OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Laisren of Mundrehid, September 16

     

    On September 16, the Irish calendars commemorate Saint Laisren of Mundrehid, County Laois. Father William Carrigan included the following account of this holy abbot in his diocesan history of Ossory:

    The townland of Mundrehid lies in the Barony of Upperwoods and civil parish of Offerlane. Being situated on the north bank of the river Nore, it originally belonged to the territory of Leix, and was not annexed to Ossory till about the 10th century. There was a monastery here in early times. The Four Masters record the obits of two of its Abbots, thus:

    “A.D. 600. Died St. Laisren, abbot of Menadroichit.” (S. Laisren, i. ab Menadroichit, decc.).

    “A.D. 648. Died Maincheni, abbot of Meanadrochit.” (Maineheni, abb. Meanadroichit, do ecc.).

    The latter abbot was probably identical with St. Mainchen, surnamed the Wise, of the Church of Disert Gallen, parish of Ballinakill, whose feast day is the 2nd of January.

    St. Laisren (pronounced Leshareen), also called Laisre, Molaisre, Molaisse and Laserian, the founder of Mundrehid monastery, and, later on, the patron of Mundrehid church, was son of Lughdech, son of Nathi, a descendant, in the sixth degree, of Cathaoir Mor, Ard-Righ of Erin. He must not be confounded with his namesake, the patron of Leighlin Diocese, who was son of Cairrill, a prince of Uladh, and whose festival occurs on the 18th April. The acts of the life of St. Laisren of Mundrehid are not recorded. His feast day is Sept. 16th, on which the Martyrology of Donegal commemorates him, thus:

    “Laisren of Mena: i.e. Mena is the name of a river which is in Laighis; or it is from a bridge (droichid) which is on that river the place was named, i.e. Mena. He was of the race of Cathaoir Mor, Monarch of Erin”

    The text of the Feilire of Aengus on the same day has:

    “The day of Laisren the great of Men.”

    On this passage the scholiast of Aengus comments thus:

    “That is Men the name of a river which flows between Dalaradia and Kinel-Owen as they say. and Molaise dwells on its bank. Or, Molaise of Mena-Droichit, i,e. Men the name of a river which is in Laighis. Or, Mena-droichit, i.e. it is a smooth bridge (is min droichet), to wit, a certain congregation of many saints were once at that town for some cause, and a certain robber, one of the inhabitants said, ‘smoothly (min) have all those come (doroichet) to us; and one of the visitors said, ‘ this shall be the name of the place, Smoothbridge (Mindroichet).”

    From these extracts it is plain that Mundrehid, or Mena-droichid, signifies the bridge over the river Mén (pronounced Mayne), now the “Thoorthawn river,” which, rising in the Slieve Bloom, and flowing between the townlands of Ballyduff and Thoorthawn, crosses the public road at Mundrehid, under a modern bridge or droichid, and soon empties itself into the Nore. It may be well to note that Mén is the nominative case; Meana (pronounced Mayna) is the genitive form.

    “The History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory” Vol. 2 (1905)

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  • Saint Mirren of Paisley, September 15

    On September 15 we commemorate an Irish saint who began his career at the monastery of Bangor under the tutelage of its founder, Saint Comgall, but is today remembered as patron of Paisley in Scotland. Canon O’Hanlon, in the September volume of his Lives of the Irish Saints, begins the entries for this day with an account of Saint Mirren (Merinus, Meadhran, Mirin, Mirrin, Mirren), but below is the account from Bishop Forbes’ work on the Scottish calendars which quotes from the lessons of Saint Merin’s feast from The Breviary of Aberdeen:

    The acts of S. Merinus, in the Breviary of Aberdeen, are very circumstantial. Bishop Merinus was given by his parents to S. Comgal, to be trained in the monastery of Bangor, where he eventually assumed the monastic habit and became prior. His rule was a gentle one. Once, when Finnian of Movilla came to the monastery in the absence of S. Comgal, and asked for milk, of which there was none, the cellarer, at the bidding of S. Merinus, was told to bring some from the cellar, which was accordingly done, and distributed among them that sat at meat. He laid the pains of childbirth on an Irish King who contemned him. He was seen by one of the community in his cell, on one occasion, to be surrounded by a heavenly light, and on another occasion he recalled to life one of the brethren who had fallen down overcome by thirst and fatigue in the valley of Colpdasch. At length, full of miracles and holiness, he slept in the Lord at Pasley, and in his honour the said church is dedicated to God.—(Brev. Aberd. pars estiv. fol. cvi.)

    That a colony from Bangor should come to Paisley is not at all improbable. In the life of S. Kieran, at March 5, in Colgan’s Acta SS. Hib. (p. 461), there is a notice of a S. Medranus, who is mentioned in the lost Kalendar of Cashel with a S. Tomanus:—”SS. Medranus et Tomanus in una ecclesia in Britannica Arcluidensi.”—(Ibid. p. 465 a, note 31.) Paisley is within easy distance of Dumbarton. Colpdasch has not been identified.

    Camerarius, who makes his day the 17th, states that he was Abbot of Newbattle, in the Lothians. This is impossible, but we find traces of him —
    1. In the parish of Kelton, in Kirkcudbright. “There is in the south-east boundary of the parish the vestige of an ancient chapel and churchyard, called Kirk Mirren, now entirely neglected, and of which nothing is known but the locality and the name.”—(N. S. A., Kirkcudbright, p. 170; O. S. A. viii. p. 297.)
    2. In the parish of Kilmarouock, a chapel, still known as S. Mirren’s Chapel (marking by the name of its patron saint some old connection with the abbey of Paisley), stands now in ruins upon Inch Murryn, the largest island of Lochlomond.—(Orig. Par. i. p. 35.)
    3. At Kilsyth there is a remarkable spring, on the south of Woodend, called S. Mirrin’s Well.—(Orig. Par. i. p. 43.)
    4. In the parish of Coylton is a farm called Knock Murran.—(N. S. A., Ayr, p. 656.)
    5. In the parish of Edzell, on the south side of the Korth Esk, is the burn of Murran, but there are no distinct traces of his memory anywhere on the east coast of Scotland.
    Alexander Penrose Forbes, D.C.L. Bishop of Brechin, Kalendars of Scottish Saints, (1872), 397-398.

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

  • Saint Celedabhaill of Bangor, September 14

    On September 14 we remember an abbot of the northern monastery of Bangor, County Down. Canon O’Hanlon gives us the details of the life of Saint Celedabhaill, who was born in the ninth century and died in the second decade of the tenth:

    St. Celedabhaill, Abbot of Bangor, County of Down. 

    This holy man was the son of Scannall. He was born about 868, and he is distinguished as a Scribe, a preacher, a learned doctor, and a bishop. He was likewise the successor of St. Comhgall of Beannchair, now Bangor, in the County of Down. He died on the 14th of September, while on his pilgrimage at Rome, in the fifty-ninth year of his age [1], and in the year 927. [2]

    Footnotes:

    [1] See Dr O’Donovan’s “Annals of the Four Masters, Vol. ii, p. 620, 621.

    [2] According to the following verse, thus translated from the Irish:

    Three times nine, nine hundred years,
    Are reckoned by plain rules
    From the birth of Christ, deed of purity,
    To the holy death of Cele the Cleric.

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