May 9 is one of the feast days of Saint Sanctán (Santán, Sanctáin) who, despite being hailed as ‘Bishop Sanctáin the famous’ in The Martyrology of Oengus, remains something of an enigma. Tradition claims that he was a Briton (Welsh) by birth who came to Ireland with his brother Madog (Madoc, Matoc) and credits him with the authorship of a Hymn beginning ‘I beseech the wonderful King’. This hymn was one of the early medieval sources rediscovered during the nineteenth century cultural revival. The version found in the Irish Liber Hymnorum was published at the end of the century and has been posted at the blog here, but below is an 1868 paper from the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, which had been founded three years earlier by the then Archbishop of Dublin, Paul Cullen. The article is unattributed but discusses the saint and his hymn using the text published by the editor and translator Whitley Stokes, who brought so many early medieval manuscripts to the attention of the wider Irish public. The author starts off somewhat confusingly by trying to claim a Cornish origin for a Saint Sennan, who is not actually our Saint Sanctain at all, neither is he the reputed brother of Saint Patrick. However, we soon move on to the work of the seventeenth-century hagiologist Father John Colgan who lays out the Irish cult of Saint Sanctán and places it in Leinster. Pádraig Ó Riain agrees, locating our saint at two main sites – Ceall Easpaig Shantáin (the church of Bishop Santán) in the parish of Tallaght, County Dublin and at Killalish (Ceall Dá Lis) in the parish of Kilranelagh, County Wicklow. Interestingly, the Dublin site is now known as Saint Anne’s Chapel, our saint having given way to Saint Anne, the grandmother of Christ. Ó Riain also argues that a northern church of Ceall Santáin in County Derry also represents the cult of our saint as does the parish of Santon in the Isle of Man.  There too Santán became confused with Saint Anne. So, overall, this ‘illustrious father, angel-soldier of bright, pure fame’ remains a rather intriguing saint:

HYMN OF ST. SANCTAIN.

ST. SANCTAIN was a native of Britain, and is supposed by some to be the same as St. Sannan, who was brother of our apostle, St. Patrick. The martyrologies, however, when commemorating St. Sanctain, are silent as to this fact; they are careful to mention that he was brother of the pilgrim, St. Matoc; and did any such exist, they would assuredly not have failed to refer to his relationship with our apostle. Their statements moreover as to his family and parentage are quite at variance with the ancient documents connected with St. Patrick’s life. There is in Cornwall a small port town and parish named from St. Sennan, and tradition says that this saint went thither from Ireland, and having died there in his hermitage, a church was erected over his remains. Capgrave too, in his Life of St. Wenefreda, states that this holy virgin was interred there prope Sanctum Sennanum. It is not improbable that this was the Sanctain who composed the hymn which we now publish.

There can be no doubt that in the first ages of our faith the southern districts of England were a favourite resort of Irish saints, and Mr. Blight, in his description of the Cornish churches, writes, that “in the latter part of the fifth and beginning of the sixth century, a numerous company of Irish saints, bishops, abbots, and sons and daughters of kings and noblemen, came into Cornwall, and landed at Pendinas, a peninsula and stony rock where now the town of St. Ives stands.

Hence they diffused themselves over the western part of the county, and at their several stations erected chapels and hermitages. Their object was to advance the Christian faith. In this they were successful, and so greatly were they reverenced, that whilst the memory of their holy lives still lingered in the minds of the people, churches were built on or near the sites of their chapels and oratories and dedicated to Almighty God in their honour. Thus have their names been handed down to us. Few of them are mentioned in the calendars or in the collections of the lives of saints, and what little is known of them has been chiefly derived from tradition”. He then mentions amongst the Irish saints whose memory is thus venerated there, St. Buriana, “a king’s daughter, a holy woman of Ireland”, St. Livinus, and our St. Sennen, “an Irish abbot, who accompanied St. Buriana into Cornwall”, St. Paul, St. Cheverne (i.e. Kieran), St. Breaca, St. Germoe, and others.

Colgan, speaking of St. Sanctain, says: “Sanctain, a bishop, by birth a Briton, is honoured on the 9th of May, in the church of Killdaleas, in Leinster, according to the Martyrology of Tallaght and the Festologies of Aengus and Marianus: Samuel, a king of Britain, was his father, and Drechura, daughter of Muiredhac Muinderg, king of Ulster, was his mother”. The Martyrology of Aengus, preserved in the Leabhar Breacc, thus commemorates our saint at the 9th of May, “Bishop Sanctain of good repute”; and the gloss adds:

“i.e., he was of Kill-da-leis, as Aengus says: and I know not where Kill-da-leis is: and to him belongs Druimlaighille in Tradraighe”.

Another gloss adds : —

“i.e., Bishop Sanctain was the son of Samuel Chendisel (low headed): Dectir, daughter of Muiredach Muinderg (red-necked), was his mother: as was prophesied:

Bishop Sanctain is my beloved,
The son of Samuel Chendisel,
Dectir was his mother without stain,
The daughter of Muiredach Muinderg”.

It is not easy to fix with certainty the site of the church of Kill da-leis. Colgan tells us that it was in Leinster; and probably it was the present parish of Kildellig, in the barony of Upper Ossory, in the Queen’s County. In the MS. Visitation Book of Dr. James Phelan, appointed Bishop of Ossory in 1669, is preserved a list of the Patrons of the Churches of the Diocese, and in the deanery of Aghavoe we meet with this parish church of Kildelyg, and its patron is marked “Sanctus Ernanus sen Senanus, Abbas”. This can be no other than our St. Sannan, or Sanctain. The memory of St. Sanctain is also cherished in the very ancient church, now commonly called “St. Anne’s”, in the present parish of Rathfarriham: in the Register ” Crede mihi” written in the thirteenth century, it is called Killmesantan: and we learn from the Repertorium Viride that it retained the same name in 1532. In a valuation of 1547, it is called Templesaunton.

