OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Dorbéne Foda of Iona, October 28

    October 28 is the feastday of an eighth-century abbot of Iona (Hy, Ia), Dorbéne Foda (Dorbéne the Tall), whose death is recorded at the year 713. The Martyrology of Donegal for this day lists:

    28. G. QUINTO KAL. NOVEMBRIS. 28.

    DORBÉNE FODA, son of Altaine, Abbot of la Coluim Cille. He is of the race of Conall Gulban.

    There is a puzzling duplication of abbots recorded among the successors of Saint Columba at this time and our saint was recorded as having been appointed during the tenure of Dúnchadh (710-717). Earlier scholars suggested that this duplication of abbots may reflect some sort of split at Iona over the contentious issue of the dating of Pascha, a theory which continues to be debated today. T. M. Charles-Edwards in his recent contribution on the Abbots of Iona to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography accepts that this split was ‘almost certainly the reason why in the early eighth century there were often two abbots of Iona’. He suggests that Dúnchadh was the ‘Roman’ abbot appointed during the tenure of the ‘Hibernian’ abbot Conamail. Charles-Edwards speculates that our saint Dorbéne was another ‘Hibernian’ abbot, but fellow-scholar Richard Sharpe is less willing to accept the ‘schism’ theory and believes that it is impossible to say exactly what was going on with the Iona abbatial succession at this time. In any case, it seems that the abbacy of our saint Dorbéne was short-lived as this extract from a history of Iona explains:

    11. Dunchadh (710-717). The annals date his appointment three years before his predecessor’s death. He may have begun as a coadjutor abbot, or there may have been factions over the Easter question, and nominations by both parties. This unhappy controversy gave trouble in Iona from Adamnan’s time until the inevitable transition to the general usage of the Church had been made.

    In Dunchadh’s third year, 712, Coeddi, called Bishop of Ia, died. He was probably a bishop resident in the monastery. In the next year, Dorbene Fada, or the Tall, “obtained the cathedra of Ia,” but died within five months. This record of his appointment (apparently) to the abbacy in the middle of Dunchadh’s term of office is strange, but resembles Dunchadh’s own beginning. The writer on Dorbene in the Dictionary of Christian Biography says that a schism in the monastery “is in itself improbable, and has no authority in the annals.” He prefers the explanation that Dorbene was appointed a tanist abbot, or coadjutor with right of succession. The record of the death of a tanist abbot in 937 (next chapter) shows that the custom existed in Iona.

    The oldest existing copy of Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba is written by a scribe who says at the end, “Whosoever readeth these books on the miracles of Columba, let him beseech the Lord for me, Dorbene, that after death I may possess eternal life.” Critics have no doubt that the writer is Dorbene Fada; and, as he died only nine years after Adamnan, he very probably copied the book, when a monk under him, at the time of its composition. The manuscript is the oldest one of ancient Scotland that has come down to us. It is in the Public Library at Schaffhausen, but came from Reichenau, a monastery on Lake Constance, originally founded by St. Columbanus. The manuscript must have been carried to the Continent in days when zealous missionaries and learned teachers of the Celtic Church were well known in Europe. A century later, we find an Abbot of Reichenau writing, in Latin verse, the praises of the Iona martyrs of 825.

    Rev. E. Trenholme, The Story of Iona (Edinburgh, 1909), 62-63.

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  • Saint Colman of Seanbotha, October 27

    October 27 is the feastday of yet another Irish Saint Colman, this one associated with the locality of Sean Botha, which the great 19th-century scholar John O’Donovan identified as the present day Templeshanbo, County Wexford. Father Jerome Fahey gives the following account of Saint Colman in his diocesan history of Kilmacduagh:

    In the Martyrology of Donegal we find the following notice of St Colman Hy Fiachrach: “Colman Ua Fiachrach of Sean Botha in Ui Ceansealaigh. He is of the race of Fiachra.” We find a supplementary notice of the Saint, which casts much additional light on his descent, in the Customs of Hy Fiachrach.

