OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Groups of saints

  • 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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  • The Sons of Caiman, September 1

    On September 1 we find the commemoration of another of the collective groups of saints who crop up frequently on the Irish calendars.  As is so often the case, all we have is their patronymic, but no details of how many individuals comprised the group or when or where they flourished. Canon O’Hanlon can bring only the records from the various calendars in Article VIII for the day in his Lives of the Irish Saints, Volume IX:

    The Sons of Caiman.

    A festival to honour the Sons of Caimene is set down, in the Martyrology of Donegal,  at the 1st of September. It seems probable, those holy brothers flourished, after the eighth century, as they are not contained, in that copy of the Martyrology of Tallaght in the Book of Leinster, at the Kalends of September, nor in that published by the Rev. Dr. Kelly, for which day entries are missing. Their particular names do not seem to be ascertainable.

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  • The Children of Senchán, June 23

    I have always been interested in the collective commemorations of groups of saints found in the Irish calendars. There are two such groups remembered at June 23, the Daughters of Moinan, a post on whom can be read here, and The Children of Senchán. Often these groups incorporate the sacred number seven and today’s actually comprises fourteen individuals.  I wish it were possible to find out more about them and of their Scottish connection. Canon O’Hanlon brings only the the barest details:

    Article III.—The Children of Senchan.
    In the Martyrology of Donegal, a festival intended to honour the children of Senchan is set down, at the 23rd of June. Among the saints of Scotland, we find enumerated the fourteen sons of Senchan or Clann Senchan, for this same date.

    Article IV.—The Children of Senan.
    We read in the Martyrology of Donegal,  that the children of Senan were venerated, at the 23rd of June. We think, however, that this is only another form for a previous entry.

    The same double entry for ‘Senchán’s children and Senán’s’ is found in the Martyrology of Gorman, but their names are not found at all in the earlier martyrologies of Oengus and Tallaght.

    The Calendars edited by the Scottish Bishop Alexander Forbes also list Senchán’s clan:

    SENCHANIUS, the Fourteen Sons of June 23.—These are probably the Clann Senchain who are commemorated in the Mart. Donegal at 23d June. A curious ” Description of the Island of Sanda,” by Father Edmund MacCana, makes mention of the sepulchre of the fourteen sons of Senchanius in that island. It is printed with observations by Dr. Reeves in the Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., vol. viii. p. 132.

    Father McCana was an Irish Franciscan who visited the island of Sanda, which lies a few miles off the Mull of Kintyre, in the early seventeenth century.  The text published by Bishop William Reeves is written in Latin and includes these details of the twice seven sons of Senchán:

    Corpora bis septem, tota veneranda per orbem, 

    Senchanii natum Sanda beata tenet.
     Doctorum divumque parens, Hibernia quondam . 
    Quos genuit sanctos, Scotia terra tegit …..
    The paper is available through the Internet Archive here. If your Latin is as rusty as mine you may find it more useful to consult the reprint in the appendix to a 2010 paper on the island, as it includes a translation, here:
    ‘Fourteen bodies, throughout the world revered,
    Of Senchanius born blessed Sanda holds.
    Ireland, the mother of divine teachers, once
    Begat the saints whom Scotland’s soil covers….
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