OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Female Saints

  • Saint Richella, May 19

    On May 19, one of the earliest surviving Irish calendars, the Martyrology of Tallaght, records the name of an Irish female saint, Ríceall, latinized as Richella. Canon O’Hanlon discusses three saints of this name, one of whom tradition says was a sister to Saint Patrick. It proves impossible, however, for him to definitively identify the saint Richella commemorated on this day. More recently, Pádraig Ó Riain in his 2011 Dictionary of Irish Saints, confirms that there are three holy ladies of similar name, whose root is the word rí, king, all of whom are difficult to disentangle. Canon O’Hanlon in his entry for the saint below lays out the evidence from the seventeeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan:

    ST. RICHELLA, VIRGIN.

    In the Martyrology of Tallagh published and unpublished —we find this saint’s festival set down, on the 19th of May. Marianus O’Gorman and Charles Maguire mention this holy virgin, likewise, in their Calendars, and at the same date. According to the accounts of ancient writers, St. Patrick had a sister bearing the name. But, as there were two other Richellas, in our list of Irish Saints, it may be difficult to determine the virgin, whose festival is this day commemorated. One of these was St. Richelia, the daughter of Attractus, and of King Leagaire’s race. Her descent will be found, in the “Menelogium Genealogicum,” cap. 3. The other was Richella, or, according to others, Richenna, called also Reynach, or Regnacia. She was daughter to Fintan, and sister to St. Finnian of Clonard, as may be seen in a Life of the latter, published by Colgan. Her Life will be found, at the 18th of December.

    There was a certain church or monastic establishment, in the territory of Lugne, within the Connaught province, and there a St. Richella is said to have lived. Kill-Richille, in the diocese of Clonfert, was probably connected with the residence of a saint bearing this name; yet, it is not easy to determine that particular Richella—if indeed she was one among the three mentioned—who had been venerated in either of those places. In a list of St. Patrick’s five sisters, the name Cinnenus is substituted for Richella, by Ussher; and Colgan found, likewise, in an old fragmentary vellum Life of St. Patrick, the name of a fifth sister to the Irish Apostle, as Cinnenus, and not Richella. But, as the form of the name Cinnenus is not applicable to a female, Colgan thinks we ought rather read, Cinne noem, signifying St. Cinna. Now, it would seem, that Richinne has the signification regia Cinne; wherefore, Colgan argues, it is possible, the doubtful word may be properly resolved into Richinne or Richella. The same researchful hagiologist tells us, he could not discover, whether or not Richella became a mother. It might come within the range of possibility, also, that Barbanus, or Banbanus, of Mag-slecht, and a kinsman of St. Patrick, had been her son; although, Colgan did not know, whether this relationship had been through a brother or sister, or in what collateral line. This, however, is only a very groundless conjecture; and, also, any attempt to represent our saint as a sister to the illustrious St. Patrick must prove equally futile. In the Irish Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, it may be observed, the saint left by him, over the church at Domhnach-Maighe-Slecht, is called Mabran Barbarus. The Bollandists notice the feast of Richella, an Irish virgin, at the 19th of May. Little is known, however, regarding her place in our ecclesiastical history.

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  • Saint Inneen of Dromtariff, May 6

    The female saint commemorated today, May 6, is interesting on two counts. First, because her festival is not actually recorded on the calendars but is preserved in popular devotion and secondly because she has no proper name. Irish readers will recognise the word iníon, ‘daughter’ in the anglicized word Inneen. Folklore records that she was one of three sisters, her sibling Lateerin has an interesting tale associated of her own to which we will return on her own feast day of July 24. Here is a brief introduction to Saint Inneen from a contributor to the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, who wrote under the pseudonym ‘Mananaan Mac Lir’:

    The 5th of May is the festival of a nameless saint who is known as An Inghen Buidhe a Drom Tarbh, i.e. “the yellow (haired) daughter of Dromtariff” (“the ridge of the bull”). The local tradition is that SS. Lateerin of Cullin, Lassera of Killossory, in Kilmeen parish, and this “yellow-haired daughter,” were sisters who led an eremitical life in those three respective and adjoining parishes in Duhallow. One night the angels came down from heaven and made a tochar  i.e. “causeway,” from Killossory to Dromtariff, and thence to Cullin, so that those holy women might the more easily meet and converse with one another. The “patron day ” at Killossory is now discontinued, but a large “patron” isstill held at Dromtariff holy well on each recurring May 5. The locality of “the yellow-haired daughter’s” holy well — about one hundred and fifty yards south of Dromtariff grave-yard and overlooking the majestic Blackwater — is shown on the Ordnance Townland Maps for the county Cork, sheet 31.

    Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, Volume II (1896), 319.

    Canon O’Hanlon has little other information to offer, although he cites May 6 rather than May 5 as the feast day:

    St. Inneen, Dromtariff Old Church, County of Cork.

    In the diocese of Kerry, there is an old church at Dromtariff, in the parish so called, and county of Cork, where a female saint, called Inneen, was venerated, on the 6th of May. According to popular tradition, she was the sister of St. Lateerin, who is likewise popularly known, at Cullin, in that part of the country, and to an older sister, who lived at Kilmeen. It it stated, according to a local tradition, that the angels of Heaven made a road, one night, from Kilmeen  through Dromtariff and on to Cullin, so that the three sisters might the more conveniently visit each other once every week. Much obscurity hangs over their history, as their celebrity appears to be merely local; although, the people, in their part of the country, have a great veneration for those sisters.

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  • Saint Sairnait of Aidhne, May 3

     

    On May 3 we commemorate an Irish holy woman, Sairnait, anglicized as Sourney, who flourished in the County Galway area. Saint Sairnait was related to the family of Saint Colman mac Duagh, and so the account of her below comes from the diocesan history of Killmacduagh by Father Jerome Fahey:

    St. Sairnait.

    We are expressly told that St. Sairnait (St. Sourney) is of the race of Eoghan Aidhne. She was fourth in descent from Eochaid Breac, father of Eoghan Aidhne. She was

    “Daughter of Aedh,
    Son of Seanach,
    Son of Eoghan Aidhne,
    Son of Eochaid Breac,
    Son of Dathy.”

    The date of her birth is not given; but by comparing her genealogy with that of St Colman Mac Duagh, which shall be hereafter given, it will be seen that she stands the same number of degrees from their common ancestor, Eochaid Breac, as does Cobhtach, whose son Conal was great-grand-father of St. Colman Mac Duagh. Hence it may be fairly assumed that Cobhtach and St. Sourney were contemporaries. And as Cobhtach’s father fought in the battle of Claonloch, A.D. 531, we can justly assume that St. Sourney belonged to the middle of the sixth century. She was born of the same princely tribe of which St. Colman was born later in the same century. She is identified by O’Donovan as the same female Saint who is now “corruptly called St. Sourney, to whom there are wells dedicated in the districts of Aidhne, and whose church still stands in ruins in the great island of Aran, in the Bay of Galway.” And we are told by O’Flaherty’s learned editor that “this church is held in the greatest veneration by the islanders.”

    But there is more to commemorate and honour the name of St. Sourney in Aidhne than the holy wells to which O’Donovan refers. St. Sourney’s Church may still be seen in a fair state of preservation at Dromacoo, in the present parish of Ballindereen, at a distance of about three miles and a half from Kinvara.

    Rev. J. Fahey, The History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Kilmacduagh (Dublin, 1893), 32-34.Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.