OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Irish Saints

  • Saint Fethgna of Armagh, February 12

     

    On February 12 we commemorate a 9th-century Archbishop of Armagh, Saint Fethgna. The bishop is listed as the 39th in the list of ‘coarbs’ or successors of Patrick:

    39. Fethgna xxii. i.e. of the vigils, son of Nechtan of the Clann Eclidagh.

    H.J. Lawlor and R.I. Best, eds, The Ancient List of the Coarbs of Patrick in PRIA Vol. 35 (1919), Section C, no. 9, 326.

    The Martyrology of Donegal records:

    12. A. PRIDIE IDUS FEBRUARII. 12.

    FETHGNA, successor of Patrick, head of the religion of the Gaoidhil, A.D. 872.

    and a note in the table of the saints appended to the calendar adds:

    Fethgna, successor of Patrick (Mansuetus . . .12 Feb.)

    Canon O’Hanlon comments that the Latin word mansuetus ‘is probably inserted to signify, that he was of a meek disposition.’

    If this is so, his meek disposition would surely have been tested by finding himself as leader of the flock at a time when the Viking raids on Ireland had intensified. Armagh was not spared. Bishop Fethgna succeeded Diarmaid O’Tighearnaigh as Archbishop of Armagh, in 852. Just a few years earlier, the Annals of Ulster record the fate of one of the Abbots of Armagh:

    845. Forinnan, abbot of A., was taken prisoner by Gentiles in Cluain comarda with his reliquaries and his community, and carried off by the ships of Limerick.

    and five years later ‘Armagh was devastated by the foreigners’.

    The Annals then record that a serious sack of Armagh was carried out in 867 during Saint Fethgna’s episcopacy by Amhlach or Amlaf, the Norwegian:

    Ardmacha was plundered and burned with its oratories by Amhlach. Ten hundred was the number there cut off, both by wounding and suffocation, besides all the property and wealth which they found there was carried off by them.

    If the theory advanced by the nineteenth-century writer W. F. Skene is correct, Saint Fethgna was aided in his efforts to rebuild Armagh by the Welsh church of Llancarvan. Skene suggested that a reference to Saint Fethgna appears in a Welsh manuscript known as the Welsh or Cambridge Juvencus. On the last page of this manuscript, are fifty lines of Latin hexameter, of which the words ‘dignissime Fethgna” can alone be distinguished. He believed that this could be our saint and a potential link between the Welsh and Irish churches was strengthened for him by this entry in the Brut y Tywysogion of Caradoc of Llancarvan:

    883 “And the same year Cydivor Abbot of Llanveithin (or Llancarvan) died a wise and learned man and of great piety. He sent six learned men of his abbey to Ireland to instruct the Irish.”

    Skene adds ‘Surely they were sent in consequence of the destruction of the seats of learning in Ireland by the Danes, and thus may some learned Welshmen have been brought in contact with the Bishops of Armagh.’

    W.F. Skene, Archaeologia Cambrensis, Vol 10, (1864), 153-4.

    Whatever the truth of this theory, there are some other mentions of Bishop Fethgna in the Irish Annals. In the Annals of Ulster he is listed as an attendee at an important gathering:

    859. A royal assembly at Rath Aedha mic Bric . . . including Fethgna, coarb of Patrick.

    The same Annals record his death:

    874 Fethgna episcopus heres Patricii et caput religionis totius Hiberniae in pridie nonas Octobris in pace quieuit.

    O’Hanlon could not explain why, if the Annals are correct in placing the death of Saint Fethgna on October 6th, the calendars commemorate his feast on February 12.

     

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  • Saint Gobnait of Ballyvourney, February 11

    Saint Gobnait (Gobnata, Gobnet, Gobnat) is one of those saints whose memory is kept alive in popular tradition, but whose written Life has been lost. The seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, reported that in his time her Acts were extant in the south Munster area but had not been published. Her feast appears on the Irish calendars on February 11:

    The Martyrology of Oengus records:

    11. My Gobnat from Muscraige Mitaine, i.e. a sharp-beaked nun, Ernaide is the name of the place in which she is. Or Gobnat of Bairnech in Moin Mor in the south of Ireland, and of the race of Conaire is she : a virgin of Conaire’s race.

    The later Martyrology of Donegal entry reads:

    11. G. TERTIO IDUS FEBRUARII. 11.

    GOBNAT, Virgin. At Moin-mor, in the south of Erinn, is her church, [and at Baile Mhuirne.] She was of the race of Conaire, son of Modh-Lamha, monarch of Erinn ; she is of the race of Heremon.

