OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • 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.

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  • 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.

  • Saint Laisren of Ard-mac-Nasca, October 25

    October 25 is the feast of a saint from my own part of the world – Laisren of Ard-mac-Nasca, on the shore of Lough Laoigh. Lough Laoigh, the ‘lake of the calf’, is the ancient name of Belfast Lough and Ard Mac Nasca, ‘the height of the son of Nasca’ is the village of Holywood, County Down. A nineteenth-century parish priest of Holywood, Father James O’Laverty, wrote a five-volume history of the northern diocese of Down and Connor, and naturally he has much to tell us of his own patron:

    The ruined church of Holywood occupies the site of a very early ecclesiastical structure, which was built by, or at least presided over by St. Laisren, whose festival was kept on the 25th of October. The Felire of Aengus the Culdee, who died A.D. 819, treating of the saints whose festivals occur on that day, says :—” Laisren the Great, son of Nasca, i.e., Laisren, son of Nasca of Ard-mac-nasca, on the shore of Lough Laig, in Ultonia.” Of St. Laisren little is known; Colgan supposes that he is the St. Laisren, son of Nasca, who with his brothers, St. Gobban and St. Graphan, were placed in a monastery, which St. Carthagh, of Lismore, erected in Inispict, now called Spike Island, Co. Cork. St. Carthagh studied under St, Comgall in Bangor; and it is likely, that the sons of Nasca, having formed his acquaintance in Bangor, accompanied him on his return to Munster. They studied under his spiritual care in the great monastery which he erected in Rathyne, Co. Westmeath; and they afterwards formed three of the twelve monks, whom he placed in the monastery erected by him on Spike Island about the year 620. Gobban seems to have been bishop of that monastery, and his festival was observed there on the 17th of March, We cannot ascertain the date of St. Laisren’s return to Ulster, or of his taking charge of the monastery of Holywood, but we find him mentioned as one of the Irish ecclesiastics, to whom the Roman clergy addressed a letter in the year 642. The primate and the chief clergy of the North of Ireland, addressed to Pope Severinus, in the year 640, a letter, in which they besought his decision regarding the proper mode of calculating Easter, about which there was then a great controversy raging throughout this part of Ireland.The Pope died before their letter reached Rome, but it was answered by the Roman clergy in a letter, which is preserved in Venerable Bede’s History of the Anglo-Saxon. Church. The reply of the Roman clergy makes known to us the names of those who solicited the decision of Rome. It is addressed—” To the most beloved and holy Thomian, Columban, Cronan, Dimma, and Baithan, bishops ; to Cronan, Ernian, Laistran, Scallan, and Segienus, priests; to Saran, and other Irish doctors and abbots.” Thomian was primate, he died in 660. Columban was bishop of Clonard, he died in 652. Cronan was bishop of Nendrum or Mahee Island, in Strangford Lough, and in all probability was bishop of the diocese of Down, he died in 642. Dimma was bishop of Connor, he died in 658. Cronan was abbot of Moville, near Newtownards, he died 650. Ernian was abbot of Torey Island, he flourished about 650, Laistran is intended for Laiseran of Ardmacnasca, or Holywood, the mistake is caused by the similarity of the letters T and E in ancient manuscripts. Scallan was abbot of Bangor, he died in 662. Segienus was abbot of lona from 623 to 652. Saran died in 661…

    …The ancient gloss on the text of Aengus — Laisren, son of Nasca, of Ard-mac-Rasca, on the banks of Lough Laigh, in Ultonia— describes very accurately the site of the ancient church of Holywood, the ruins of which stand in the vicinity of the large funereal mound, which is now in the pleasure grounds of Mr. Read, of Holywood. That mound was certainly the Ard – mac – Nasca—the height, or mound of the son of Nasca—and received its name from St. Laiseran, the son of Nasca. Our readers will readily understand that the sepulchral mound was named the Mound (Ard) of the son of Nasca, merely because it stood in the grounds adjacent to his church. It belongs, however, to a period long antecedent to the time of St. Laiseran, and was erected to cover the remains of some mighty chief, whose tomb, being the recognised place for the religious and deliberative assemblies of the neighbourhood, became the most important place in the district; and some spot adjacent would consequently be selected as site of the Christian church. It is on this account that we find churches near the great sepulchral mounds of Dundonald, Ballyrichard, Donaghadee, Holywood, Ballymaghan, the Knock, and every other great sepulchral mound in the diocese of Down.

    The church of Holywood stood, a few perches to the north of the mound, on the banks of Lough Laoigh exactly as described in the ancient gloss. We have no account of any of the successors of St. Laiseran, but the church must have been held in high estimation for its sanctity, since the adjoining townland, which was called Ballyderry (the town of the wood), was named as early as the period of the English Invasion,—Sanctus-Boscus or Holy Wood,—from its proximity to the church.

    Rev. James O’Laverty, An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, Vol. II, (Dublin, 1880), 190-193.

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