Life
?-1747; Annals of Tighernach for a.d. 747 contains obit. for Ruman Mac Cólmain, poeta optimus quievit; likewise described by annalist as being ‘adept in wisdom, chronology, and poetry’, while the Book of Ballymote claims for him the title of ‘the Virgil of Ireland.’ The story of his visit to Dublin in pre-Scandinavian days is preserved in a vellum MS in the Bodleian, thought to have been translated from the Book of Ratháin Ua Suanaigh (now Rahan, co Offaly); the latter fact cited in Petrie, Ecclesiastical Arch. of Ireland, p.353. [See George A. Little, Dublin Before the Vikings, p.20].
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