    Canon O’Hanlon summarizes the mentions of Saint Gobnait on other calendars:
    ‘The designation, Gobnat Ernaidhe, i Muscraidhe Mitine, occurs, in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 11th of February, The Calendar of Cashel enters, at the same date, St. Gobnata, the nun, of the village of Boirne, or Bairnigh, in Munster, and she belonged to the race of Conaire. Charles Maguire says likewise, at this day, Gobnata, of Ernuidhe—I know not where it is—or Gobnata, of Burneach of Moinmhor, in the southern part of Ireland, and she is of the race of Conaire. Marianus O’Gorman, also, states, St. Gobnata, virgin of Moinmor; her church lies in the southern part of Ireland. In Scotland, too, her memory was revered. The holy virgin Gobnat departed to Christ, on the iii. Ides—corresponding with the 11th—of February, according to the Kalendar of Drummond.’

    Thus the calendar references establish her as being both a nun and of aristocratic lineage. They also concur that she flourished in the Ballyvourney, County Cork area, which is borne out by the survival of ruins of a church and other monuments bearing her name in that location. However, for other information, the only source we have is popular devotion and local folklore. The webpage of the Diocese of Kerry has collected some of this:

    ‘The main centres of devotion to Gobnait are Inis Oírr (Aran Islands), Dún Chaoin in West Kerry and Baile Bhúirne near the Cork/Kerry border. There are a number of other places which carry her name – often as Kilgobnet or Cill Ghobnait – near Dungarvan and Milltown in Co. Kerry for example. All of these sites carry a link to the story of Gobnait and the journey undertaken by her to seek “the place of her resurrection”.

    Tradition records that Gobnait left her native Clare to escape some enemy and went to Inis Oírr where an early medieval oratory dedicated to her is extant on the north side of the island near the shore (cf. Archaeological Inventory of County Galway (West Galway), BÁC, 1993, p.96 No. 552, it is known locally as Cill Ghobnait). While on Inis Oírr an angel appeared to her and told her that the “place of her resurrection” was not to be there but in the place where she would find nine white deer grazing. Gobnait then left Inis Oírr and travelled through the southern, coastal counties – Kerry, Cork and Waterford. The foundations associated with her mark her various stops in her search for the nine deer. These places include Dún Chaoin as mentioned, Kilgobnet near Dungarvan and Kilgobnet (between the MacGillicuddy Reeks and the Laune, accessible from the Killorglin/Beaufort Road on the southern side of the Laune; it is interesting to note that this Kilgobnet is also said to have been the original site of the Lughnasa festival now held in Killorglin – Puck Fair! cf. Máire Mac Neill, The Festival of Lughnasa, Oxford, 1962, 299). At various stages of her journey Gobnait met white deer – three at Clondrohid and six at Baile Mhic Íre – but it was only when she crossed the Sullane river that she found the nine as foretold at Baile Bhúirne. This place, on a rise overlooking the Sullane and looking towards the Derrynasaggart hills was where she settled, died and was buried “to await her resurrection”. She is regarded as the great protector of Baile Bhúirne and is much associated with healing. One story tells of how she cured one of her nuns who was sick and how she kept the plague away from Baile Bhúirne by drawing a line along the eastern borders of the parish with her stick beyond which the plague never came. Many accounts exist of how Gobnait prevented invaders (said to have been O’Donoghues of the Glens) from carrying off the cattle – on their approach she let loose the bees from her hives and they attacked the invaders, forcing them to flee. One version of the tale has the beehive turning into a bronze helmet and the bees themselves turning into soldiers. It is said that it was the O’Herlihys who sought her help and that they handed down the bronze helmet from one generation to the next as a great source of protection. M.T. Kelly, writing in the JCHAS , Vol.III No. 25. (1897), p.102 , suggests that Windele had come across accounts of this helmet but that it had been lost somewhere in Kerry. Another version has the beehive turning into a bell which then became Gobnait’s bell.’

    Another story is told of how, during her lifetime, foreigners came intent on building a castle in Baile Bhúirne, but that the locals opposed this (reminiscent of more recent times and rows over development!). Every night after the builders had left the saint knocked down their building by throwing her bell at the castle. Eventually they gave up, the site, ‘Carraig an Chaisleáin’ is still pointed out as proof of the power of Gobnait. Another version of this tale has Gobnait casting a stone ball at the castle each night. This ball is now said to be the one in the wall of the medieval church and can be seen on the rounds.

    Saint Gobnait is an example of how a saint’s memory and cult was kept alive by the oral tradition, in the absence of written accounts. Today this popular devotion centres around the holy well dedicated to her and there is also an old statue which is exhibited for veneration on her feastday in Ballyvourney. This has a specific ritual attached to it:

    ‘A medieval wooden image of Gobnait, kept traditionally in a drawer in the church during the year, is venerated in the parish church on this day. The devotion is known as the tomhas Gobnatan. People bring a ribbon with them and ‘measure’ the statue from top to bottom and around its circumference. This ribbon is then brought home and is used when people get sick or for some special blessing. The statue is thought to belong to the 13th c.’

