peter and the Blessed Virgin Mary, it may seem difficult to deduce anything from the presence of his cult in Uist. We find him in two places: at St Michael’s Chapel in Grimsay, North Uist; and perhaps more prominently, at least in terms of the recent celebration of St Michael, at Rubh’ Àird-Mhìcheil on South Uist. [simple_tooltip content='Martin, M. 1703. A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (London).']Martin Martin (1703, 88)[/simple_tooltip] tells us one of the churches of South Uist was St Michael—this was presumably at Rubh’ Àird-Mhìcheil, or at the cemetery nearby formerly called Cladh Mhìcheil, but this is uncertain.
However, unlike Peter or Mary, the cult of St Michael can be traced as it spread through western Europe, from roots in the middle east and in the eastern Empire. The current feast day on 29th September derives from the founding of St Michael’s Basilica near Rome on the Via Salaria; and the most influential Michael site in Europe, at Monte Gargano in Puglia, became a node-point from the 6th century. The significant period of expansion seems to be the 8th century, when the iconic monastery of Mont St Michel in the north of France was dedicated, in 709 ([simple_tooltip content='Arnold, J. C. 2007. ‘The revelation Ecclesiae de Sancti Michaelis and the Mediterranean Origins of Mont St.-Michel’, The Heroic Age 10: http://www.heroicage.org/issues/10/arnold.html.']Arnold 2007[/simple_tooltip]), and when a new dynamic of reverence for the archangel is to be seen in Europe and beyond. Ireland, too, bears witness to this. From the eighth century we start to see interest in Michael in Ireland. We find this in Gaelic poetry, such as Blathmac mac Con Brettan’s poetry, from the mid 8th century, where (addressing the Virgin Mary) he imagines the last days when:
Is hé Michél, míl do maic,
gébas claideb comairt
do chorp Antchríst nád etal,
génathar do mórphecath.
“It is Michael, your son’s warrior, / who will take a smiting sword / to the body of the imious Antichrist, / who shall be born of a great sin.” ([simple_tooltip content='Carney, J. 1964. The Poems of Blathmac, son of Cú Brettan (London).']Carney 1964, §259[/simple_tooltip])
An extraordinary example of Michael’s place in 8th-century Ireland is marked by the entry in the annals for AU 772.4: ‘The assembly of the “hand-clapping” at which occurred lightning and thunder like the day of judgment. The “hand-clapping” on St Michael’s Day (Feill Michel) which called fire from heaven.’ This mysterious event and its context has been explored recently by [simple_tooltip content='Bergholm, A. 2014. ‘What was the “assembly of the hand-clapping” in AU 772’, in Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 33, 2013, 35-51.']Alexandra Bergholm (2014, 35-51)[/simple_tooltip]. [simple_tooltip content='Follett, W. 2013. ‘The veneration of St Michaael at Tallaght: The Evidence of “Archangelum mirum magnum”’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 66, 37-56.']Westley Follett (2013)[/simple_tooltip] has made clear that one of the key vectors for reverence of Michael in Ireland in the 8th century was the group of monastic founders and writers who go by the name of the céli Dé, ‘clients of God’. (A general, if dated, introduction to the Céli Dé can be found in [simple_tooltip content='O’Dwyer, P, OC 1977. Céli Dé. Spiritual Reform in Ireland, 750–900 (Dublin).']O’Dwyer 1977[/simple_tooltip]; more detailed and revisionist discussions in [simple_tooltip content='Haggart, C. 2003. ‘The céli Dé and ecclesiastical government in Ireland in the eighth and ninth centuries’, unpub. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow: http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1114/; Follett, W. 2006. Céli Dé in Ireland: Monastic Writing and Identity in the Early Middle Ages (Woodbridge).']Haggart 2003; Follett 2006[/simple_tooltip]). In their writings about their strict practices we find reference to the use of the “hymn of Michael” and other indications of his cult among them. One of the main founders, Máel Rúain of Tallaght, south of Dublin, was said to have made a compact with Michael at the founding of the monastery, and Tallaght is meant to have housed relics of the archangel ([simple_tooltip content='Stokes, W. 1905. Félire Oengusso. The Martryology of Oengus (London).']Stokes 1905, 12-13[/simple_tooltip]). To Máel Rúain is attributed a Latin hymn to St Michael, Archangel mirum magnum “Wonderful, mighty archangel”, found in a continental manuscript of the end of the 8th or beginning of the 9th century, from the island monastery of Reichenau, which had many Gaelic connections (Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek MS Aug. 221, f. 191r-192r). Even if not by Máel Ruain himself, it is certainly an Irish composition, as [simple_tooltip content='Follett, W. 2009. ‘Archangelum mirum magnum: An Hiberno-Latin Hymn attributed to Máel Rúain of Tallaght’, Journal of Medieval Latin 19, 106-29.']Westley Follett has shown (2009)[/simple_tooltip]. It joins another 8th-century Latin hymn by an Irish author, also addressed to Michael, this time found in the Irish Liber Hymnorum, In trinitate spes mea “In the Trinity my hope”, by Colmán mac Murchon, abbot of Moville in Co. Down. Colmán died in 736 (AU 736.4).