    Here we are told that his mother was Fearamhla, sixth in descent from Dathy, and fifth from Fochaid Breac, ancestor of St. Colman Mac Duagh. “And she was the mother of St. Colman, the son of Elochaid, who is, i.e, lies, interred at Sean Bhotach in Hy Censiolaigh.” And in the Martyrology of Donegal it is added, ” He is of the race of Fiachra.” We also find, on the same authority, that the “three O’Suanaighs,” memorable amongst our early Saints, were his brothers, as were also St Aodhan of Cluain Eochaille and St Dichlethe O’Triallaigh.

    We find in the life of St Maidoc, that he was a contemporary of St Colman of Kilmacduagh. St. Colman Ua Fiachrach was therefore a contemporary as well as a kinsman of Guaire, King of Connaught It is therefore not improbable that he may have built his church at Kinvara for the convenience of his pious relative and his court He afterwards became abbot of the monastery at Seanbotha, in which he was interred.

    The church of Seanbotha is identified by O’Donovan as that now called Temple-Shambo, “which is situated at the foot of Mount Leinster, in the barony of Scarawalsh and county of Wexford.” The monastery of Temple-Shambo was probably founded by himself. His festival was observed there on the 27th October, the exact date on which his feast is fixed in the Martyrology of Donegal.

    Rev. J. Fahey, The History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Kilmacduagh (Dublin, 1893), 31.

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

  • Saints Nasad, Beoan and Meldan of Tamlach Mellan, October 26

    We are in County Down for the commemoration of an intriguing trio of saints, Nasad, Beoan and Meldan, on October 26. They flourished in a locality near Loch Bricenn, known today as Loughbrickland, which has a man-made island or crannóg dating back to prehistoric times. In the extract below from a paper of 1905, Canon Lett, a clergyman antiquary, summarizes what is known of them from the Irish calendars and gives an account of an ecclesiastical bell found there:

    As I am writing about the ancient and modern island in Loughbrickland, I would like to say something about the ancient church of this parish, the present name of which is Aghaderg, as I believe it was situated close to the lough…

    In the “Martyrology of Aengus,” at the 26th of October, the gloss on the names Nasad, Beoan, and Meldan is “three saints from Britain, and are [interred] in one church, i.e. Tamlacht Menand at Loch Bricrend, in Iveagh, in Ulidia.” And the ” Calendar of the Four Masters ” mentions but two names “Beoan Bishop and Mellan, of Tamlach Mellan, on Loch Bricrenn.” These authorities would lead one to understand that the ancient church was on the shore of the lough; and though there is no trace of a church or churchyard, there is the name of the townland Ballintaggart, i.e. ‘ the priests’ place.’ Bounding the lough on the west, and adjoining it on the south-east, is the townland of Shankill, i.e. ‘the old church.’ …

    …This interesting spot, which retains the name of Briclan, otherwise Bricrenn, has given the name of the chief, who resided here 2,000 years ago, to the lough and the modern village.

    …A small handbell, of the usual square pattern of ancient Celtic Ecclesiastical bells, was found about the year 1835 at the site of the monastery; it passed into the possession of Mr. Fivey, who resided at Union Lodge on Lough Shark, now called, but erroneously, Loughadian. Mr. Fivey parted with the bell to Mr. Bell, engineer and artist, of Dungannon, who made a collection of Irish objects of antiquity; and, at Mr. Bell’s death, it went, with the other curios, by purchase, to the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries in Edinburgh, where it, no doubt, is, though I have been unable to identify it. A man named Francis Mead, resident in Drumsallagh, who died fifteen years ago, and who had been present when the bell was discovered, described it to me as “an old, squared-shaped bell, of thin brass, one side being burned or broken out in part, and it had no tongue in it.” A pensioner of the Royal Artillery, named David Beatty, who lived near the monastery, and Dr. Mc Kean, who was the dispensary doctor of the district, told me they recollected the finding of the bell, and they likewise described it as above.

    Canon H. W. Lett, ‘The Island in Lough Briclan (Loughbrickland, County Down)’ in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Vol. 35 (1905), 253-254.

    The entry in the Martyrology of Oengus reads:

    26. Nassad, Beoan, Mellan,
    in every way I weave them together

    and I would be most interested to know more of the story behind these three British saints and of how their names came to be woven together in the history of County Down.

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