“Then he went away to a small island some distance off the west coast of Hibernia, called in the Scotic tongue Inis-bofin, that is, the Isle of the White Heifer. There he built a monastery, and in it he placed the monks of both nations whom he had brought with him. They could not agree among themselves; for the Scots left the monastery when the summer came and harvest had to be gathered in, and roamed about through places with which they were acquainted. When winter came they returned to the monastery, and claimed to live on what the English had stored. Colman felt that he must find some remedy. Looking about near and far he found a place on the main land suitable for the construction of a monastery, called in the Scots tongue Mageo. He bought a small portion of the land from the earl to whom it belonged, on which to build, on condition that the monks placed there should offer prayers to God for him who had allowed it to be purchased. With the help of the earl and all the neighbours he built the monastery and placed the English monks in it, leaving the Scots on Inisbofin. The monastery is to this day held by English monks. It has grown large from small beginnings, and is commonly called Mageo[156]. All has been brought into good order, and it contains an excellent body of monks, collected from the province of the Angles. They live by the labour of their own hands in great continence and simplicity, after the example of their venerable fathers, under the Rule and under a canonical abbat.” Bede appears to have not known anything of a bishop-abbat of Mayo. It is clear that the bishop-abbat acted as a diocesan bishop in the neighbourhood of Mayo. In the year 1209 the Irish Annals record the death of Cele O’Duffy, Bishop of Magh Eo of the Saxons, the name Magh Eo, or Mageo, meaning the Plain of Yews. In 1236 Mayo of the Saxons was pillaged by a Burke, who “left neither rick nor basket of corn in the church-enclosure of Mayo, or in the yard of the church of St. Michael the Archangel; and he carried away eighty baskets out of the churches themselves”. It was for protection in such raids that the round towers were built adjoining the churches. In 1478 the death of Higgins, Bishop of Mayo of the Saxons, is recorded. The see was about that time annexed to Tuam so completely that the Canons of Mayo ceased to have the status of Canons of a Cathedral Church. Alcuin used the form Mugeo, not Mageo, and Simeon of Durham calls it “Migensis ecclesia”. This last form explains the signature—or rather the “subscription”—of one of six bishops present at a Council under King Alfwold of Northumbria in 786, “Ego Aldulfus Myiensis ecclesiae episcopus devota voluntate subscripsi[157].” CHAPTER IX