On May 4 the earliest Irish calendars commemorate a Saint Siollan, at whose name the scholiast in the Martyrology of Oengus has added, ‘this is Sylvanus the deacon’. In his account, Canon O’Hanlon claims that the 17th-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, sought to identify today’s saint with a monk of this name found in the Life of Saint Berach of Kilbarry. Although he does not mention it here, the same claim was made in relation to another saint of this name, commemorated on March 28. On that occasion I reproduced the relevant chapter from the Life and will do so again here, following O’Hanlon’s account of Saint Siollan, the Deacon, from Volume V of his Lives of the Irish Saints.

St. Siollan, the Deacon.

A festival was celebrated on this day, as we read in the Martyrologies of Tallagh and of Donegal, in honour of Siollan the deacon. This account is taken from the Felire Aenghuis. It has been thought by Colgan, that the present St. Sillan may be identical with one, mentioned in the Life of St. Berach, of Kilbarry, who is venerated, at the 15th of February. The Bollandists have the feast of St. Sillan entered, at this date; and they give a similar reference, as if her were identical with that monk of St. Berach, who had been killed by robbers, and who had afterwards resuscitated, through the miraculous agency of his venerable superior. This miracle was wrought, at a place called Rath-ond, which has not been identified. In the sixth or seventh century, St Sillan flourished, if the identification in question be admitted. This Natalis occurs, also, in the Kalendar of Drummond, as Sillan, Deacon, a holy confessor, at the 4th of the May Nones.