OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Groups of saints

  • The Four Sons of Ercan, August 9

    One of the interesting groups of Irish saints is commemorated on August 9. In this case we are told that there are four males and that they are the sons of Ercan, but there are no other details of either the father or the sons, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

    The Four Sons of Ercan, or Ercain.

    The Martyrologies of Tallagh and of Donegal register the Four Sons of Ercan or Ercain, at the 9th of August. Whose sons these were does not clearly appear.

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  • The Sons of Earcan of Brugh-Laogh, July 15

    Another of the interesting groups of Irish saints are commemorated on July 15. Sometimes in dealing with saints described as the sons or daughters of a particular person the sources preserve the names and number of the individuals involved, but in the case of the sons of Earcan of Brugh-Laogh, we do not have any further details. Canon O’Hanlon can only bring the recording of their names on the calendars:

    The Sons of Earcan, of Brugh-laogh.

    We find a festival entered, to honour Mac Ercain, at the 15th of July, and the Martyrology of Tallagh calls his place Bruigh-long, while that of Donegal spells it Brugh-laogh, and the sons of Earcan are set down, without any specification of their actual number or particular nnmes. Their place has not been identified.
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  • Saint Faelan and the Daughters of Moinan, June 23

    Canon O’Hanlon has an interesting notice of a Saint Faelan and the Daughters of Moinan at June 23. They are mentioned together in the Martyrology of Tallaght, yet mention of the holy ladies disappears from the later calendars. Nothing much seems to be known of any of the parties, although reference is made to a Saint Brigid, daughter of Monan in the Martyrology of Oengus and in Keating’s History of Ireland, published in the seventeenth century:

    St. Foelaine, or Faelan, and the Daughters of Moinan.

    Such is an entry found in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 23rd of June. Nothing more is known, regarding this St. Foelaine and Moinan’s daughters. There is a St. Brigid, said to have been daughter to Monan or Moenan, according to Aengus the Culdee, and Dr. Jeoffry Keating. Whether she was one of the daughters to the Moinan here mentioned must be altogether conjectural and uncertain. In the latest of our great Calendars—that compiled by the O’Clerys—we have no entry regarding these religious ladies, who are noted on the 23rd of June. But, at this same date, in the Martyrologies of Marianus O’Gorman, and of Donegal, merely the name Faelan or Foilan occurs.

     

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