OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Female Saints

  • 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.

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  • Saint Gema of Riacc Innse, September 18

    The name of an obscure Irish female saint is found in some of the Irish calendars at September 18. As Canon O’Hanlon explains below, the name of Gema of Riacc Innse is found in the Martyrology of Tallaght and in the Martyrology of Gorman. Her name is absent though from the Martyrology of Oengus and from the Martyrology of Donegal:

    St. Gema, Virgin, of Riacc Innse. 

    We find a festival registered in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 18th of September, in honour of Gema, Virgin, of Riacc Innse.  In the Martyrology of Marianus O’Gorman, at the same date, the entry of Gemma is found. Her place and period seem to be unknown.
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  • The Daughter(s) of Fachtna, of Ernaidhe

    At August 3 we find the names of several female saints commemorated on the Irish calendars, including Saints Trea and Deirbhile. We can add another name to the list, an unnamed ‘Daughter of Fachtna’, who may have been associated with the locality of Urney in County Tyrone. In his brief account below, Canon O’Hanlon, who begins on a pious note, brings only the details from the Martyrology of Donegal which identifies a single daughter in its entry for the day. The twelfth-century calendarist, Marianus O’Gorman, however, suggests that she may have had siblings. His entry reads:

    The festival of Fachtna’s modest daughters by whom every false assembly was purified.

    Such groups of saints, described as daughters or sons of a named parent, are a feature of the Irish calendars. I suppose the most well-known might be the daughters of Léinín, whose memory lives on in the place name Killiney (Cill Iníon Léinín – the Church of the Daughters of Léinín)  in County Dublin.
    There is no mention of Fachtna’s offspring in the earlier calendars of Oengus or Tallaght. Canon O’Hanlon records:
     

    The Daughter of Fachtna, of Ernaidhe, said to be Urney, in the County of Tyrone.

    Fairest and most full of consolation to the perfect religious is that morning, when she consecrates her love to Him, who will jealously demand its faithful observance. We find in the Martyrology of Donegal, that a festival was celebrated to honour the daughter of Fachtna, belonging to Ernaidhe, at the 3rd of August. Another rendering of her name is Facundide, as found at the alphabetical entries in a table superadded to that Martyrology. In William M. Hennessy’s copy of the work, that place with which the present saint is represented as having been connected, has been identified as Urney, in the County of Tyrone.

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