St Michael’s origins are biblical; he appears as one of the “chief princes” of the heavenly host; and “the great prince who protects your people” in the Book of Daniel (10; 12); and in Revelations (12: 7-9) he engages in an epic struggle with the dragon in the last times. [simple_tooltip content='Follett, W. 2013. ‘The veneration of St Michaael at Tallaght: The Evidence of “Archangelum mirum magnum”’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 66, 37-56.']Follett (2013)[/simple_tooltip] has laid out the way in which the various depictions of Michael are present in his earliest realisation amongst the Gaels: both as warrior of God, ready to fight for salvation and to strike down the Antichrist in the last days (as seen particularly in Mael Ruain’s hymn); but also as intercessor and “psychopomp”, the bearer of souls into heaven (as seen particularly in Colmán’s hymn). It is in this latter guise that we see him depicted, many centuries later, in the famous frieze from the tomb of Alasdair Crotach at St Clement’s Church in Rodail, Harris, fighting with the devil over dead person’s soul: presumably Alasdair’s.
The céli Dé movement was also present in Iona and elsewhere in Scotland ([simple_tooltip content='Clancy, T.O. 1996. ‘Iona, Scotland and the céli Dé’, in B. Crawford (ed.), Scotland in Dark Age Britain (St Andrews), 111-30; Clancy, T. O. 2003-4. ‘Diarmait sapientissimus: the career of Diarmait, dalta Daigre, Abbot of Iona’, Peritia 17-18, 215-232.']Clancy 1996; 2003-4[/simple_tooltip]), and we know particularly about the involvement of one abbot of Iona, Diarmaid, dalta Daigri, in it. So it is possible that the cult of Michael as we find it in the Hebrides, and perhaps elsewhere in Scotland, came through this route.
Having said this, Michael remained a potent and popular saint throughout the middle ages and beyond (see [simple_tooltip content='Jones, G. 2007. Saints in the Landscape (Stroud); Keck, D. 1998. Angels and Angelology in the Middle Ages (Oxford).']Jones 2007, 67-80; Keck 1998, 179-84[/simple_tooltip]), and it would be difficult to demonstrate for certain that his presence in the landscape of Uist is early medieval. His chapel at Grimsay is reputed to have been founded in the later middle ages, and so perhaps belongs more to the world of the image from Rodail, than to early Irish hymns. Dedications are found throughout Scotland, and while some, such as the dedication of a chapel at Stirling Castle to Michael, perhaps by David I, may belong to the central or later middle ages, the incorporation of Michael’s name inside Gaelic place-names, like Kilmichael, Kirkmichael, Crosmichael or Cambusmichael, particularly in areas where Gaelic receded after 1100, seems to ensure that the origins and spread of his Scottish cult is earlier in the middle ages ([simple_tooltip content='MacKinlay, J. M. 1910. Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland: Scriptural (Edinburgh), 336-56: https://archive.org/details/churchdedicatio01mackuoft/page/n365.']MacKinlay 1910, 336-56[/simple_tooltip]).
Michael’s associations with high places—as seen in the popular pilgrimage sites of Monte Gargano or Mont St Michel; or at Scéilig Mhíchil in Ireland—seems also to be in force in Scotland, for instance, Michael was the patron of the church of Loudoun in Ayrshire (called Kilmihel in a 12th century charter), where Loudoun Hill is a conspicuous hill visible for miles. In this context, Michael’s presence in St Michael’s Chapel in “a very prominent position on a small plateau on the highest point of the promontory at the southeast end of Grimsay”, or at the promontory of Rubh’ Àird Mhìcheil may relate to his patronage of such places.
