OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Irish Saints

  • Saint Colum of Terryglass at Inishcaltra

    December 13 is the feast of Saint Colum of Terryglass, County Tipperary. He is also credited in the Life preserved in the Salamancan Codex with being the founder of the monastery at Inishcaltra, an island off the western shore of Lough Derg, County Clare. Professor Pádraig Ó Riain has translated The Life of Colum of Terryglass in his 2014 collection Four Tipperary Saints and below are three short extracts which deal with Saint Colum’s time on the holy island of Inishcaltra. In the first we see a familiar trope from hagiography, where a saint is directed to a particular location by an angelic messenger. Then once there a source of sustenance is miraculously provided for him in the form of a sweet-tasting tree sap which also has ‘the inebriating quality of wine’. Finally, we have a sample of Saint Colum’s spiritual wisdom prompted by a question from one of his faithful monastics:

    …An angel of the Lord then appeared to him, to say ‘Arise and go to Inishcaltra’. There he found an old man by the name of Mac Reithe, to whom the angel said: ‘Relinquish this island to Colum and go somewhere else as a monk of his’, which he did.

    Then, on the day of Colum’s arrival on Inishcaltra, the Lord made a meal for him, for there was a certain tree on the island by the name of lime-tree whose sap, on dripping down, filled a vessel and had the taste of honey. The fluid had the inebriating quality of wine, and Colum and his followers were sated by this excellent liquid.

    Colum then lived on Inishcaltra for a long time, and the birds of the sky clung intimately to him there, flying about his face and playing. At this, his disciple Nadh Caoimhe said: ‘Why, master, do the birds not take flight from you: they truly avoid us?’ Colum replied: ‘Why should birds avoid a bird? Just as the bird flies, so does my mind never cease from flying to heaven’.

     P. Ó Riain, ed. and trans., ‘The Life of Colum of Terryglass’ in Four Tipperary Saints, (Four Courts Press, 2014), 15~ 16~ 17~, p. 13.

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  • The Old Age of Saint Fiacc of Sletty

    October 12 is the feastday of Saint Fiacc of Sletty, a bard converted by Saint Patrick and later made a Bishop. A paper detailing his life can be read at the blog here. Below is a beautiful tribute to the saint in his old age when, despite his advancing years, there was no lessening of his ascetic discipline:

    …Fiacc in his old age lived a life of extraordinary austerity. At the beginning of Lent he usually left his monastery unattended, taking with him only five barley loaves, and these strewn with ashes. He forbade any of his monks to follow him, but he was seen to go to the hills to the north-west of Sletty, a wild and solitary district. In one of these, called Drum Coblai, he had a cave which sheltered him. The hill itself has been identified with the Doon of Clophook, which is just seven miles to the north-west of Sletty. Its eastern slope ‘which is steep and beetling’ rises abruptly to the height of 150 feet; at its base is the cave thirty-six feet deep by twelve in width. Close at hand there was an ancient church and cemetery, doubtless founded there in honour of the saint. Local tradition still remembers him; but as he was not seen coming or going to his church at Sletty, the wise people came to the conclusion that he had an underground passage through the mountains all the way to his own church. The fame of his sanctity and austerities still clings like the mists of morning to the mountain sides of Slieve Margy, where he spent his last and holiest days.

    The poet-saint sleeps amid many miracles with kindred dust in his own church of Sletty, within view of the spires of Carlow. An ancient stone cross still standing is said to mark the spot on the right bank of the river where his holy relics rest. He was one of the earliest of our native prelates, he led an austere and humble life, he was deeply attached to the person and to the memory of his beloved master St. Patrick, and his influence has been felt for many ages in all the churches of Leinster. His poetic Life of St. Patrick, to which we have already referred, is beyond doubt an authentic poem; and if so it is the earliest and most authentic of all the Lives of the Saint. In any case it is an invaluable monument of the history, the language, and the learning of the ancient Church of
    Ireland….

    Most Rev. Dr. J. Healy, The Life and Writings of Saint Patrick (Dublin, 1905), 399-400.

     

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  • The Nativity of Saint Colmán Elo, October 3

    On October 3, some of the Irish calendars record the feast of the nativity of Saint Colmán Elo. The marking of the birth of this saint as a separate feast is perhaps a reflection of his importance as a scholar and monastic founder. He lived c.560–611 and the most important work ascribed to his authorship is the ascetical poem the Apgitir chrábaid (the alphabet of piety). Some modern scholars have also suggested that Saint Colmán may have been the author of the hymn in praise of Saint Patrick, traditionally attributed to Secundinus (Sechnall). I have written about this hymn, Audite omnes amantes, and reproduced a translation of it at my blog dedicated to the three patrons here. Interestingly, genealogical sources record that Colmán Elo of the moccu Béognae was a relative of Saint Colum Cille of Iona, who also has the feast of his nativity listed on the calendars at December 7. Indeed, Saint Colmán features in the Life of Columba by Adamnan and left Iona after the death of its founder in 597 to establish his own monastery at Lann Elo, modern Lynally, County Offaly. The primary feast of Saint Colmán Elo is on September 26 and a post on his life can be read at the blog here. 

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