OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Caidin of Domhnach Caoide, October 25

    The feast of Saint Caidin is recorded in some of the Irish Martyrologies for 25 October. The table in the Martyrology of Donegal lists:

    Caoide, abbot, of Domhnach-Caoide, in Tir Eoghain, diocese of Derry, 25 Oct. (8 Cal. Nov.); Cadinus in Latin. His church, his bell, and his staff are preserved.

    The actual entry reads:

    25. D. OCTAVO KAL. NOVEMBRIS. 25.

    [The festival of CAOIDE, Abbot, patron of …. chaidh.]

    to which the notes add:

    The blank in the text ought to be filled by the word Domhnach. (R.)

    The locality of Domhnach Caoide, or Downaghede as it was anglicized, is mentioned in a later medieval record of the Diocese of Derry. The editor of these records, Bishop Reeves, quoted Colgan, who mentions the 28th October, rather than the 25th in connection with this saint. He also introduces something of a red herring in identifying Caidin with a Saint Cadoc, a missionary to the Morini in France:

    Downaghgede. — Domnach Caoide, Dominica Caidini. ” S. Caidinus Confessor colitur in ecclesia de Domhnach Caoide, dioacesis Derensis in Ultonia, 28 Octobris.” — (Act. SS., p. 162 &.) Colgan observes that, the termination oc being a diminutive, Caidan or Caidin and Caidoc are the same. Caidocus al’ Caidinus was a companion of St. Columbanus, and the apostle of the Morini. The herenagh paid 40s. per an. to the bishop Inq. The ruins of the old church of Donaghedy are in the townland Bunowen, a little N. E. of the present church (Ord. Surv., s.3.)

    Rev. W. Reeves (ed), Acts of Archbishop Colton in his metropolitan visitation in the diocese of Derry, A.D. MCCCXCVII (Dublin, 1850), 73.

    This suggested link to a Saint Cadoc, missionary to the Morini, whom Colgan conveniently placed for commemoration on the same day as the better-known Saint Cadoc of Wales (January 24), is not the only source of confusion surrounding the precise identity of Caidin of Domhnach Caoide or of his feastday. For the Irish Martyrologies also list a saint of the same name on the previous day, October 24. This Caidin, however, is clearly identified as having been a bishop of Iona (or Hy). The Martyrology of Donegal records:

    24. C. NONO KAL. NOVEMBRIS.

    CAETI, Bishop. The Cain Adamnain states that Ceti, the bishop, was one of the saints who were security to free the women from every kind of captivity and slavery ; and it is likely that it is of him he speaks.

    to which the Notes add:

    Ceti, the bishop. The Annals of Ulster, at 711, and the Four Masters, at 710, record the death of Coeddi, bishop of Ia, or Iona. This date tallies very well with the supposed period at which the synod of Adanman was held. Colgan latinizes the name Caidimis. See Trias Thaum., p. 499 a, and Actt. SS. p. 162 6, note 2. Caideus, which occurs at the following day, is the same name. The blank in the text ought to be filled by the word Domhnach. (R.)

    The death of this bishop is also noted by Father Lanigan in his Ecclesiastical History of Ireland:

    St. Caide or Caidin, who was bishop at Hy, died in 711 and his name is in the calendars at 24 October.

    Rev. J. Lanigan, The Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, Vol 3., (2nd edn., Dublin, 1829), 153.

    The Martyrology of Marianus O’Gorman, incidentally, lists only Coeddi, a bishop, on 24 October and has no entry for another saint of the same name on the following day.

    So it would appear that there is some degree of confusion surrounding our Saint Caidin. It is of course possible that we are dealing with one individual here. Saint Caidin could have been both a monastic at a foundation of his own in Ireland and then later acted as a bishop on Iona. On the other hand, it would seem equally plausible that there could be two saints of the same name, one an abbot in the diocese of Derry, the other a bishop of Iona. The Iona Caidin of October 24 is clearly identified as having died in the early eighth-century, but it may be significant that the other Caidin of October 25 is associated with the placename ‘Domhnach Caoide’. The prefix Domhnach is associated with the very earliest church foundations in Ireland, and indeed in The Tripartite Life of Patrick there is a Domhnach Cati listed as one of the seven churches of Saint Patrick at the Faughan River. Thus if we are dealing with two individual saints called Caidin, the one commemorated on October 25 who left his ‘church, bell and staff’ may be a very early saint indeed, and thus distinct from his later namesake of Iona.

