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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.



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