OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Month: September 2014

  • Saint Lassar of Clonmore, September 15

    September 15 is the commemoration of one of more than a dozen female saints who bear the name of Lassar. The task of separating these individuals is not made any easier by the association of today’s holy lady with the place name Clonmore. Clonmore is an anglicisation of the Irish cluain mór, the large meadow and is itself shared by localities throughout the island. The most famous in terms of ecclesiastical sites is perhaps Clonmore, County Carlow and in his account below Canon O’Hanlon is informed by one of his correspondents that this is indeed the Clonmore of our saint. If this is so, she is the only female saint I have come across in connection with this monastery whose two most well-known saints are the founder Maedoc and the zealous relic collector Saint Onchu. Finally, the calendarist Marianus O’Gorman’s description of Saint Lassar as bright and shining is a reference to the fact that her name is derived from the old Irish word for flame.

    St. Lassar of Clonmore.

    This pious Virgin, St. Lassair, of Cluain-mor, was venerated at the 15th of September, as we read in the Martyrologies of Tallagh. The name of Lasra, Lassar, Lassera or Lassair was not an unusual one among the Irish female Saints.  Of these, some are distinguished by their patronymics; others by their connexion with a particular locality; while others are not recognizable under either category. The present St. Lassar is said to have been of Cluain-mor. Many places, bearing the name of Clonmore, are found in various parts of Ireland. Mr. John McCall informs the writer, however, that the place of this holy virgin was Clonmore Maedhoc, now Clonmore, in the County of Carlow, which place has been already described at the 8th of February, when treating about St. Oncho or Onchuo, Confessor. At the 15th of September, the bright St. Lassar is invoked in the Martyrology of Marianus O’Gorman, as the shining one who is not decrepit. A commentator adds, that she was of Cluana Moir. At the present date, likewise, Lassar is noticed in the Martyrology of Donegal.  The same entry occurs in the Irish Calendar, belonging to the Ordnance Survey Records.
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  • 'The Exaltation of Dear Christ's Cross'

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    September 14 is the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which the 12th-century calendarist, Marianus O’Gorman, describes as ‘the Exaltation of dear Christ’s Cross, the great, pure, diademed standard’. Father John Ryan, in his classic work on Irish monasticism, has written of the use of the sign of the cross by the Irish monastic saints:

    To invoke the divine aid against these evil powers the sign of the cross was in constant use. St. Columban, during his meditations in the woods near Luxeuil put that holy sign on his forehead frequently as a form of armour. His monks did the same whenever they left the monastery. Columban’s successor at Luxeuil, the abbot Athala, had a cross erected outside his cell, so that when going out or returning he could lay his hand upon it before putting the sign of salvation upon his brow. A torch when lighted by a junior monk had to be handed to a senior to be thus blessed, and spoons when used at table had to be treated similarly by the brethern. In Iona the same custom prevailed; for it is recorded that St Columcille was displeased when the holy sign was not placed on a milk vessel (Adamnan ii, 16). The ‘signum salutare’ might be placed on tools and used for various pious purposes. When his uncle Ernan died suddenly on the way from the harbour to the monastery, a cross was raised on the spot where life failed him and another on the spot where Columcille stood awaiting his approach. Another cross, fixed securely in a large millstone, was erected in the place where the old white horse wept for the saint’s approaching end just before his death. Caesarius of Arles shows that the practice of signing oneself with the sign of the cross was very common in Gaul. St. Patrick made the sign of the cross upon himself a hundred times during the day and night, and never passed a cross upon the wayside without alighting from his chariot and spending a while beside it in prayer. St. Jerome said it could not be made too frequently. The hermits in the Egyptian desert were wont to make the holy sign over their food and drink, before they took their repast, and one of them is credited with the statement that “where the cross passes the evil in anything is powerless.”

    Rev. John Ryan, S.J., Irish Monasticism – Origins and Early Development (2nd edn. 1972, reprinted Irish Academic Press, 1986), 234-235.

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  • Saint Mael Tolaigh of Drumbeg, September 13

     

    Among the saints commemorated on the Irish calendars at September 13 is an obscure County Down saint who rejoices in the name of Mael Tolaig. His locality, Drumbeg, was noted by the scholarly Anglican Bishop, William Reeves, in a note (e) on page 46 of his work on the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore:

    Drum.—Now Drumbeg parish.—Ord. Survey, s. 9, Down; s. 64, Antrim. The church occupies the ancient site, on a hill in the county of Down, commonly called the Drum. The parish is intersected by the river Lagan, and was sometimes styled Drom in the Lagan. The Irish word Lagan signifies, according to Mr. O’ Donovan, “a hollow, or hollow district between hills or mountains” ( Hy Fiachrach, p. 223), and is applied to tracts in the counties of Mayo and Donegal. At the Dissolution, the rectory of this parish was appropriate to the abbey of Moville.

    Canon O’Hanlon’s account  brings the details from the calendars:

    St. Maeltolaigh, of Drumbeg Parish, County of Down. 
    The Martyrology of Marianus O’Gorman enters the feast of Mael Tolaig, “of the strong effort,” at the 13th of September. In the Martyrology of Donegal, it is mentioned, that Maeltolaigh, of Druim Niadh, in Ulster, was venerated at the same day. The place is now known, as being included within the present parish of Drumbeg, intersected by the River Lagan, and situated partly in the County of Down and partly in the County of Antrim. The Protestant church occupies the ancient site, on a hill, commonly called the Drum, in the County of Down.
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