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  • Saint Donatus of Fiesole, October 22

    October 22 is the feast day of one of my favourites among the Irish saints who laboured in continental Europe: Saint Donatus of Fiesole. This wonderful man brought everything that was best about the early medieval Irish Church to his adopted homeland and he maintained a saintly humility whilst dealing with both ecclesiastical and secular politics at the highest level. Last year I posted the account of his life from the work of Margaret Stokes here. Saint Donatus cherished a deep devotion to Saint Brigid of Kildare and a post on the Prologue to the Life of Saint Brigid which he composed can be found at my other site here  plus a modern scholarly commentary here. This year we have a tribute to Saint Donatus from an Italian author, Vincenzo Berardis, a former diplomat who wrote a book on the relationship between Ireland and Italy in the Middle Ages:

    There are many saints of whom something must be said because they lived and died in Italy, where there are so many reminders of their culture and their teaching. They belong to the period of the scholars and the apostles, and were men who played a part in the political life of Italy. These scholars were almost all ecclesiastics who had been trained in the great monastic schools of Ireland; they were endowed with great strength of character and intellect, and were masters of every branch of learning – men who rendered great services to civilization on the Continent, especially during the Carolingian era. Not a few of these scholars after a period of teaching, deserted the courts of princes and the uncertainties of public life and entered the monasteries so as to enjoy that solitude which is the spiritual home of men of great strength of character. Although most of these learned men went to France, Italy attracted many who took part in the directly apostolic work of the Church.

    Such a one was St. Donatus who became famous both as a politician and a man of letters. He was Bishop of Fiesole for nearly fifty years and is a somewhat solitary figure, remote from the Carolingian world where culture was valued more as a means to acquire feudal and imperial prestige than as a method of attaining intellectual freedom. He had apparently studied and taught at the monastery of Iniscaltra; like many other monks he visited the Holy Places, being accompanied there by his faithful companion, Andrew. When he arrived in Italy he travelled to the tombs of the martyrs, the monasteries and the hermitages. At Fiesole he was welcomed by a crowd of the faithful “mysteriously gathered together in the Cathedral”, who during this still more “mysterious period of waiting” acclaimed him as bishop of the vacant See. During his episcopate the learned Irishman had to face a precarious and dangerous political situation, for the property of the Church was pillaged by Saracens and Northmen who sailed up the Arno and even sacked the Bishop’s palace at Fiesole. He was not called upon to do missionary work but he had to defend the rights of the Church against many tyrannical acts of partisan factions, and he did so with great ability and energy. As Bishop and feudatory of the Empire, he was present at the coronation of Louis II; he commanded his own vassals in an imperial expedition; he took part in company with the Pope and the Emperor in deciding an old ecclesiastical quarrel and he attended the Council in Rome summoned by Nicholas I. Having reached this eminence, he consolidated his temporal authority, rendering it independent of the imperial administration and acquiring – by an imperial rescript – fiscal and juridical rights.

    St. Donatus interested himself not only in politics and administration but undertook with equal success the post of professor in the school of Florence, where he proved himself to be a learned Latinist and a writer of verses. According to Davidson, he specialised in teaching and commenting on Vergil. In his verses, which served as a preface to the biography of St. Brigit, his miracle-working compatriot, he quoted Democritus and Hesiod. Even centuries after his death his poems were much admired. He also left a life of St. Brigit in prose, much fuller than that in verse. It contains some descriptions of Ireland which he praises for its richness, “the absence of savage beasts and poisonous snakes”, and for the progress of its people in learning, in peace and in faith. It is related that when hear his death, St. Donatus appeared at a meeting of his brethren where he had to recite his poetic beliefs, which he did in terms of Virgil’s eclogue, dying as he came to the last words. Papini declares that “like Augustine, the Emperor Constantine, Eusebius, Lactantius, Innocent III and even Abelard, St. Donatus believed that Virgil had announced the coming of our Saviour.”

    During the last years of his life he built a church at his own expense in Piacenza and dedicated it to St. Brigit. This church he left in his will to the Abbey of Bobbio, with the obligation of maintaining a hospice for Irish pilgrims. The work and constructive ability of St. Donatus have always remained an example to members of the Church. He is still remembered in Tuscany and many boys are christened with his name in the provinces of Florence, Pisa, Leghorn and Lucca.

    Vincenzo Berardis, Ireland and Italy in the Middle Ages (Dublin, 1950), 108-110.

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  • Saint Moluainn of Killmologe, October 18

    October 18 is the commemoration of a County Down saint, Moluainn of Killmologue in the Mournes. The Martyrology of Donegal records:

    18. D. QUINTO DECIMO KAL. OCTOBRIS. 18.

    MOLUAINEN, of Tamlacht, in Boirche.

