Situated in County Down, on the southern shore of Belfast Lough.
Sometimes the name was written "Beannchor", from the Irish word beann, a
horn. According to Keating, a king of Leinster once had cattle killed
there, the horns being scattered round, hence the name. The place was
also called the Vale of Angels, because, says Jocelin, St. Patrick once
rested there and saw the valley filled with angels. The founder of the
abbey was St. Comgall, born in Antrim in 517, and educated at
Clooneenagh and Clonmacnoise. The spirit of monasticism was then strong
in Ireland. Many sought solitude the better to serve God, and with this
object Comgall retired to a lonely island. The persuasions of his
friends drew him from his retreat; later on he founded the monastery of
Bangor, in 559.
Under his rule, which was rigid, prayer and fasting were incessant. But
these austerities attracted rather than repelled; crowds came to share
his penances and his vigils; they also came for learning, for Bangor
soon became the greatest monastic school in Ulster. Within the extensive
rampart which encircled its monastic buildings, the Scriptures were
expounded, theology and logic taught, and geometry, and arithmetic, and
music; the beauties of the pagan classics were appreciated, and two at
least of its students wrote good Latin verse. Such was its rapid rise
that its pupils soon went forth to found new monasteries, and when, in
601, St. Comgall died, 3,000 monks looked up for light and guidance to
the Abbot of Bangor.
With the Danes came a disastrous change. Easily accessible from the sea,
Bangor invited attack, and in 824 these pirates plundered it, killed 900
of its monks, treated with indignity the relics of St. Comgall, and then
carried away his shrine. A succession of abbots continued, but they were
abbots only in name. The lands passed into the hands of laymen, the
buildings crumbled, and when Malachy, in the twelfth century, became
Abbot of Bangor he had to build everything anew. The impress of his zeal
might have had lasting results had he continued in this position. But he
was promoted to the See of Down, and Bangor again decayed.
Among the Abbots of Bangor few acquired fame, but many of the students
did. Findchua has his life written in the Book of Lismore; Luanus
founded 100 monasteries and St. Carthage founded the great School of
Lismore. From Bangor Columbanus and Gall crossed the sea, the former to
found Luxeuil and Bobbio, the latter to evangelize Switzerland. In the
ninth century a Bangor student, Dungal, defended orthodoxy against the
Western iconoclasts. The present town of Bangor is a thriving little
place, popular as a seaside resort. Local tradition has it that some
ruined walls near the Protestant church mark the site of the ancient
abbey; nothing else is left of the place hallowed by the prayers and
penances of St. Comgall.