OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Doroma, September 20

    On September 20 we have a notice of another of our enigmatic female saints, Doroma or Daroma. The Martyrology of Oengus describes her as a ‘queen’:

    D. xii. cal. Octobris.
    Attecham na hóga
    doairset ar nhdala,
    ind rígain Daroma
    cona slóg ron-snáda!

    20. Let us beseech the virgins,
    may they visit our assemblies!
    may the queen Daroma
    with her host protect us!

    although the notes added by a later anonymous commentator describe her rather more prosaically as a ‘virgin’ and reduce her ‘host’ to ‘five companions’:

    20. Doroma .i. uirgo. L. cum .u. socis suis.

    20. Doroma, i.e. a virgin with her five companions.

    I find this notice intriguing and would love to have some further details of this holy lady, but alas, that was a task which defeated Canon O’Hanlon, as he admits below:

    Festival of Doroma.

    The Feilire of St. Aengus has a festival at the 20th of September, for a queen named Doroma and a commentator in the Leabhar Breac copy has notes, which hardly give any additional intelligence regarding her. Nowhere can I find what might serve to throw light on her name, period or place.

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  • Saint Comgell, September 19

    September 19 is the commemoration of an elusive Irish female saint, Comgell. Her name is recorded on the earliest surviving Irish calendar, the Martyrology of Tallaght, as Comgell, virgin, and her feast is also noted on the later Martyrologies of Marianus O’Gorman and of Donegal. Like so many of our holy women, however, we have no details of when and where she flourished, thus Canon O’Hanlon can only bring us the details from the calendars:

    St. Comgell or Caomhgheall, Virgin.

    A festival in honour of Comgell or Caomhgheall, Virgin, is found registered in the published Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 19th of September, although the 16th of October Kalends—corresponding with the 16th of September—is substituted. A similar error occurs in the Book of Leinster entry of her name. At this same date, Marianus O’Gorman commemorates Comgell, noticed by his commentator as having been a virgin. In the Martyrology of Donegal, she is commemorated at the 19th of September.

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  • Saint Richardis of Swabia, September 18

    Among the saints listed for September 18, Canon O’Hanlon includes an entry for a European Empress, Richardis of Swabia. Hers is a rather startling story, the wife of Emperor Charles the Fat, she was accused of adultery with her husband’s chancellor and subjected to the trial of ordeal by fire. Needless to say, she survived and retired to a monastery. It seems that there was some tradition of her having been born in Scotia and thus some of the later hagiologists claimed her for Ireland. In the early middle ages it was common for Ireland to be known in Latin as Scotia and only later for the term to be applied to what we now know as Scotland.  Canon O’Hanlon rarely has any difficulty in going along with the claims of sixteenth/seventeenth-century hagiologists that the offspring of alleged ‘Scottish’ kings can be listed among the Irish saints, although whether there actually was any link to this country is another question:

    Feast of St. Richarde or Richardis, Empress and Virgin.

    This saintly and noble lady is referred to, at the 18th of September, by Platius, Henry Fitzsimon, and the anonymous list of Irish Saints, published by O’Sullivan Beare, have her classed among the Irish Saints. The Bollandists have inserted such accounts as could be collected regarding this holy woman, at this date, in a historic sylloge. They tell us, that by some recent writers, St. Richardis is said to have been born in Scotia, and to have been the daughter of a Scottish king. However, this account has been rejected and refuted by Matthew Rader. Other writers think she was born in Alsace, and that she was daughter to the Count Erchangier, of Nordgau. She was renowned for her virtues, and married the Emperor Charles le Gros. With him she was crowned and consecrated, A.D. 881, by the Sovereign Pontiff John VIII. Notwithstanding that she lived with her husband in a state of virginity, she was accused of incontinency; but, by a public trial her innocence was fully proved. With consent of the Emperor she quitted the Court and retired to Andlau on the Lower Rhine, where they had founded and endowed a monastery. There she lived for many years. After death various miracles attested her sanctity. When Pope St. Leo IX. passed through Alsace A.D. 1049, he had the body of St. Richardis raised and placed in a grand monument behind the high altar. The parish church of Etival, in the diocese of St. Die, still preserves some relics of St. Richardis, but the rich shrine which once contained them perished during the excesses of the French Revolution. It seems to have been Colgan’s desire to publish her Acts, at this same date, as we find Richardis Imperatricis mentioned on the posthumous list of his MSS.

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