Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/399

 also and summon him from the world.’ ‘Go back,’ he said, ‘to the church and bid the brethren by their prayers commend my departure to God.’ After they had departed, Owin ventured to ask him the meaning of the strain of joy which he had heard, and Ceadda told him that it was the song of angels, and that in seven days they would return and take him with them. He speedily sickened, and died seven days after, 2 March 672. He was buried near St. Mary's Church, but the body was afterwards transferred to the church of St. Peter. His shrine was a wooden structure in Bede's time (ib.), roofed like a little house with a hole in the side, through which devotees inserted their hands and took a few particles of his dust, which, when mixed with water and so drunk, were supposed to have a marvellous virtue for the cure of divers diseases in man and beast. The memory of Ceadda was revered in Ireland, where he had spent a part of his youth. Ecgberht, his companion there, had remained in Ireland, and some years after Ceadda's death he told an abbot from Lincolnshire (perhaps from Barrow) who visited him, that a man then living in Ireland had seen on the day that Ceadda died the soul of his brother Cedd descend from heaven and return thither, bearing the soul of the holy Ceadda with him (ib. iv. 3). The number and beauty of these legends help us to measure the real sanctity of Ceadda's life, which excited so much love and respect. As Bede says (iii. 28): ‘The things which he had learned from Holy Scripture ought to be done; these he diligently strove to do.’ Ceadda became one of the most popular of English saints under the name of St. Chad. His day was kept on 2 March, and still has a place in the black-letter calendar. A richly decorated copy of the gospels, which is said to have belonged to him, is preserved in the cathedral library at Lichfield. 

CEADWALLA. [See .]

CEALLACHAN (d. 954), king of Cashel, called in poetry C. coir, or the just, and c. cruaidh, or the hard, is the hero of several old popular tales of Munster. He was king of Cashel from 935 till his death in 954. He first appears in history as plundering Clonmacnoise in 935, and in 937 ravaged Meath in alliance with the Danes of Waterford. In 939 he ravaged Ossory and the Decies, but later in the same year was defeated by their tribes. Muircheartach, king of Ailech, invaded the south early in 941, and carried off Ceallachan as a hostage to Donegal, where he kept him for nine months, and then sent him to Donnchadh, king of Ireland, who set him free. In 942 Ceallachan defeated Cenneide, father of Brian Boroimhe, in the battle of Maghduin, and ever after ruled in comparative quiet till his death from natural causes in 954. Ceallachan was chief of the great tribe called the Eoghanacht, and is the ancestor of many families once powerful in the south of Ireland. The O'Ceallachans or O'Callaghans of the south take their name from the great-grandson of his son Donnchadh, and the last chief in direct line of the chief branch of his race is believed to have been Donnchadh (or Denis) O'Callaghan of Glinn, who died in 1760, having married his cousin Mary O'Callaghan in 1745, and left one daughter of the same name. Cornelius, her kinsman, though in what degree is not known, was in 1785 created Baron Lismore in the peerage of Ireland.

 CEARBHALL, lord of Ossory (d. 888), son of Dunghal, was one of the most famous chiefs of the Gall Gaedhel, as the Irish chroniclers call those native tribes who lived in alliance with the Danes. He is called by the Danish writers Kiarvalr, and first appears in history as slaughtering the Danes of Dublin in 845. Six years later he slew the king of South Leinster, and in this war had Danes for his allies. Several of his clan intermarried with the foreigners, and the alliance continued. In 856 they together plundered part of the present Tipperary, and in 857 marched into Meath. Here, however, they made peace with the king of Ireland in the presence of the archbishop of Armagh and the abbot of Clonard. In 858 Cearbhall fought and defeated the Danes of Waterford, and in 859 he joined the king of Ireland in Meath and fought against an invading army of northern Irish. In 861 he defeated the Danes at Feartagh in Kilkenny, and in 862 he plundered Leinster. In 868 the Danes attacked his earthen dun, but were driven off with heavy loss, and Cearbhall was sufficiently secure afterwards to go a foray into Waterford. The next year he crossed the Shannon, and drove off the cattle of both Connaught and 