OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Colmán the Pilgrim, November 7

    On November 7 we commemorate a Saint Colmán who is called ‘the Pilgrim’ on the later Irish calendars. The 12th-century Martyrology of Gorman records at this day:

    Colman lergrinn loigt[h]ech, Colmán, delightful, indulgent

    to which the note is added:

    ailithir Innsi mo Cholmóc, a pilgrim, of Inis mo Cholmóic.

    The later Martyrology of Donegal has this entry:

    7. C. SEPTIMO IDUS NOVEMBRIS. 7.

    COLMAN, Pilgrim, of Inis-Mocholmóg.

    Interestingly, there is an inscribed stone at Kilcolman, Maumanorig, County Kerry whose Ogham inscription mentions ‘Colman the pilgrim’. Archaeologist Peter Harbison links this site with the pilgrimage route in honour of Saint Brendan the Navigator to Mount Brandon, saying:

    It was from the earthen-banked round enclosure of Kilcolman in the townland of Maumanorig, overlooking Ventry harbour, that the Saint’s Road to Mount Brandon appears to have had its visually detectable starting point. Within it is a bullaun, and beside that a large, low boulder with two crosses carved on it (Fig. 23). One of these crosses, unusually deeply sunk into the surface of the stone, is a large cross of arcs – a series of compass-drawn arcs arranged so as to form a cross. It is surrounded by a circle and stands on a stem with a three-pointed foot. The other, smaller, equal-armed cross is more shallowly carved, has bifurcating terminals and is placed close to the end of an Ogham inscription, which forms two sides of a frame around the large cross. This inscription Macalister read as ‘ANM COLMAN AILITHIR’ and translated as ‘Name of Colman the pilgrim’. But given the pilgrimage context, it might be better to think of it in terms of asking for a prayer for the soul of Colman the pilgrim. The use of the formula ANM is generally regarded as being late in the series of Irish Ogham inscriptions and another instance on a stone at Ratass near Tralee was dated to the 8th or early 9th century by Donncha Ó Corráin, on the basis of the genealogy of the person named in the inscription. The Kilcolman stone, may, therefore, not be too far removed in date from the Ratass stone.

    Peter Harbison, Pilgrimage in Ireland: the Monuments and the People (London, 1991), 191.

    Even more remarkable is the fact that this is not the only reference to a pilgrim Colman preserved in stone, for there is a stone at Clonmacnoise which bears the name Colman written in ordinary script but with the word bocht, poor, inscribed in Ogham underneath it. But perhaps given that there are at least two hundred and fifty Irish saints who share this name this is not so surprising. There is nothing to suggest that this poor Colman is the same individual as the pilgrim of Maumanorig and nothing to suggest that either is the Colman the pilgrim commemorated in the calendar of the saints today, but it is interesting none the less.

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  • Feast of All the Saints of Ireland, November 6

    November 6 is the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland and below is a tribute from the ‘Irish Bollandist’ himself, dear old Canon O’Hanlon, whose monumental efforts are such an inspiration to anyone who seeks to know and honour them. This paragraph would have marked the conclusion to his Lives of the Irish Saints, but he died before the December volume could be published. It has, however, been published in an anthology of O’Hanlon’s writings issued in 2005 to commemorate the centenary of his death:

    Our enumerated saints are known and commemorated by thousands, as we have shown in the course of the preceding pages; but festivals of many additional ones, whose memories and public invocation had been once preserved, no doubt face passed away from human thought, with the destruction of ancient ecclesiastical records. Their very names have been long since buried in oblivion. Although the virtues and merits of various holy persons have been crowned with distinction among admiring clients; and owing to the religious heroism of their examples and lives, still are there other sanctified Christians, who lived apparently unknown, and who died unhonoured among their fellow mortals, yet, whose names are written in the Book of Life. The Irish saints, in many instances, prayed that multitudes should arise with them from their burial places, where their own remains had been deposited, for the day of the final Resurrection. We cannot hesitate to assert that such prayers will be heard. Therefore, the faithful departed had first reason for desiring to repose in the old grave-yards that have received the relics of their former Saints, and the dust of their deceased ancestors. On the day of General Judgement, may we devoutly hope a vast number, that no man could count, shall be found from ‘the Island of Saints’, with the elect of all nations and tribes, without ceasing to proclaim ‘Benediction and glory, and wisdom and thanksgiving, honour and power, and strength to our God, for ever and ever. Amen.’

