OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Irish Saints

  • Féilire Adamnáin: The Saints of the Four Seasons

    Below is a 1904 translation of the Féilire Adamnáin, an Irish prayer to the saints who preside over the different seasons, traditionally attributed to Saint Adamnán of Iona and Raphoe. Copies of the text survive in four different manuscript sources, including one in Brussels transcribed around 1630 by the exiled Donegal hagiologist, Friar Michael O’Clery. J. F. Kenney, in his classic study The Sources for the Early History of Ireland: Ecclesiastical, feels that this prayer, like others attributed to the saint, is ‘of a date some centuries later than Adamnán’. Verse six references the Martyrology of Oengus, declaring ‘though more numerous in verses, it is not more numerous in saints’:

    Here begins the Saints Calendar of Adamnan to his mother.

    1 The saints of the four seasons,
    I long to pray to them,
    May they save me from torments,
    the saints of the whole year!

    2 The saints of the glorious spring-time,
    may they be with me by the will of God’s fosterling,
    Together with Brigid, a maiden pure,
    with Gregory and Patrick.

    3 The saints of the dry summer,
    about them is my poetic frenzy,
    That I may come from this land to Jesus,
    Son of Mary.

    4 The saints of the beauteous autumn, —
    I call upon a company not inharmonious,
    That they may come near me,
    together with Mary and Michael.

    5 The saints of the winter I pray to,
    may they be with me against the throngs of demons.
    Around Jesus of the mansions,
    the holy, heavenly spirit.

    6 This saints’ calendar [i.e. the calendar of Oengus],
    which noble sages will have,
    Though more numerous in verses,
    it is not more numerous in saints.

    7 I beseech the saints of the earth, I beseech all the angels,
    I beseech God Himself, both rising and lying down.
    Whatever I do or whatever I say,
    that I may inhabit the heavenly land.

    MARY E. BYRNE, B.A.

     

    Ériu, Vol I, part 2, (1904), 225-228

     

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.

  • The Martyrdom of Saint Tanco

    February 16 is the feast of Saint Tanco (Tanchon, Tatta) of Verden (Werda), an Irish missionary in early ninth-century Saxony who was martyred when some local pagans reacted violently to the destruction of their sanctuaries.  Saint Tanco is numbered among the saints of the Benedictine order, and below is a rather graphic account of his martyrdom from a calendar originally compiled by seventeenth-century Benedictine, Father Agidius Ranbeck, OSB. Although the writer begins by referring to Scotland as the homeland of Saint Tanco, this reflects the medieval usage of the term ‘Scotia’ to refer to Ireland:

    Among the noble band of missionaries and martyrs whom Scotland sent forth to spread the light of the Faith
among the heathen nations of Germany and Gaul, we must celebrate S. TANCO. Though the son of noble and wealthy parents, he at an early age entered the Monastery of Amarbarcum, and there, by his unremitting toil, his devotion to prayer, his fasts and watchings, his gentleness towards others while most rigorous to himself, he so gained the love and respect of all, that on the death of the Abbot he was
 unanimously chosen by the Community to be their head. His elevation brought no change in his manner of living. In his own person he set his brethren a perfect example of how to live up to the Rule of S. BENEDICT; yet he tempered his severity with such gentleness that all his orders were executed by his monks with the greatest readiness.

    Our Saint’s soul, however, longed for a wider field. The example of COLUMBA and GALL and countless other Saints incited him to undertake a campaign against the false gods still worshipped in many parts of Germany.
Communicating his intention to his monks, he selected from among them a band of comrades, and proceeded to the country of the Saxons. There, visiting all the villages and towns, he kept sowing the good seed; but the harvest did not answer to his expectations. The savage and ignorant pagans openly mocked the devoted missionaries; so our Saint, leaving some of his companions to look after the few converts he had made, next went to Flanders. In this country, and in the territories adjoining it, his labours were most successful, numbers joining the Church.

