Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/386

  of intermittent fever, contracted while working out the geology of the goldfields of Queensland, led him to spend the winters of 1876 and 1877 at Mentone. He died in England on 20 June 1878.

Daintree's explorations in Australia added considerably to our knowledge of the coalfields of New South Wales, and of the auriferous deposits of the extensive colony of Queensland. Daintree's work on the geology of that colony was so complete, and was regarded by the government as so useful, that they contributed largely to the cost of its production and publication.

 DAIRCELL or TAIRCELL, otherwise (d. 696) (Annals of Four Masters), saint and bishop, was the son of Faelan, a descendant of Cathaeir Mor, who was king of Leinster and monarch of Ireland A.D. 358. In the Latin life published by the Bollandists few particulars are given, but the Irish life in the royal library of Brussels has the following account of his parentage. Faelan was a brugaidh, or farmer, at Luachair, now Slieve Lougher, a wild upland district near Castle Island in Kerry. Having accumulated considerable wealth, he returned to his native territory, Hy Degha, situated on the river Barrow. His wife, Eamnat of Ciarraighe (Kerry), had a beautiful sister with whom Faelan fell in love. After some time, finding she was about to become a mother, she fled by night from her sister's house to her native place. Here, on the bleak upland of Lougher, she encountered a snowstorm, and worn out and exhausted gave birth to a child. She was tempted to strangle the babe, when a dove sent from heaven flapped its wings in the mother's face, and prevented her from accomplishing her purpose. Meanwhile St. Brendan of Clonfert, whose church was not far off, hearing of the occurrence, sent and had the mother and child brought to him. He placed the child in charge of one of his clergy, who baptised him, and gave him the name of Taircell (gathering), in allusion to the manner in which the dove ‘gathered’ him to her with her wings.

After some years he asked and received permission to go forth and collect alms for the maintenance of the students, and also for the carrying on of divine service. One day when returning from visiting Lougher for this purpose he was stopped by a strange robber band, described in the story as ‘people in the guise of spectres.’ They threatened to rob and kill him. He asked to be allowed to try and escape by his swiftness. ‘Let his request be granted,’ said the hag, ‘for swift as the wild deer are we, and swift as the wind is our dog.’ Taircell then made three springs, in which he passed over the whole of Lougher, landing in the third on the enclosure of the church. Henceforth, said his tutor to him, you shall be called Molling of Lougher from the leaps (linge) you have made.

He now learnt something of his parentage from his mother, after which his tutor ‘cut his hair and put the tonsure of a monk on him,’ and desired him to go to St. Maedoc of Ferns. At this time Molling is described as a well-favoured youth: ‘whiter than snow was his body, ruddier than the flame the sheen of his cheek.’ He first visited St. Modimoc at Cluain Cain (Clonkeen, co. Tipperary); here he entered into a covenant with the community; passing on to Cashel the king promised him a site for a recles, or abbey church, but in the night an angel reproached him for having asked for it when a place was already his at that point on the Barrow where St. Brendan thirty years before had made a hearth, and the fire was still kept burning; from this he proceeded to Sruthair Guaire (Shrule in the Queen's County), and thence southward till he beheld a watch of angels over the point of Ross Broc, above the river Barrow. Reaching the place he found St. Brendan's hearth, and there he founded his house and church, and it was thenceforward known as Tech Molling, or St. Mullens. It was his permanent dwelling. It is indeed stated in one of his lives that he spent part of his time at Glendalough, but this appears to be an error arising from the fact that there was another Daircell, a contemporary, who was bishop of Glendalough.

Some time after, the great yew tree of Lethglen, known as the Eo Rossa, fell, and St. Molaise divided it among the saints of Ireland, and St. Molling having claimed his share sent for the famous artist Goban to construct an oratory for him of the wood. When it was finished the price demanded was as much rye as the oratory would contain. ‘Turn it up,’ said Molling, ‘and put its mouth upwards. So Gobán laid hold of it by both post and ridge so that he turned the oratory upside down, and not a plank of it started from its place, nor did a joint of any of the boards move from the other.’ Molling then sent messengers throughout his territory telling them of the demand, but the reply was that all their country could