OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Beccan the Blind, February 26

    We commemorate Saint Beccan on February 26, to whose name the epithet of ‘the blind’ is attached in the seventeenth-century Martyrology of Donegal. His name, however, was preserved in the earliest  of the Irish calendars along with a place name which Canon O’Hanlon argues was in County Dublin:

    St. Beccan, or Becanus, The Blind, Probably of Kinsealy, County of Dublin.

    This holy man flourished, probably at an early period, for he is registered, in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 26th of February, simply as Beccan, Chind-sali. In the Martyrology of Marianus O’Gorman, at this day, there is an entry, Becanus Kinsalie. It is probable, his place was near the village of Kinsaly, some three miles from Howth, in the present county of Dublin. This saint appears, from the epithet applied to him, to have laboured under the loss of sight. Becan, the Blind, of Ceannsaile, had a festival, celebrated on this day, as we read in the Martyrology of Donegal.

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  • Saint Croine of Tallaght, February 25

    On February 25 we commemorate a County Dublin holy woman, Croine of Tallaght. Sadly, apart from her commemoration on the calendars, there is nothing else known of her, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

    St. Croine, Virgin, of Tallagh, County of Dublin.

    Croine, Virgin, of Tamhlacht, is mentioned in the Martyrologies of Tallagh and of Donegal, on this day. A community of holy women seems to have been established at her place, in the county of Dublin. This virgin’s name is not found, elsewhere, in history.

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  • Saint Berectus the Monk, February 24

    Febuary 24 is chiefly the commemoration of Saint Cuimine the Fair, whose life of Saint Columba is available at my other site here and here. There is also a notice of another saint with a Scottish connection in Canon O’Hanlon’s Lives of the Irish Saints, an eighth-century saintly monk named Berectus who seems to have had a reputation as a preacher. Canon O’Hanlon’s short account is followed by that of Bishop Forbes:

    Reputed Festival of St. Berectus, a Monk, in Scotland.

    At the 24th of February, Petrus Galesinus, from some Manuscript Kalendars, has entered a St. Berectus. Arnold Wion states, he was a monk, and a confessor, in Scotia, who excelled in a saintly life, and as a preacher; but, more he could not find, regarding the holy man. He is said to have flourished, during the reign of Mordac, the fifty-ninth King of the Scots. He is said to have died, A.D. 720. Menard, Dorgan and Wilson note his festival, at this date. The Bollandists have a suspicion, that Berectus may be identical with Berachius, who is venerated on the 15th of this month. At the 24th of February, the festival of Berectus, a monk, in Scotia, is entered by Camerarius and by Dempster. The latter acknowledges, that he does not know when the present holy man flourished, although attributing to him a Book of Homilies on the Sacred Scriptures.

    From Forbes’ Scottish Kalendars

    BERECTUS. February 24, Ab. 720. —A Saint of this name, in the reign of Mordac, 59th king of the Scots, is mentioned by Wion. He is said to have died in 720.—(Camerarius de Fort., p. 107.)
    Wion, Lignum Vitae, pars 2, lib. iii. p. 57, 1598—”In Scotia Sancti Berecti Monachi et Confessoris, qui profuit et vitae sanctissimae exemplo et predicatione.” He adds in a note, ” De eodem Galesinus hac die, ex MS. Kalendariis : de cujus rebus gestis nihil reperii.”

    Alexander Penrose Forbes, D.C.L. Bishop of Brechin, Kalendars of Scottish Saints, (1872), 279.

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