ancient name of the island--"_Colmanus nomine, qui ab alijs
Mocholmocus._ Quia Colmoe & Colman sunt diminutiva, a _Colum._ 1.
Columba, et affectus vel venerationis causa additur _mo_; et hinc
_Mocholmocus_," Colgan, vol. i. p. 155. Colgan's authority is of no
value, as his statement is wholly founded on Fordun. This is proved by
his notice of the monastery in his catalogue of the churches founded by
Columba. "Colmis-inse Monasterium canonicorum Regularium in AEmonia
insula inter Edinburgum et InverKithin. _Fordonus, ibid._" As the
cautious Dr. Lanigan observes--"Colgan was, to use a vulgar phrase,
bewitched as to the mania of ascribing foundations of monasteries to our
eminent saints." Further, it should not be forgotten that Fordun tells
us that in his time the island was called "_Saint Colmy's Inche_." See
the passage quoted by Ussher, _De Brit. Ec._, p. 704. Now, I know of no
instance of the corruption of Columb, or Columba, into Colmy, which
appears rather a corruption of Colmoc or Colman.

If this be not the Insula Colmoci of the _regal_ seal--"round seals have
something royal"--where are we to find it? Not in Ireland, certainly,
though our calendars record the names of two islands called Inch
Mocholmoc, from saints of that name. One of these was in Leinster; the
locality of the other is unknown. They also record the patron day of a
St. Mocholmoc, _na hainse_, "of the island," at the 30th October. Could
we find what was the patron day of the saint of Inche Colm it might help
to settle the matter. One of the above saints is called Colman
_Ailither_, or the pilgrim. Chattering in my discursive way, let me add
that a Saint Mocholmoc appears to have been a favourite with the Danes
of Dublin in the twelfth century, for we find in the lists of the Danish
Kings of Dublin that of Donald MacGilloholmoch as reigning from 1125 to
1134; and another of the name is noticed by Regan as an Irish king, who
lived not far from Dublin, and who offered his services to the English
against the Irish and Danes in 1171. There was a Gillmeholmoc's Lane in
Dublin, near Christ's Church, where, as Harris conjectures, he, or some
of his family, inhabited. Did this royal Danish family adopt its surname
in honour of St. Colman of Lindisfarne, of whom it must have heard a
great deal during the Danish occupation of Northumbria, the kings of
which were for a long time also kings of Dublin? Or may it have been
from a remembrance of the shelter and ho