    The diocesan historian, Father James O’Laverty, brings the following account of Saint Moluainn and includes some interesting footnotes. I wonder if there is still such a ‘wonderfully well preserved’ site at this location, it certainly sounded quite impressive when the author was writing in the 1870s. There is a picture of ‘Saint Macquilla’s well’ in the undated reminiscences of an ‘old timer’ here which appears to relate to the same locality but this account says that there is now no trace of the shrine mentioned by Father O’Laverty. Our saint does not feature in the work of Bishop William Reeves on the dioceses of Down, Connor and Dromore, so Father O’Laverty’s is the only information I have available:

    In the townland of Ballyveaghmore there is a place called Killmologe; the people have lost every tradition regarding it, yet the place is considered gentle, and it is therefore wonderfully well preserved. Killmologe signifies the church of St, Luan or St. Lua.* There are many saints of that name St. Bernard mentions in the life of St. Malachy a St. Luan, who studied in Bangor, and afterwards founded one hundred monasteries. The patron of Killmologe is more probably St. Moluainen of Tamlaght in Boirche (Tamlaght in Upper Mourne), whose festival, according to the Martyrology of Donegal, was observed on the 18th of October. Killmologe is a space of ground nearly circular, containing almost a statute acre, its diameter being 240 feet. It is surrounded by a high ditch which is formed by banking up the clay which was taken from the trench on each side of it. The ditch is faced and topped with great stones embedded in the earth. This enclosure has two gates or openings, one to the east and one to the west. On entering the enclosure by the western opening there is, on the left side, what seems to have been a well, and a little farther on a large stone is met, having a cup shaped hole hollowed out of it, which may have been used for holding Holy Water, or perhaps for crushing the corn used for food. On the southern side of the enclosure are three circles of stones embedded in the clay, they seem to be the foundations of rude buildings. One of them which is better defined than the others has a narrow opening on the south side towards the fosse. Near the eastern opening, but towards the south side of it, there are the traces of a rude square building. Outside the circumvallation on the north side there is a large flat stone, in which are scooped two hollows, similar to what in other parts of the country are said to be the marks made by the knees of a saint. This venerable spot, surrounded by what in ancient times was called a Cashel, is exactly similar to an ecclesiastical establishment described by the Venerable Bede as erected about the year 676, in the island of Farne, near Lindisfarne, by St. Cudbert, an Irishman, who had been trained to monastic discipline in Iona.—” Now this dwelling-place was nearly circular, in measure from wall to wall about four or five perches. The wall itself externally was higher than the stature of a man; but inwardly, by cutting the living rock, the pious inhabitant thereof made it much higher in order by this means to curb the petulance of his eyes, as well as of his thoughts, and to raise up the whole bent of his mind to heavenly desires, since he could behold nothing from his mansion except heaven. He constructed this wall not of hewn stone, nor of brick and mortal, but of unwrought stones and turf, which he dug out of the place. Of these stones some were of such a size that it seemed scarcely possible for four men to lift them; nevertheless it was discovered that he had brought them from another place and put them on the wall assisted by heavenly aid. His dwelling place was divided into two parts, an oratory namely and another dwelling suitable for common uses. He constructed the walls of both by digging round, or by cutting out much of the natural earth inside and outwardly, but the roof was formed of rough beams and thatched with straw.” — Life of St. Cudbert by the Venerable Bede. An enclosure, such as Killmologe, surrounding a group of ecclesiastical buildings, when it was built of stone or of earth faced with stone was termed a Cashel, and sometimes a Cahir; they were in imitation of the fortresses in use among the pagan Irish, and frequently they were pagan fortresses that were given up to the clergy. Killmologe may have been Cathair Boirche, the princely residence of Eochaidh Salbhuidhe, before it fell to the possession of St. Moluainen.+

    * Moluainen is equivalent to My dear little Luan. An Irish way of saying St. Luan. The Irish used the diminutive of the name of a saint as a mark of affection and prefixed Mo-my as an expression of devotion ; the diminutives an, in, og, were often postfixed, thus the name, Aodh by this process is changed into Mo-Aodh-og (Mogue), while Luan becomes Moluainin and Molog.

    + An ancient poem preserved in the Martyrology of Donegal describes St. Becan when he was visited by St. Columbkille and the Monarch of Ireland, as engaged in erecting a similar structure.

    Making a wall praying
    Kneeling, pure prayer,
    His tears flowing without unwillingness
    Were the virtues of Becan without fault.

    Hand on stone, hand lifted up,
    Knee bent to set a rock.
    Eye shedding tears, other lamentation.
    And mouth praying.
    Rev. James O’Laverty, An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, Ancient and Modern, Vol. I (Dublin, 1878), 26-28.
     
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