OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Inneen of Dromtariff, May 6

    The female saint commemorated today, May 6, is interesting on two counts. First, because her festival is not actually recorded on the calendars but is preserved in popular devotion and secondly because she has no proper name. Irish readers will recognise the word iníon, ‘daughter’ in the anglicized word Inneen. Folklore records that she was one of three sisters, her sibling Lateerin has an interesting tale associated of her own to which we will return on her own feast day of July 24. Here is a brief introduction to Saint Inneen from a contributor to the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, who wrote under the pseudonym ‘Mananaan Mac Lir’:

    The 5th of May is the festival of a nameless saint who is known as An Inghen Buidhe a Drom Tarbh, i.e. “the yellow (haired) daughter of Dromtariff” (“the ridge of the bull”). The local tradition is that SS. Lateerin of Cullin, Lassera of Killossory, in Kilmeen parish, and this “yellow-haired daughter,” were sisters who led an eremitical life in those three respective and adjoining parishes in Duhallow. One night the angels came down from heaven and made a tochar  i.e. “causeway,” from Killossory to Dromtariff, and thence to Cullin, so that those holy women might the more easily meet and converse with one another. The “patron day ” at Killossory is now discontinued, but a large “patron” isstill held at Dromtariff holy well on each recurring May 5. The locality of “the yellow-haired daughter’s” holy well — about one hundred and fifty yards south of Dromtariff grave-yard and overlooking the majestic Blackwater — is shown on the Ordnance Townland Maps for the county Cork, sheet 31.

    Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, Volume II (1896), 319.

    Canon O’Hanlon has little other information to offer, although he cites May 6 rather than May 5 as the feast day:

    St. Inneen, Dromtariff Old Church, County of Cork.

    In the diocese of Kerry, there is an old church at Dromtariff, in the parish so called, and county of Cork, where a female saint, called Inneen, was venerated, on the 6th of May. According to popular tradition, she was the sister of St. Lateerin, who is likewise popularly known, at Cullin, in that part of the country, and to an older sister, who lived at Kilmeen. It it stated, according to a local tradition, that the angels of Heaven made a road, one night, from Kilmeen  through Dromtariff and on to Cullin, so that the three sisters might the more conveniently visit each other once every week. Much obscurity hangs over their history, as their celebrity appears to be merely local; although, the people, in their part of the country, have a great veneration for those sisters.

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

     

  • Saint Senan, May 5

    On May 5 the earliest of the Irish calendars, the Martyrology of Tallaght, records the name of a Saint Senan but without any further details. The seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, believed him to have been an abbot, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

    St. Senan.

    The simple entry of Senan’s name is in the published Martyrology of Tallagh at this date; and, a similar record is found in the Franciscan copy. The Bollandists, who enter his feast, on the same authority, and at the 5th of May, have remarked, that Colgan sets him down as an Abbot; although, when or where he exercised such an office, and his acts, are not recorded. The Festilogy of St. Aengus, Marianus and Maguire are also quoted.  On this day was celebrated a festival in honour of Senan, as we find entered in the Martyrology of Donegal.
    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Siollan, the Deacon, May 4

    On May 4 the earliest Irish calendars commemorate a Saint Siollan, at whose name the scholiast in the Martyrology of Oengus has added, ‘this is Sylvanus the deacon’. In his account, Canon O’Hanlon claims that the 17th-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, sought to identify today’s saint with a monk of this name found in the Life of Saint Berach of Kilbarry. Although he does not mention it here, the same claim was made in relation to another saint of this name, commemorated on March 28. On that occasion I reproduced the relevant chapter from the Life and will do so again here, following O’Hanlon’s account of Saint Siollan, the Deacon, from Volume V of his Lives of the Irish Saints.

    St. Siollan, the Deacon.

    A festival was celebrated on this day, as we read in the Martyrologies of Tallagh and of Donegal, in honour of Siollan the deacon. This account is taken from the Felire Aenghuis. It has been thought by Colgan, that the present St. Sillan may be identical with one, mentioned in the Life of St. Berach, of Kilbarry, who is venerated, at the 15th of February. The Bollandists have the feast of St. Sillan entered, at this date; and they give a similar reference, as if her were identical with that monk of St. Berach, who had been killed by robbers, and who had afterwards resuscitated, through the miraculous agency of his venerable superior. This miracle was wrought, at a place called Rath-ond, which has not been identified. In the sixth or seventh century, St Sillan flourished, if the identification in question be admitted. This Natalis occurs, also, in the Kalendar of Drummond, as Sillan, Deacon, a holy confessor, at the 4th of the May Nones.

    From the Life of Saint Berach

    xxix. (85) On one occasion when Berach was in Cluain Coirpthe, he sent a monk on an errand to Rathonn, Sillen by name. Nine robbers fell in with him, who had come from the East of Tethba to ravage in Connaught, and they killed the monk, and went between his head and his body. This was revealed to Berach, and he proceeded quickly to seek them, and found them (standing) over the corpse. When the robbers saw Berach, they resolved forthwith to kill him, and seized their spears with that intent. Their hands stuck to their spears, and their spears stuck to the rock near them, and the marks of their butt-ends will remain on it till doom. (86) They did penance, and said to Berach: ‘Do not deprive us of heaven, and we will do all thy will, O Clerk,’ Berach then spared them, and said to them: ‘Fit the head to the trunk’; and they did so, And Berach took a rush from a rushy pool on the bank hard by, and made a prayer over it, and fitted it round the throat of the corpse, and he arose forthwith; and hence (these rushes) are (called) ‘Berach’s rushes’ till doom, And Berach left great grace upon them, and (as a doom) to the robbers that their seed should never exceed nine, and that there should always be a servitor of them in Cluain Coirpthe, and that as long as there should be one, there should only be one man of them in succession to another. And this is what is still fulfilled, and will be fulfilled till doom. And a servitor went with Berach, and thus they parted.