    P. Ó Machain and Tony Delaney, Like Sun Gone Down: Selections from the Writings of John, Canon O’Hanlon, ( Galmoy Press, 2005), 191-192.

    As the feast also marks the anniversary of this blog I would like to thank all those who read and support it. Orate pro nobis omnes Sancti Hiberniae!

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Coemhan of Anatrim, November 3

    November 3 is the day on which the Irish calendars commemorate Saint Coemhan, who is associated with a monastic foundation at Anatrim, County Laois. Father Edward Carrigan describes the circumstances in which Saint Coemhan came to succeed as abbot of the monastery and of its subsequent history:

    St. Mochaemhog (Latine, Pulcherius), abbot and patron of Leamakevoge, now Leigh, in the parish of Two Mile-Borris, Co. Tipperary, laid the first foundations of a religious establishment at Anatrim, during the second half of the 6th century. We read in his Life:

    “St. Pulcherius, with his monks, came to a place by name Enachtruim, which is in the Slieve Bloom, in the territory of the Leixians, and began to build a church there. But a certain wordly-given man came to him saying: ‘Do not labour here in vain, because this place will not be yours.’ St. Pulcherius answered him saying: ‘Now I will remain here till some one taking hold of my hand shall seize me and expel me by force.’ Then the other took hold of the holy man’s hand with the intention of forcing him away. As he did so, St. Pulcherius said to him: ‘By what name are you called, O man?” He answered: ‘My name is Bronach‘ (which, in Latin. is equivalent to tristis). The holy man replied: ‘You have an appropriate name, for you shall be sad here and hereafter. Now you and your generation, by the will of God, will be expelled hence by the chief of this district, but I shall be in this place until a man of God, by name Coemhan, will come to me; to him I will leave this place, he shall be surnamed from it, and here shall be his resurrection.’ The man hearing this prophecy, and conscious of his guiltiness towards his chief, withdrew in anger, and without contrition for the insult he had offered [the saint], and forthwith everything fell out with him as the holy man had predicted. And when St. Coemhan came thither to St. Pulcherius, the latter left the place to him, and he remained here in great sanctity till his death: but St. Pulcherius proceeded to the district of Munster.”
    AA. SS. Hib. p. 586, March 13.

    St. Coemhan or “Kavan,” to whom Anatrim was thus committed, was probably a native of the County Wicklow, and was certainly a member of what may, with reason, be called a family of Saints. He was brother or step-brother of (1) the great St. Caoimhghin or Kevin of Glendalough, who died in 618, aged, it is said, 120 years; (2) St. Nathchoemhi or Mo-Chuemhin, Abbot of Terryglass, in Lower Ormond; (3) St. Coemola or Melda, mother of St. Abban the younger, which latter was born about 520; and of (4) St. Coeltighearna, mother of (a) St. Dagan of Ennereilly, Co. Wicklow; (b) St. Molibba, Abbot and Bishop of Glendalough; (c) St. Menocus or Enanus of Glenealy, Co. Wicklow, and (d) St. Mobhai. In early life, St. Coemhan, with his brother, St. Nathchoemhi, and St. Fintan of Clonenagh, received his religious training in St. Columba’s Monastery of Terryglass. The date of his death must be somewhere about the year 600. The Martyrology of Donegal thus commemorates him on his feast day, Nov 3rd:

    “Caemhan of Eanach-truim, in Laoighis, in the west of Leinster. He was of the race of Labhraidh Lorc, monarch of Erin, and brother of Caoimhghin of Gleann-da-locha.

    The Calendar of Aengus, on the same day, has:
    “The day of Coemhan of Eanach.”

    On which passage the scholiast of Aengus comments

    “That is, Coemhan of Eanach truim in Laighis in Leinster, the brother of Coemgin of Glendalough Coemlog was their father’s name and Coemgel their mother’s, and Natcaim of Tir-da-glass [was] their brother as is aforesaid.”

    The annals of Anatrim monastery, from the time of St. Coemhan, are a perfect blank. The monks probably held on here till the 12th century, when they either became extinct or were set aside, and their chapel was handed over to the secular clergy.

    Rev. E. Carrigan, “The History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory” Vol. 2 (1905).

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