OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Uncan, August 21

    On August 21 Canon O’Hanlon brings yet another obscure saint to our attention – Saint Uncan:

    St. Uncan or Unchan Tughneda.

    No doubt, from his early days, the ambition of this saint received a right direction. Yet those and his subsequent years are buried in obscurity. According to the published Martyrology of Tallagh, veneration was given to Unchan Tughneda, at the 21st of August. It seems a difficult matter to identify his place, at present, or to find the time when he flourished. The simple entry, Uncan, appears in the Martyrology of Donegal, at this same date. In life, he must have been respected, and his time must have been greatly spent in prayer for himself and others.

     

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  • Saint Rónán, August 18

    August 18 is the feast of Saint Rónán, a name borne by a number of Irish holy men, most of whom are obscure. Pádraig Ó Riain’s Dictionary of Irish Saints records that the name is derived from rón, a seal. Canon O’Hanlon, in his account below, covers the dearth of information about the August 18 Rónán by diverting us to the island of Iona. As he so often does, however, he builds us up to embrace a possible Scottish connection only to let us down by admitting that there is no actual evidence to connect our saint of the day with the Rónán commemorated on Iona. We do get a charming sketch as compensation though:

    St. Ronan.

    There are several saints bearing this name, included in the Irish Calendars; but of most, we have nothing left to determine their identity or period, or even the localities with which they were respectively connected. At the 18th of August, the Martyrology of Donegal registers a festival in honour of Ronan, having in like manner, no further designation. In Scotland, also, this name appears to have been known, and it is found as a compound word in local denominations. On the east side of Iona, there is an old church, Tempul Ronain, and a village at a landing place, called Port Ronan, a little to the south of the cathedral and chief group of antiquities there. Tempul Ronain was formerly a parish church, dependent on the Monastery of Iona. It had a nunnery connected, in which several prioresses are said to have been buried. Towards the close of the last century, the nunnery church was quite entire, one end of it being arched and very beautiful; then also stood the parish church entire, but tottering. This was a building about the size of St. Oran’s chapel, and north-east of the nunnery, but inside of its enclosures. It is not known, however, to which of the saints named Ronan, this place had been dedicated.

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  • Saint Eóin of Saint John's, August 17

    Today is the feast of a County Down saint whose church site I have visited a number of times, most recently in June whilst on a day tour of ecclesiastical sites with the Down County Museum. It is a site well worth visiting, the church ruins are situated on the coast and have the company of the nearby Saint John’s Point Lighthouse. I have previously posted on the elusive Saint John here and now bring the account from Volume 8 of Canon O’Hanlon’s Lives of the Irish Saints. In the absence of any substantial information on the man, O’Hanlon tells us instead of his church. He doesn’t mention the holy well and bullaun at the entrance to the site, but does say that the eighteenth-century writer, Walter Harris, claimed that the church was intact in his day. I am also interested by the fact that a church which appears to have started out as being associated with a local saint was later called the Chapel of Saint John of Jerusalem:

    St. Eoin of St. John’s, County of Down.

    It should be understood, that the proper name Eoin, in Irish, is equivalent to the English name John. The Martyrology of Tallagh records a festival at the 17th of August, to honour St. Eoani mic Carlain. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, his place seems to have been known as the Chapel of Styoun, now St. John’s Point. This is a detached townland in the parish of Rathmullan. At this same date, the name occurs in the Martyrology of Donegal, Eoin, son of Carlan, of Tigh-Eoin, in Uladh. This place has been identified with St. John’s, in the County of Down. In the year 1183, it would seem to have been designated Stechian, in the time of James I. Stion, and at the time of the Dissolution, it was called the Chapel of St. John of Jerusalem. This ancient chapel belonged to a very antique class of ecclesiastical buildings. It measured only 20 by 13 feet, in the clear. Better than a century ago, the walls were entire. But now, the east wall has been demolished to the foundation, and with it the east window, small and narrow, terminating in an acute angle, formed by two inclined flags. The doorway, in the west wall, is 5 feet, 6 inches, high; 2 feet, 1 inch wide, at the top, but gradually dilating to the threshold, where it is 3 feet in breadth. In the south wall, near the south-east angle, there is a window 2 feet, 5 and a half inches high; 1 foot, 4inches wide, at top, and 1 foot, 9 nine inches, at bottom. In both instances, the aperture is surmounted by a single flag, instead of an arch.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2017. All rights reserved.