The introduction to the hymn in the Liber Hymnorum is as follows:

“Bishop Sanctain composed this hymn, and on his way from Cluain-Irard (Clonard) to Inis-Madoc he composed it. He was moreover a brother of Madoc, and both were Welshmen. Madoc came into Erin prior to bishop Sanctain. The cause of the composition of this poem was that he might be preserved from his enemies, and that his brother might admit him amongst his religious in the island. At that time he was ignorant of the Irish language (Scoticam linguam usque ad hanc horam non habuit), but God miraculously granted it to him. The time of its composition is uncertain”. (MS. St. Isidore’s, pag. 41).

In the Martyrology of Donegal, the feast of St. Sanctain is thus registered on the 9th of May: “Sanctan son of Samuel Ceinnisel, bishop of Cill-da-les: Deichter, daughter of Muireadhach Muinderg, king of Uladh, was his mother, and the mother of Matoc the pilgrim”. On the feast of St. Matog (25th of April) the same is repeated: “Matog, the pilgrim. Deichter …… was his mother, and the mother of bishop Sanctan”.

The only other document connected with bishop Sanctain which we have been able to discover, is the following short poem in his honour, which is added in the Roman MS. of the “Liber Hymnorum” immediately after his hymn:

Bishop Sanctan, illustrious among the ancients,
Angel-Soldier of pure, bright fame;
My body is enslaved on Earth,
May he receive my soul in Heaven.
Offer a prayer for me, O Mary!
May the mercy of the mystery be unto us;
Against wounding, against danger, against suffering,
O Christ! afford us thy protection,
I implore the noble, everlasting King;
May the Only-Begotten of God plead for us;
Against sharp torments may
The Son who was born in Bethlehem defend me.

…..As regards the date of St. Sanctain’s hymn, it cannot be fixed with accuracy, as we are ignorant of the year of the saint’s demise. It seems however certain, that he flourished in the beginning of the sixth century. The title of illustrious among the ancients, given to him in the poem just cited, brings him back to the first fathers of our Church: the special archaic forms of his ‘difficult hymn’, as Mr. Stokes justly calls it, point to the same period, whilst his connection with St. Madog cannot be verified in any other age. There are many saints indeed who bear a similar name in our calendar; but there is only one in whom the epithet of Madog the pilgrim is verified, viz., the St. Cadoc, who holds so distinguished a place among the saints of Wales. He, too, was the son of a British prince, whilst, as Colgan writes, “he is justly reckoned among the Irish saints, as his mother, his instructors, and many of his relatives, were Irish, and he himself lived for some time in our island” (Acta SS. page 159). This distinguished antiquarian further tells us that he “is the same as St. Mo-chatoc”, a disciple of SS. Patrick and Fiecc, as we have seen in the March number of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record. Thus we have a clue to the Inis-Matog, in which St. Sanctain wished to take up his abode with his holy brother: for, St. Mochatoc, as we learn from his life, chose Inis-fail for his monastery, which no doubt was in after times from the name of this great founder styled by the religious Inis-Madoc.

Hymn of St. Sanctain.

I beseech the wonderful King of Angels,
For his is the name that is mightiest;
God be with me on my track, God on my left,
God before me, God on my right.

God to help me, O holy invocation!
Against every danger that I encounter;
Let there be a bridge of life under me,
The blessing of God the Father over me.

May the Noble Trinity awaken him,
For whom a good death is not in store.
The Holy Spirit, the Strength of Heaven
God the Father, the great Son of Mary.

May the great King, who knows our crimes,
God of the noble sinless world,
Be with my soul against every sin of falsity,
That the torment of demons may not touch me.

May God repel every sadness from me;
May Christ relieve my sufferings;
May the Apostles be around me,
May the Trinity of witness come to me.

May a flood of mercy come from Christ,
Whose wounds are not hidden (from us):
Let not death touch me,
Nor bitterness, nor plague, nor disease.

Let not a sharp cast touch me
Apart from God’s Son, who gladdens and who mortifies:
Let Christ protect me against every iron-death,
Against fire, against the raging sea.

Against every death-pool that is dangerous
To my body, with awful storms,
May God at every hour be with me,
Against the wind, against the swift waters.

I will utter the praises of Mary’s Son,
Who battles our white battles,
May God of the elements answer;
A corslet in battle shall be my prayer.

Whilst praying to God of the Heavens,
Let my body be enduring penitent,
That I may not go to awful Hell
I beseech the King whom I have besought.
I beseech, etc.

P.S. Since this article was printed we happily learned that the three strophes given at pag. 320, though not printed by Mr. Stokes, were in reality preserved in the Liber Hymnorum, T.C.D. As this MS. presents some very important readings, we here insert its text:

Bishop Sanctain, illustrious father,
Angel-soldier of bright, pure fame;
My body being freed on earth,
May he receive my soul in Heaven.
Offer a prayer for me, O Mary!
That the heavenly mercy may be shown to us:
Against wounding, against danger, against suffering,
O Christ, afford us thy protection.
I implore the noble, everlasting king;
May the Only-begotten of God plead for us;
Against sharp torments, may
The Son who was born in Bethlehem defend me.

THE IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD, APRIL, 1868, 317-324.

Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2025. All rights reserved.