    S. TANCO’S name was now celebrated throughout Flanders and Gaul; his fame penetrated even to the royal palace. The inhabitants of Werda as yet were very ignorant of the blessings of Christianity; moreover, they were sunk in the most loathsome vice and wickedness. In his zeal for the Faith, the Emperor Charlemagne sent for S. TANCO, and asked him to take charge of the See of Werda, then vacant. Our Saint consented; but the task was no easy one. In his diocese idols were still openly worshipped, and the most terrible crimes were of daily occurrence. On foot, at the head of the monks whom he had brought with him from his native land, the Bishop went from village to village, encouraging the faint-hearted, denouncing the guilty, and performing miracles to convince unbelievers. Yet his descriptions of the happiness that awaits the pious and of the punishment in store for the wicked were treated as old wives’ tales. Finding his words of no avail, he attacked their idols wherever he found them; he smashed the statues of the false gods, overthrew their altars, and levelled their temples to the ground. At this the fierce barbarians became so enraged, that they beat out their Bishop’s brains with clubs, cut off his legs and arms with their swords, and left the trunk, pierced with a thousand wounds, swimming in its gore, A.D. 815.

    The Saints of the Order of Saint Benedict – January, February, March – from the Latin of F. Agidius Ranbeck, OSB, (translated by J.P.Molohan) ed. Rev J.A. Morrall, OSB (London, 1896), 224-228.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Joseph of Tallaght, January 5

    January 5 is the feast of an Irish Saint Joseph, a County Dublin saint associated with the monastery of Tallaght. The calendars record that he was a bishop, but alas, nothing else. Canon O’Hanlon in his account of Saint Joseph focuses for the most part on the monastery at Tallaght and the annual commemoration of its founder Saint Maelruain.  He ends by noting another episcopal bearer of the name Joseph whose death is recorded in the annals in the ninth century:

    Article IV. St. Joseph, Bishop of Tallagh, County of Dublin.

    Many old scenes of monastic life in Ireland are yet venerable and still endeared to popular recollection. Within the walled and enclosed graveyard of Tallagh, where, on a gentle eminence, stands the present Protestant church, the tall tower of a more ancient religious edifice may be seen. This formed the west entrance and porch to the more ancient church, the very foundations of which are now quite obliterated; although early in the present century the building itself had been used for Protestant services. The tower contains in the second story a bell; but above it are opes, in which probably a peal of three small bells had been formerly placed. It is connected by a covered passage with the Protestant church, the vestry of which is the under-part of this old tower. Not far from the site of the obliterated church, and on the southern side of the cemetery, is shown the pedestal of an old stone cross, bedded in the earth, and at the head of a high grave are the arms of an old granite cross, which at one time surmounted the plinth. The intermediate shaft seems to have been broken, nor are its fragments discoverable. Here, it is said, St. Melruan, the patron of Tallagh, lies interred. Every year, on the 7th of July, at Tallagh, and from time immemorial, the inhabitants have been accustomed to walk from the adjoining village in procession, bearing a long pole, crowned with natural flowers, to the site of St. Melruan’s grave. The standard-bearer carries what is locally called “the garland”, seven times in a walking circuit around the grave: then all the processionists return to the village, after prayers have been said at the spot. The pole is carefully set aside, until required for floral decoration the following year. This custom is probably but the remnant of an ancient processional and solemn religious service in memory of St. Melruan. The site of his grave is held to be sacred, and no person is allowed to be interred there. The people are accustomed to measure their family places of interment, as being so many feet or so many yards from the grave of Tallagh’s holy patron.

    Few other antique monuments are now to be seen, although there is a tradition, that very ancient Irish inscriptions had been read on tombs and crosses there during the last century. These have all disappeared, but many are probably buried in the soil beneath.

    This day the published Martyrology of Tallagh registers a festival in honor of Joseph, Bishop of Tamlachtan. In addition to this entry of the calendar, having its origin at his own locality, we read in the Martyrology of Donegal,  that Joseph, Bishop of Tamlacht-Maelruain, set down on this day, was venerated among our national saints. This name was no unusual one, in the early period of our Christian history. It is pleasing to discover, that the chaste spouse of the Immaculate Blessed Virgin Mary gave name to this holy man.

    Under the heading of Tamlacht, Duald Mac Firbis enters the present Joseph, Bishop of Tamlacht Maolruain, for January the 5th. In the Irish Ordnance Survey Extracts for Dublin County his name occurs.

    Another distinguished ecclesiastic of this name is found in our Annals. Under the head of Claun-uais, Duald Mac Firbis and the Four Masters enter Joseph of Ros-mor, who was an eminent bishop and scribe of Cluain-uais. He died in 839. He presided over other churches.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.