OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Fine, Abbess of Kildare, January 9

    Canon O’Hanlon has a very short entry for Fine or Finia, an eighth-century abbess of Kildare, whom the great 17th-century Irish hagiologist, Father John Colgan, believed had died on January 9, an event recorded in the Irish Annals:


    St. Finia or Fine, Abbess of Kildare. [Eighth Century.]
    Because truth and innocence of life distinguish holy virgins, they live without stain before the throne of God. We are informed by Colgan, that Finia, Abbess of Kildare, died on the 9th of January, A.D. 800. The same year is set down for the death of this Fine, in the Annals of the Four Masters.
    Although it is not expressly stated, Colgan seems to regard this day as dedicated to her memory.
    It seems impossible to discover much else about this particular successor to Saint Brigid as an individual, but Christina Harrington, in her valuable work on the role of women in the Irish church, can place the office of abbess into a context for us:
    The sources of material on Irish abbesses are extremely patchy, and the overall quantity of evidence quite slim. The Irish left no guiding or prescriptive texts on this office; there is no surviving correspondence such as is found in Anglo-Saxon England and which proves so illuminating for the abbess’s position there. There is a small but important quantity of legal material in which are found occasional notes concerning abbesses’ rights and privileges; there is a large amount of hagiography containing anecdotes about abbesses; and there are annal entries for abbesses of the most famous houses…
    In female saints’ Lives, the characterization of the foundress serves repeatedly to restate the holy ideal not only for the ordinary nun, but also for the abbess, since in Ireland the major female saints were abbesses. As the spiritual heir of the foundress saint, the abbess was supposed to manifest at least in part her patron’s virtues and be in her own lifetime a role model in the religious life. The Lives also offer insights into the practicalities of an abbess’s duties, both to her own nuns and also to the outside world. Thus the foundress formed the prototype for the abbess’s role, both spiritually and practically….
    In her community of nuns, the abbess too was the supervisor and governor, domina and mother. In the female Lives, the abbess is the person who is directly responsible for ensuring the monastery’s survival. She decides if the community is to move location. She procures food and beer in times of scarcity, and organizes help in fending off attackers in times of danger. It is she, for example, who asks for charitable help from clerics, monasteries, and other nunneries when her own community runs into difficulty.
    Decisions on who joined the familia were within the abbess’s remit: it was she who approved the intake of novices and the adoption of fosterlings and abandoned babies. She was responsible for the maintenance of the moral standard and adherence to the rule. Then there were matters of discipline, and in the Lives the abbess appears as inspector, judge, and setter of punishments.
    Like the foundress saint whose heir she was, the abbess had to strive to embody the seemingly contradictory qualities of world-renunciation and temporal dominion. She was to uphold the ascetic tradition whilst at the same time shoring up and even expanding her church’s sphere of control…
    One of the abbess’s most important tasks in the continued work of aggrandizing her church was the provision and reception of hospitality, which in early medieval Ireland formed one of the major currencies of social interchange, social cohesion, and assertion of power and status. Failing to provide hospitality to those whose rank warranted it brought dishonour upon the failed host; providing abundantly brought status, and fulfilled economic and/or ecclesiastical obligations…
    The ideal abbess was a provider of abundance to all the religious superiors who came to her community. A poem attributed to St Brigit from the tenth or eleventh century, shows her as the giver of hospitality: the feast she provides is one of spiritual nourishment, and her overlord is none less than Christ and the hosts of heaven. Hospitality was a Christian virtue and Brigit its exemplar, just as Monenna was treated as an exemplar of the discipline of fasting.
    C. Harrington, Women in a Celtic Church- Ireland 450-1150 (Oxford University Press, 2002), 165-169.
    Harrington has much more to say about the office of abbess, and has a particularly interesting analysis of the power that these women were able to wield in both the secular and the ecclesiastical spheres. Irish law did not see women as legally competent and some of the sources upheld the need for all women to have a male ‘head’. In theory this would seem to create a problem for Abbesses as the equivalent of male ‘heads’ of religious communities. Yet the sources also indicate that this was not necessarily so in practice. Harrington sees the accounts of abbesses acting as confessors or soul-friends as especially important to the question of ‘headship’, although of course an Abbess could not hear confession in the sacramental sense. Indeed, some Abbesses were even prized as soul-friends by men, Saint Samthann of Clonbroney is one famous example. Abbesses like Fine were also drawn from the Irish aristocracy of the day and thus derived some of their authority from their connections to powerful ruling families. In her case this authority was bolstered by the fact that Fine was the heir to a foundress of exceptional sanctity, and it is surely a mark of how important a figure the Abbess of Kildare was felt to be that the Irish Annals continued to record the deaths of the successors of Saint Brigid for centuries after her passing.

