OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Cronan of Tomgraney, October 19

    October 19 is the commemoration of a County Clare saint, Cronan of Tomgraney. The Martyrology of Donegal records:

    19. E. QUARTO DECIMO KAL. OCTOBRIS. 19. 

    CRONAN, of Tuaim Greine.

    The website of the Clare County Library has a page which explains the origins of the place name associated with our saint and which mentions him as the founder of its monastery. Sadly by the nineteenth century, the Ordnance Survey scholar, John O’Donovan, was dismayed to find that little local knowledge of the saint had survived, not even the memory of when his feast day was commemorated. Another nineteenth-century source, the Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, alluded to some of the difficulties in disentangling the founder of Tomgraney from others of the same name:

    Cronan (Croman, or Chronan) is a very frequent name in Irish hagiologies, and has several synonyms, as Cuaran, Mochuaroc, and frequently Mochua, Cron and Cua having in Irish the same meaning.

    13. Of Tuaim-greine (now Tomgraney, in the barony of Upper Tulla, County Clare), commemorated October 19. This saint appears twice in the Mart. Doneg., first in the original hand at October 19; and next in the second hand, on the authority of Mar. O’Gorman, at November 1. Among the saints of the family of St. Colman of Kilmacduach (Feb. 3), or house of the Hy-Fiachrach, Colgan gives “St. Cronan, son of Aengus, son of Corbmac, etc., February 20 or October 19;” and Mart. Doneg. at February 20 also mentions that there is a Cronan with this pedigree (Todd and Reeves, Mart. Doneg. pages 55, 279,293; Colgan, Acta Sanctorum, page 248, c. 2).

    James Strong and John McClintock, eds., The Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature (Haper and Brothers; NY; 1880). [extract from online edition here.]

    Modern scholar, Pádraig Ó Riain in his dictionary entry for the saint explores the evidence from literary sources and place names and confirms the difficulties of the earlier hagiologists in establishing a single identity and feast day for this saint.


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  • Saint Teca of Rooskey, October 18

    At October 18 the Irish calendars record the name of a female saint, Teca and associate her with the locality of ‘Ruscach, in Cuailgne’. The Martyrology of Donegal records:

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

    TECA, Virgin, of Ruscach, in Cuailgne.

    The earlier Martyrology of Tallaght, however, gives an affectionate twist on her name and records at the same date:

    Mothecca Rúscaigi  (my Teca of Rúscach).

    The index of places appended to the Martyrology identifies our saint’s locality as Rooskey, County Louth. This place is mentioned in the Life of Saint Moninna, when that saint, originally named Darerca, was first involved with the religious life:

    There were with her at first, as they tell, eight virgins, as well as one widow who had a small boy named Luger. Darerca adopted the child as her foster son and when she had thoroughly accustomed him to the ways of the church, she raised him to the high dignity of a bishop.  He crowned his good works as leader of the whole of his people – the Conaille – by building the church of  Rúscach [Rooskey, Cooley, County Louth] in honour of God.

    Liam de Paor, ed and trans., ‘The Life of Saint Darerca, or Moninna, the Abbess’ in Saint Patrick’s World (Dublin, 1993), 282.
    I have no further information on Saint Teca or at what period she flourished.

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

  • Saint Maonach of Dunleer, October 17

    At October 17 the Martyrology of Donegal records:

    17. C. SEXTO DECIMO KAL. NOVEMBRIS. 17.

    MAENACH, son of Cláirin, Abbot of Lann Léire, A.D. 720.

    A footnote adds that the year 720 is the date given for the repose of this saint in the Annals of Ulster. The place name associated with the saint, Lann Léire, is modern Dunleer, County Louth and a local researcher has made an interesting historical archive on the district available here. In the nineteenth-century Bishop Reeves sought to derive the name from the old Irish words lann, church and léire, austerity, but modern scholarship inclines to the view that it simply means ‘the church in the district of Léire’ rather than ‘the church of austerity.’ The name was in common use up until the twelfth century but after the coming of the Normans the lann element was replaced by dún, fort. The monastery of which Saint Maonach was abbot was originally founded by the saintly brothers Furadhran and Baithin. Our saint is the first abbot to be mentioned in the Annals after the founders. Thus Lann Léire must have been a foundation of some importance and various commentators have noted that no other County Louth monastery is referenced so frequently in the Irish Annals. Not only are its abbots recorded but so too are other events such as as attacks by the Vikings as well as by native marauders, culminating in the burning of the monastery in 1148.  One can only hope that Saint Maonach exercised his abbacy in less interesting times.
    Pádraig Ó Riain in his Dictionary of Irish Saints records a number of later literary sources which take our saint out of his Ulster monastery and seek to place him in Munster. A poem, for example, listing those on whom Saint Seanán of Scattery could call on in a time of need include ‘great Maonach, son of  Láirín’. It may be, however, that in some of these sources our saint has become confused with others of a similar name. Interestingly though, the name of Maonach, in its Latin guise of Monachus is to be found at October 17 in a fifteenth-century martyrology written in Cologne. It rather suggests that our saint, although today an obscure figure, was at one time much more well known.

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