    The photograph below shows someone taking ‘Gobnait’s measure’ on her feastday:




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  • Saint Cronan/Mochua of Clashmore, February 10

    Today the Irish calendars commemorate a spiritual son of the great Saint Carthage of Lismore, Cronan or Mochua of Clashmore, County Waterford. Mochua is a diminutive form of the name Cronan. As Canon O’Hanlon records in one of his footnotes to the entry for today’s saint, it is not an uncommon name:

    Colgan says, that in our Menologies there are eight Cronans, and eighteen Mochuas, whose feasts are distinct; and, in almost all instances, the same saint is at one time named Cronan, and at another place, Mochua. Thus, in the Martyrologies of Tallagh, Marianus Gorman and Donegal, at the 28th of April, St. Cronan of Roscrea is called Mochua. In like manner, at the 22nd of June, St. Cronan, Abbot of Ferns, is called Mochua. Likewise, at the 30th of March, Mochua, Abbot of Balla, and at the 6th of August, St. Mochua of Clondalkin, are called by the name of Cronan. St. Oengus the Culdee, in his Homynomous Saints, book i., chapter xix., numbers more than fifty saints, bearing the designation Mochua, many of whom are called by the name of Cronan, in the aforesaid martyrologies. See Colgan’s “Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae,” X. Februarii, n. 2, p. 304.

    Colgan also appears to have believed that Saint Cronan/Mochua of Clashmore may have been martyred by the Danes, at Swords, County Dublin. He is not alone in this, as the calendar of Cathal Maguire records for February 10th:

    Cronanus, vel est Mochua de Miliuc, id est, Cronanus filius Mellani de Glaismor in Desiis Momoniee, & Lismorioe colitur : vel Glaismor est Ecclesia juxta Surdum ad austrum.” A comment is added, that Glasmor was a church, near Swords, to the south, and that the Northmen came from Inbhear Domnann one night, and slaughtered St. Cronan with all his cenobites, so that not one of his family escaped.

    However, O’Hanlon believes this martyred Cronan to be another saint, distinct from Cronan/Mochua of Clashmore. Confusion arose due to the confounding of Clashmore in County Waterford with Glassmore near Swords, County Dublin on some of the later calendars. O’Hanlon believes that our Saint Cronan/Mochua flourished within the County Waterford area, where he first embraced the monastic life under Saint Carthage:

    The Life of St. Carthage states, that our present St. Cronan or Mochua had been, from his youth, a monk at Rathan. Our saint is said to have been the first, who made his religious profession, under St. Carthage, in the famous monastic establishment of Rathen ; and, it is on record, that eight hundred and seventy-seven monks were at one time subject to this very distinguished abbot’s spiritual supervision. Here, deriving every advantage from the training of this great saint, Cronan made considerable progress in virtue. At length, he was placed by St. Carthage, over an establishment, near Rathen. This place is called Cluain Dachran. We are told, this locality is identical with Clonrane, in Westmeath county. When Cronan was there appointed, he had been informed, that Cluain Dachran would neither be the place of his death, nor of his resurrection.

    At the same time, or subsequently, he was placed in charge of Glassmore church, about four miles north of Youghal, in the barony of Decies within Drum, and in the present county of Waterford. It was situated, not far from the noble Blackwater River.

    The saint’s feast on the 10th February is well attested in the Irish calendars. The Martyrology of Oengus records:
    “Bright star, victorious offspring,
    A glowing mass of gold, a radiant guest,
    Is Cronan the chaste without reproach,
    The white sun of Glass Mor.”
    The later Martyrology of Donegal, however, while associating Saint Cronan with the Waterford area and Lismore, also mentions Glassmore, near Swords, and the massacre by the Vikings:

    CRONAN, of Glais-mor in Deisi-Mumhan, and of Lis-mor. Or Glais-mor, a church that was by the side of Sord to the south, until the foreigners of Inbher Domhnann came to him and killed him and all his people in one night, so that not one of them escaped without being destroyed; and thus were they martyred.

    The Calendar of Cashel also connects him both with Lismore and Swords, whereas the earlier Martyrology of Tallagh notes on this day Cronan, son of Mellain, of the Decies, and in Lismor.
    Finally, Canon O’Hanlon notes the presence of the feast of Saint Cronan on the Scottish calendars:

    This saint was venerated, likewise, and on the same day, in Scotland. There, however, he is not classed with the martyrs. The holy confessor, Cronan, in Ireland, is set down at the 10th of February in the Kalendar of Drummond, as having departed to Christ.

    The memory of Saint Mochua is still commemorated in Clashmore today, and popular devotion centres around the holy well dedicated to the saint, as shown in the photograph above.

     

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