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

  • Saint Neachtain of Dungiven, January 8

    On January 8 the Irish Martyrologies commemorate a seventh-century Scottish saint associated with the monastery at Dungiven, County Derry. North-west Ulster has always had strong links with Scotland and Saint Neachtain appears to have been born in Scotland but to have founded a monastery in the territory of a tribe called the Cianachta. They occupied the lands of the Roe Valley, but their chief royal site was at Dungiven. One scholar has suggested that they were mercenary vassals of the Uí Neill, rewarded with lands for their services ‘much as the gallowglass clans from Scotland and the Isles were rewarded with irish lands by the Gaelic lords of the later middle ages’ (F.J.Byrne, Irish kings and high-kings (London, 1973), 68.) The Irish annals name two saints associated with the Cianachta – a convert of Saint Patrick’s called Ciannan, founder of Duleek in County Meath, whose death is recorded in 489, and Nechtan Ner of Dungiven, whose death is ascribed to 679. Canon O’Hanlon will guide us through the story of Saint Neachtain as found in Volume I of his Lives of the Irish Saints:

    St. Neachtain or Nechtanan, of Dungiven, County Derry.

    The present holy man was probably the first founder of a church here, and he seems to have been taken as the local patron. The Martyrology of Donegal enters the festival of St. Nechtain of Dun Geimhim, in Cianachta Glinne Geimhin, at this date. He is commemorated in the Martyrology of Tallagh, on the 8th of January. Most likely he was born about the beginning of the seventh century.

    It seems to be doubtful, whether the present holy man had been born in Ireland or in Scotland. In a gloss to the Feilire of St. Oengus, we read, “anair de Albain,” i.e., “from the east, from Alba,” applied to the name of Nechtan. It may be probable, he was born in the latter country, or at least that he came over from it into Ireland. He has been identified with the great saint of Deeside, called Nathalan, in the Breviary of Aberdeen. This holy man is called Nachlan or Naughlan, by the common people. According to the Aberdeen Breviary, he is thought to have been born in the northern parts of the Scoti, in ancient times, and at Tullicht, within the diocese of Aberdeen.

    He was a man of great sanctity and devotion. Though educated as the member of a noble family, when he learned that turning the soil approached nearest to the occupation which favoured holy meditation, he abandoned all other pursuits to cultivate fields. Thus he wished the body to be industriously occupied, so that he might never allow his mind to be overborne in a struggle with dangerous temptations. While he thus waged warfare against the devil and a perishing world, a terrible famine broke out among his neighbours, relations, and friends. Most of the people were nearly lost, owing to hunger and want of food. But the singularly disinterested Nathalan, moved by the highest spirit of charity, distributed all his grain and stores, in the name of Christ, to the poor. At the spring time, no seed was left him, even to sow his lands; yet, God wrought a miracle, which produced an abundant harvest. When this time came, however, and when a great multitude of both sexes had been collected to gather in the crop, a tremendous tempest of rain and a whirlwind prevented the husbandmen and women from pursuing their labours. For a moment losing patience, and being excited to anger, along with other reapers, the saint murmured a little against God. The tempest soon ceased. But, on second thought, Nathalan, feeling he had offended the Divine Majesty, was induced to bind himself by vow to continue a rigid course of penance. This ended, it is stated, and in a miraculous way, after he had visited the thresholds of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, in the city of Rome. There, too, he sought the monuments of the saints, so thickly placed on every side. Hearing a report of his extraordinary miracles and sanctity, the Supreme Pontiff summoned him into his presence. Notwithstanding the saint’s reluctance, he was persuaded, at length, to assume the episcopal dignity. If we are to place implicit faith in these accounts, probably either before his going to Rome or after he had left it, the saint visited Ireland, and then he must have founded Dungiven, or at least he spent some time there. But, it must be allowed, we feel at a loss to determine the period.

    In the practice of Divine contemplation, having rendered himself very acceptable to all at Rome, by permission of the Sovereign Pontiff, as we are informed, Nathalan got permission for returning to that part of Scotia, whence he sprung. In extreme old age, he visited his natal soil. He then built the churches of Tullicht, Bothelim, and Colle, at his own expense. He also dedicated them to the Almighty, and long afterwards they existed in those provinces, as monuments of his zeal.

    The death of St. Nechtain occurred A.D. 677, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, but we find the rest of Neachtain Neir recorded A.D. 678, in the Annals of Ulster. We meet no less than four different saints of this name recorded in our calendars – One at 22nd of April—erroneously assigned by Colgan’s printer to the 11th;— another at the 2nd of May—St. Patrick’s disciple;— St. Neachtain, a virgin, at the 22nd of November, besides the present saint.

