OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Liadhain of Killyon, August 11

    We have an unusually large number of female saints commemorated on the Irish calendars at August 11. Among them are Saint Attracta and Saint Lelia and now we can meet another holy lady whose feast occurs on this day, Liadhain of Killyon. We have already been introduced to Saint Liadhain on the blog when discussing the feast of Saint Brunsecha. Tradition says that Liadhain was the mother of the man known as the ‘firstborn of the saints of Ireland’, Ciarán of Saighir, and that she was also a monastic foundress in her own right. Canon O’Hanlon tell us what else is known of this mother of saints and of the efforts of the 19th-century scholar John O’Donovan to identify the locality where she flourished:

    St. Liadhain, Abbess, of Killyon, King’s County.

    [Fifth or Sixth Century.]

    This holy woman, according to received traditions, must have flourished during the very infancy of Christianity in Ireland. According to the Martyrology of Donegal, a festival was celebrated, at the 11th of August, to honour Liadhain, daughter of Eochaidh. She descended from the race of Laighaire, the son of Niall. We are told, she was mother to Ciaran of Saigher, and the first Abbess among the virgins—i.e., female—saints of Ireland. There was a religious establishment at a place called Killiadhuin, supposed to have been founded by the present saint, and named after her. It is now identified with Killyon, near Seir-Kieran. Two acres of land are said to have been under the old buildings; but, only a small portion of the walls are now be seen. Already allusion is made to this place, on the banks of the small stream, called the Camcor River. At one time, John O’Donovan thought the parish of Killyon, in the barony of Upper Moyfenrath, in the County of Meath, had been that specially dedicated to St. Lidania. This parish of Killyon is bounded on the north by the parish of Killaconnican; on the east by the parishes of Castlerickard and Clonard; oh the south by the latter parish, and on the west by the County of Westmeath. There were detached portions of this parish within that of Clonard. However, this opinion of Mr. O’Donovan was afterwards retracted, although, as he supposes, and with a great possibility of conjecture, that the parish of Killian, in the County of Meath, had also been dedicated to the present saint. The remains of an ancient church are in a cemetery. There was a holy well in the churchyard, at the gable of the old church. This was said to have been dedicated to the Virgin Mary; but, as the traditions were just extinct in the district, when he visited that locality [in the 1830s], Mr. O’Donovan could place little reliance on them. Under the rule of St. Liadhain or Liadania, lived St. Brunsecha, a holy virgin. Both are supposed to have flourished in the fifth or sixth century.

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  • The Arrival of Saint Maelruain with the Relics of the Saints at Tallaght, August 10

    Canon O’Hanlon has a notice of a wonderful feast of the translation of the relics of the saints by Saint Maelruain of Tallaght at August 10:

    The Arrival of St. Maolruain, with the Relics of Virgins and of other Saints, at Tallagh, County of Dublin.

    In the Martyrology of Tallagh, we find a festival for this day, as characterized at the head of this paragraph. We learn from the Life of St. Aengus, the Culdee, that he often travelled about, engaged on inquiries, which enabled him to illustrate the Saint-History of Ireland. Doubtless, he failed not to collect some relics of those holy persons, whenever he travelled abroad; and, it is likely, that his distinguished superior and local contemporary, St. Maelruan, who had kindred tastes, made special journeys for similar purposes. One of these returns must have been solemnly commemorated at Tallagh, in the eighth century, and before the death of St. Maelruan, on the 7th July, 792. That commemoration was probably continued annually, on this day, and at that particular place, in recognition of those treasures deposited by the holy founder in the house of his religious community.

    This would have been a purely local commemoration specific to this County Dublin monastery, and scholar Westley Follett suggests that it may in fact commemorate the anniversary of its founding:

    According to the Annals of the Four Masters Tallaght was founded in 774. The Martyrology of Tallaght appears to commemorate the occasion on 10 August with the notice ‘Mael Ruain came to Tallaght with his relics of the saints, martyrs and virgins’. [1]

    This feast thus gives us a glimpse into the development of the cult of the saints in eighth-century Ireland as well as the part played by this particular monastery. Tallaght is perhaps most famously associated with the Céile-Dé movement, but also left a lasting hagiological legacy. For this monastery was associated with the production of the earliest surviving Irish calendars of the saints, The Martyrology of Tallaght and the Martyrology of Aengus. The former is essentially a copy of the Hieronymian Martyrology which reached Ireland in the eighth century (possibly via Iona) to which the commemorations of native Irish saints was added. Follett comments:

    It should not be overlooked that non-Irish saints were venerated at Tallaght. The Martyrology of Tallaght (edd. Best and Lawlor, 62) commemorates August 10 with the comment, ‘Mael Ruain cum suis reliquiis sanctorum martirum et uirginum ad Tamlachtain uenit’. Given the paucity of native martyrs in Ireland, we may presume these were the relics of non-Irish martyrs. [2]

    Various sources connected to the monastery of Tallaght give a further glimpse of devotion to the saints. The Preface to the Martyrology of Aengus, which scholars seem to agree used The Martyrology of Tallaght as a source and was written within a generation of the time of Maelruain, records a particular devotion to Saint Michael the Archangel on the part of Maelruain and claims that relics of the archangel were kept at Tallaght:

    Now it is that Maelruain who decided that he would not take land in Tamlachtu until Michael (the Archangel), with whom he had a friendship, should take it; and because of that agreement there are in Tamlachtu relics consecrated to Michael. [3]

    Follett also quotes two further Tallaght documents which show how devotion to the saints was practiced as part of the monastic day. The first is from The Teaching of Maelruain:

    It was their practice that one man should read aloud the Gospel and the Rules and miracles of the saints while their brethern were at their rations or eating their supper, so that their attention should not be occupied with their dinner. [4]

    and is confirmed in The Rule of the Céile-Dé:

    It is the practice of the Céile-Dé that while they are at dinner one of them reads aloud the Gospel and the Rule and the miracles of the saints, to the end that their minds may be set on God, not on the meal. [5]

    Finally, there is a post in the archive on an even earlier Irish saint with an interest in collecting the relics of Ireland’s holy men and women, Saint Onchu of Clonmore. The scholiast notes on his feast day record the story of his over-enthusiasm when he insisted on collecting a finger from the still-living Saint Maedoc! As a result, Maedoc prophesied that the relic collector and his collection would never leave Clonmore. And thus the Connaght man Onchu, likened in the list of parallel saints to Saint Ambrose, came to be buried at the County Carlow monastery of Saint Maedoc.

    References

    [1] Céli Dé in Ireland: monastic writing and identity in the early Middle Ages (Boydell, 2006), 173.

    [2] Ibid, 210, footnote 246.

    [3] W. Stokes, ed. and trans., The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee (London, 1905), 12-13.

    [4] Follett, op.cit., 180.

    [5] Ibid.

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  • The Four Sons of Ercan, August 9

    One of the interesting groups of Irish saints is commemorated on August 9. In this case we are told that there are four males and that they are the sons of Ercan, but there are no other details of either the father or the sons, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

    The Four Sons of Ercan, or Ercain.

    The Martyrologies of Tallagh and of Donegal register the Four Sons of Ercan or Ercain, at the 9th of August. Whose sons these were does not clearly appear.

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