OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Female Saints

  • A Hymn in Honour of Saint Moninne

    July 6 is the Feast of Saint Moninne of Killeevy, one of three women saints along with Brigid and Bronagh important to the people of the historic kingdom of Oriel in south-east Ulster. She is also one of the handful of Irish female saints with an extant written Life. There are many fascinating aspects to Saint Moninne. One was her reputation for asceticism, the Life of Monenna preserved in the Codex Salamanticensis calling her ‘the daughter of John the Baptist and the prophet Elias’. Whilst asceticism was certainly a feature of the Early Irish Church, it is unusual to see a female saint being described in this way. The other was her ‘manly spirit’ for her female body is no barrier to Moninne’s wholehearted pursuit of the eremetical way of life. There is thus a distinct flavour of the desert spirituality of Saint Anthony the Great to the life of this County Armagh abbess. In addition to the Salamanca Life there is also a Vita Sanctae Monennae compiled by a tenth or eleventh-century Irish monk called Conchubranus. He takes Moninne out of her Irish hermitage and portrays her as a pilgrim to Rome and founder of  churches in England and Scotland. The twelfth-century Abbot Geoffrey of Burton was convinced that Conchubranus was writing about his own abbey’s founder and expanded the Irish monk’s text into The Life and Miracles of Saint Modwenna. There has been a great deal of research into Saint Moninne and fresh translations of her various Lives in recent years. Mario Esposito (1887-1975) first published the text of the Life by Conchubranus in 1910 and included two abcderarian hymns in honour of the saint as an appendix. As a tribute to Saint Moninne on this her feast day I reproduce the opening verse from the first hymn and the closing verse of the second:

    Deum deorum dominum,
    Autorem vite omnium,
    Regem et sponsum uirginum
    Sempiternum infinitum,
    Invocemus perualidum
    Sancte Monenne meritum,
    Ut nos ducat post obitum
    In regni refrigerium.

    Let us invoke God, Lord of gods,
    Creator of the life of all,
    King and spouse of virgins,
    everlasting, infinite,
    and the very strong
    merit of holy Monenna
    that she may guide us after death
    to the refreshing of the kingdom.

    Sancta Monenna,
    lux huius mundi ascendit,
    in candilabro nitidum sponsum
    sicut sol in meridie.
    Qui regnas in secula seculorum. Amen.

    The holy Monenna,
    light of this world,
    ascended to her shining spouse
    in a candelabrum like the midday sun.
    Who reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

    Mario Esposito,  Ymnus Sancte Monenne Virginis in Appendix to “Conchubrani Vita Sanctae Monennae.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature 28 (1910), 202-51.

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  • Saint Mocholla, March 23

    March 23 sees the recording of a number of obscure female saints on the Irish calendars. Along with an elusive Saint Lasair and the Daughters of Feradach, we also find a Saint Mocholla.  I find this interesting because Mocholla is normally regarded as one of the forms of the name Colum, which is a male name. Even more curious is the fact that we have a female Saint Columba recorded two days hence on March 25. Canon O’Hanlon can only produce a single sentence on today’s holy lady:

    St. Mocholla, Virgin.

    This day, the Martyrology of Donegal, as also the Bollandists,  have on record a festival, in honour of St. Mocholla, Virgin.

    All I can add is that her name is also recorded in the lovely verse of the Martyrology of Gorman as mo Cholla chaemh chruthgel, ‘my Colla, dear, white-formed’ but is missing from the earlier martyrologies of Oengus and Tallaght.

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  • Saint Beoin, February 1

    February 1 is of course the Feast of Saint Brigid, but one our patroness shares with a number of other holy women, something to which Canon O’Hanlon alludes in his entry for Saint Beoin:

    St. Beoin or Beon, Virgin. 

    It seems somewhat remarkable, that so many virgins are venerated in our calendars, on the festival of the greatest among Irish female saints. The feast of Beoin, or Beon, virgin, is entered in the Martyrologies of Tallagh, and of Donegal, as having been celebrated on this day, to which her name is referred. This special form of name is unique in our calendars.

    I attempted to find out more about this saint without success. Her name is also recorded in the 12th-century Martyrology of Gorman, with a note ‘virgin’. She does not appear in the modern authoritative reference, Ó Riain’s 2011 A Dictionary of Irish Saints, where a number of saints sharing the name Beoán are listed but all of these are male. So it would seem that the name of a holy woman Beoin is preserved in the Irish calendars, but she is yet another obscure Irish saint about whom nothing else is recorded.

    Note: If you would like to have a reminder of the life and career of Saint Brigid, there is a new post for the feast on my other blog, Trias Thaumaturga, here.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2020. All rights reserved.