Whatever its origins, it is clear that Michael, and his feast at Michaelmas, were extremely important to Gaels in the Hebrides in the 19th century, when folklore began to be collected in earnest. The iconic account of this remains Alexander Carmichael’s, in the first volume of his [simple_tooltip content='Carmichael, A. 1900. Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Inantations with Illustrative Notes on Words, Rites and Customs, Dying or Obsolete (Edinburgh). https://archive.org/details/carminagadelicah03carm/page/n9.']Carmina Gadelica (Carmichael 1900, 200-7)[/simple_tooltip]. His accounts of Michaelmas celebrations and their social meaning have recently been explored in a very important article by [simple_tooltip content='Stiùbhart, D. U. 2014. ‘Leisure and Recreation in an Age of Clearance. The Case of the Hebridean Michaelmas’, in J. Borsje et al. (eds), Celtic Cosmology. Persepctives from Ireland and Scotland (Toronto), 207-48: https://www.academia.edu/18652852/Leisure_and_Recreation_in_an_Age_of_Clearance_The_Case_of_the_Hebridean_Michaelmas.']Dòmhnall Uilleam Stiùbhairt (2014)[/simple_tooltip]. There, while somewhat dismantling the composite picture drawn by Carmichael, which he calls a “tour de force of imaginative sympathy” ([simple_tooltip content='Stiùbhart, D. U. 2014. ‘Leisure and Recreation in an Age of Clearance. The Case of the Hebridean Michaelmas’, in J. Borsje et al. (eds), Celtic Cosmology. Persepctives from Ireland and Scotland (Toronto), 207-48: https://www.academia.edu/18652852/Leisure_and_Recreation_in_an_Age_of_Clearance_The_Case_of_the_Hebridean_Michaelmas.']220[/simple_tooltip]), he makes it clear that “the most prominent holy day in the island calendar was Michaelmas” ([simple_tooltip content='Stiùbhart, D. U. 2014. ‘Leisure and Recreation in an Age of Clearance. The Case of the Hebridean Michaelmas’, in J. Borsje et al. (eds), Celtic Cosmology. Persepctives from Ireland and Scotland (Toronto), 207-48: https://www.academia.edu/18652852/Leisure_and_Recreation_in_an_Age_of_Clearance_The_Case_of_the_Hebridean_Michaelmas.']220[/simple_tooltip]). This including horse racing on the sea-strand. It is slightly disappointing to find that Carmichael’s description of racing at Rubh’ Àird Mhìcheil and circuit around the cemetery there may have been based largely on a similar description of activities on the feast of St Barr on Barra ([simple_tooltip content='Stiùbhart, D. U. 2014. ‘Leisure and Recreation in an Age of Clearance. The Case of the Hebridean Michaelmas’, in J. Borsje et al. (eds), Celtic Cosmology. Persepctives from Ireland and Scotland (Toronto), 207-48: https://www.academia.edu/18652852/Leisure_and_Recreation_in_an_Age_of_Clearance_The_Case_of_the_Hebridean_Michaelmas.']Stiùbhairt 2014, 213-20[/simple_tooltip]), but there is probably sufficient evidence to suggest events like this did happen in the Uists as well. However deeply embedded in Hebridean life these customs were, they belong to a European, rather than simply Gaelic or Celtic, spectrum of Michaelmas traditions, which can be seen running from the middle ages to the present ([simple_tooltip content='Jones, G. 2007. Saints in the Landscape (Stroud).']Jones 2007, 206-7[/simple_tooltip]).
In trinitate spes mea, attr. Colmán mac Murchon (†736) (text from [simple_tooltip content='Bernard, J. H. and Atkinson, R. 1898. The Irish ‘Liber Hymnorum’. Vol. 1. Text and Introduction, pp. 43-5. https://archive.org/details/IrishLiberHymnorumV1/page/n87.']Bernard and Atkinson 1898, 43-5[/simple_tooltip]; translation from [simple_tooltip content='O’Laverty, J. 1878. An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, Ancient and Modern, vol. 2 (Dublin) : https://archive.org/details/historicalaccoun02olav/page/n5.']O’Laverty 1878, 17-19[/simple_tooltip]):
