OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Lochaid of Moville, January 2

    On January 2 the Irish calendars commemorate Saint Lochaid (Lochait) an abbot of Moville, County Down, the monastery founded by Saint Finnian, who was described in the Life of Saint Comgall as ‘the bishop who sleeps amid many miracles in his own city of Magh Bile’. Not a great deal of information has survived about today’s saint, for as Canon O’Hanlon notes below his death is not recorded in the Irish annals:

    Article IV. St. Lochaid or Lochait, Abbot of Magh Bile or Moville, County of Down. 
     
    The religious community presided over by this saint was situated near the head of Strangford Lough. It lay about an English mile to the north-east of Newtown Ards. We learn from the “Martyrology of Donegal,” that the feast of Lochait, Abbot of Magh-bile, had been celebrated on this day.  A similar entry is met with in the “Martyrology of Tallagh,” at the 2nd of January. Although our annals have deaths of various bishops and abbots of Maghbile, yet this holy man’s name does not appear among them. It is difficult, in consequence, to assign his exact place in the local and abbatial succession.

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  • Saint Colmán Muilinn of Derrykeighan, January 1

     

    We start the new year with a feast of one of the many Irish saints Colmán to be found on the calendars. Colmán Muillin, Colmán of the mill, is an early saint from County Antrim whom genealogical sources claim was a grandson of Mílchú or Míleac, the man who held Saint Patrick in slavery. The calendar entry in the Martyrology of Donegal tells us that it was in a mill that he used to make obeisance to his brethern and thus acquired his name. Pádraig Ó Riain’s Dictionary of Irish Saints tells us that Colmán Muillin was also reputed to have been part of ‘a marauding group of laymen’ whose leader was none too pleased when he opted to follow Saint Colmán Éala of Lynally instead. Below is Canon O’Hanlon’s account of the saint taken from Volume I of his Lives of the Irish Saints:

    Article IV. St. Colman Muilinn, of Derrykeighan, County of Antrim. [Fifth or Sixth Century.]

     From various accounts, it would appear, the Church of Derrykeighan must have been one of the oldest foundations in Ireland. Its first administrator is stated to have been brother to St. Mochay, who died towards the close of the fifth century. The name of this place seems to have been derived from doire ‘an oak wood’ and from chaochain, a proper name, and also meaning, “purblind.” Foundations of the original church remain in the old churchyard. Upon them stand the roofless walls of an old building.

    Colman Muilinn is simply entered in the “Martyrology of Tallagh” on this day. He belonged to a place known as Derrykeighan, in the county of Antrim, and within the diocese of Connor. Further particulars concerning him we read in the “Martyrology of Donegal.” There it is stated that Colman Muilinn, of Doire-Chaechain, belonged to Dal-Riada, in Ulster. Bronach, daughter of Milchu, son to Buan, is said to have been his mother. We are informed, likewise, that it was in a mill St. Colman used to make obeisance to the brethren. No clue to the date of his death can be found in our Annals.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.

  • A Prayer to the Saints at the End of the Year

    The following prayer to the saints is found at the end of the notes to the Martyrology of Oengus after the final entries at December 31. I have previously posted a similar prayer from the Martyrology of Gorman here. Both of our martyrologists entreat the intercession and protection of the Irish saints whose feast days they have recorded for us. Saint Oengus uses the affectionate diminutive Ísucán when asking Christ to grant his prayer, which the translator Whitley Stokes has rendered as ‘O dear little Jesus’:

    May every saint who has been, is, and will be till doom victorious division –
    in Christ’s pious company, may they be helping me! 
    May they be helping me in heaven and on earth,
    and come in their bands to work along with my soul. 
    O dear little Jesus, [Ísucán] may it thus be fulfilled!

    Every saint, every holy virgin, every martyr, whom I have recounted, every high apostle, 

    their prayer for me to God whom I fear, may it protect me from every fierce danger!

     W. Stokes ed. and trans., The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee (London, 1905, p. 263).

     

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2022. All rights reserved.