    It would seem that this holy man died in Britain, on the 8th of January, after the performance of many wonderful miracles. He is said to have been buried with great reverence at Tullicht. St. Nachlan is patron of Tullicht. There in after time he often afforded health to the sick, who came to seek it piously and devoutly. At Tullicht a cross of very early type, incised on a rude granite slab, once lay in the parish church. It now forms the top lintel to one of the doors of the old kirk there. He is also the patron of Balthelney, or rather Bothelney, now Meldrum. Owing to the fervour of his prayers, Nathelan is said to have averted a raging pestilence from this place. Long after this tradition, and when the saint’s name was even forgotten, the parishioners kept the 8th of January as a feast, on which they did no work. At the old kirk here, about three miles from the town of Old Meldrum, is Naughlan’s Well. At Collie or Cowle, his name is rhymed among the fishermen:

    ” Atween the kirk and kirk ford,
    There lies St. Nauchlan’s hoard.

    and in the parish of Kildalton, in Islay, we find Kilnaughtan.

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

  • Saint Cronan Beg, January 7

    Among other saints commemorated on the Irish calendars at January 7 is one associated with the monastic settlement at Nendrum on Mahee Island. Here is the entry for the life of Saint Cronan Beg from Volume One of Canon O’Hanlon’s Lives of the Irish Saints:

    St. Cronan Beg, Bishop of Nendrum, County of Down.
    [Seventh Century.] 

    This prelate obtained his cognomen, probably owing to his being under the middle size. Cronan Beg, or “the little,” bishop over the ancient Aendrum, had a festival on this day, according to the Martyrology of Donegal. The Martyrology of Tallaght simply registers Cronan, bishop, at the 7th of January. His place is now distinguished as Inis Mahee, in the county of Down. It is a portion of Tullynakill parish, and it lies about a quarter of a mile from the shore in Strangford Lough. This island is situated about thirteen miles N.N.E. from Downpatrick. The name of this present bishop will be found in a letter, written from Rome, A.D. 640, on the subject of the Pascal Controversy. In his tract on some of the Irish bishops, Duald Mac Firbis says, that perhaps this is he with whom Caendruim is placed; and his remark seems to have reference to a subsequent entry regarding the rest of Cronan, Bishop of Caondruim, who died about the year 639. Other, and more reliable, authorities place his demise at the 7th of January, A.D. 642. As may be seen, this date is only a little over a year later than the date of the epistle from Rome, addressed to him in common with other Irish bishops. Some very interesting remains of antiquity are yet traceable on Mahee Island.

    The Internet Archive also houses a charming pamphlet by John Vinycomb, entitled The Monks of Mahee Island. The author provides an introduction to the site from an antiquarian perspective but quickly proceeds to his own poetry. He offers us first, this poem on the monks and then a composition on the Mermaid of Mahee, a legend of Strangford Lough. This cautionary tale concerns a temptress of the deep who beguiled one of the monks with her siren song, only for the matins bell to recall him to his vocation and to face the wrath of Father Abbot.

    THE MONKS OF MAHEE ISLAND

    In olden days, as I’ve heard say
    Old records tell the story
    How men retired to deserts wild,
    To praise God and His glory.

    To people rude and wild they preached,
    And taught the truth in sadness,
    Besought the Lord to bless the land,
    With thankful hearts, in gladness.

    For all the good His bounty gave,
    Of sunlit sea and sky,
    The beauteous earth, the stars above,
    The hope of heaven on high.

    And some in lonely isles set up
    Their church and tower round,
    Beneath whose shade their prayerful lives
    In benisons were bound.

    In old Mahee, the sacred isle
    By Strangford’s silent shore,
    The peaceful monks in prayer would kneel,
    And aid from heaven implore.

    To banish sin and shame from earth,
    And touch the heart with love :
    To make the world’s all-sinful souls,
    More meet for heaven above.

    The monks are gone, their deeds remain,
    Old savage habits banished :
    The world is better that they lived,
    Tho’ church and tower have vanished.

    To simple faith and honest toil
    Came peace like gentle maiden :
    And in her train the Arts of life
    With love and blessings laden.
    Hear now the words of saints of old,
    Come down from ages hoary :
    “O save the world from sin and strife,
    And give to God the glory.”

    The mermaid poem is too long to cite in full here, but is accompanied by the author’s own sketch of an inn sign at Kircubbin showing the watery lady in all her glory. Wonderful stuff. You can read the original in full here.

    Finally, the paper by Bishop Reeves on ‘The Church of Nendrum’, which both Canon O’Hanlon and Vineycomb cite, is also online. It can be found in Volume 8 of The Ulster Journal of Archaeology (1902), pages 13- 22 and continued on pages 58-68 of the same volume.

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