OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Irish Saints

  • Saint Oswald of Northumbria, August 5

    August 5 is the feast of the seventh-century Saint Oswald of Northumbria. Although not an Irish saint, King Oswald was the royal protégé of the Iona-trained Saint Aidan and was himself the recipient of an Irish religious education. Saint Oswald met his end at the hands of a pagan rival king and in his tribute to the royal martyr below, Irish Bishop, later Cardinal, P.F. Moran provides some very good reasons why the memory of this holy king should be cherished by the Irish. He also provides an account of the wonderworking relics of Saint Oswald, whose cult later extended beyond these islands into continental Europe:

    …From the outset of his episcopate, St. Aidan was not without anxieties and sorrows. Above all he was overwhelmed with affliction by the death of Oswald, on the field of battle, in 642. This dire calamity fell upon the Northumbrian church and kingdom at the hands of Penda, the pagan king of Mercia. For two years war had raged between Northumbria and Mercia, and Oswald had been so far successful that he added the district of Lindsey, with its chief town of Lincoln, to his dominions. It was on the 5th of August, 642, that the decisive battle was fought, at a place called Maserfield, near the Shropshire town, which still commemorates Oswald in the name of Oswestry. The brave prince fell fighting for his religion and his country, as Bede takes occasion to mention, and “seeing himself hemmed in by armed assailants, he ended his life with words of prayer for his own soldiers: whence arose the proverb, God, have mercy on their souls, as Oswald said when falling to the ground.” Another proverbial saying is recorded by Henry of Huntingdon: “The plain of Mesafeld was whitened with the bones of the saints.” Thus perished, at the age of thirty-eight, Oswald, marked by the Church among her martyrs, and by the Anglo-Saxon people among its saints and heroes of most enduring fame. Ireland may well be proud of having trained to piety this first royal saint and martyr whom the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms added to the Calendar of Holy Church. The ferocious Penda caused the head and hands of Oswald to be cut off, and exposed on wooden stakes, but after some months they were rescued, and the hands were placed in a silver box, at St. Peter’s Church, on the summit of the rock of Barnborough, whilst the head was consigned to St. Aidan, and interred with due solemnity in the monastic chapel at Lindisfarne. Of his other relics, we learn from Bede, that thirty years after the battle of Maserfeld the niece of Oswald brought them with great state to the Lincolnshire monastery of Bardney, which was in the Mercian kingdom, but the monks received them with coldness, saying that he was an enemy of Mercia, and left the wain, which had arrived with them in the evening, to stand outside their doors with a pall thrown over them. All that night a pillar of light, reaching from earth to heaven, shone over the remains, and was seen throughout the whole surrounding district of Lindsey. At the dawn of morning eagerly were the doors thrown open, the remains were reverently encased, and over them was suspended the gold and purple royal banner which had been borne before Oswald on the field of battle.

    The spot on which King Oswald fell long continued greener and fairer than the ground around, and pilgrims, even from remote parts, flocked thither to pay the tributes of their devotion to God. Both places were indeed honoured, where he first planted the standard of the Cross entering on his career of victory, and where he ended his course, pouring out his life-blood for the cause of God. The latter, howrever, seems to have borne away the palm: “The monks of the great and magnificent Church of Hexham (writes Montalembert), went in procession every year to celebrate the day consecrated to Oswald at the site of the cross, which he had planted on the eve of his first victory. But the love and gratitude of the Christian people gave a still greater glory to the place of his defeat and death. Pilgrims came thither in crowds to seek relief from their sufferings, and had each a miraculous cure to relate on their return. The dust which his noble blood had watered was collected with care and conveyed to great distances as a remedy for disease, or a preservative from the evils of life. By dint of carrying away this dust a hollow was scooped out, of a man’s size, which seemed the ever-open tomb of this martyr of his country. On seeing the turf around this hollow clothed with an unwonted verdure, more delicate and beautiful than elsewhere, travellers said that the man who had perished there must needs have been more holy and more pleasing in God’s sight than all the other warriors who rested beneath that sward. The veneration of which his remains were the object spread not only among all the Saxons and Britons of Great Britain, but even beyond the seas in Ireland and among the Greeks and the Germans. The very stake on which the head of the royal martyr had been fixed was cut up into relics, the fragments of which were regarded as of sovereign efficacy in the healing both of body and of mind.”

    One of the miracles narrated by Bede is given on the authority of St. Willibrord, Archbishop of the Frisians, and happened when that apostolic man, “being as yet only a Priest, led a pilgrim’s life in Ireland, for love of the eternal country.” A certain Irish scholar, “a man indeed learned in worldly literature, but in no way solicitous or studious of his own eternal salvation,” was reduced to the last extremities, having caught the contagion which then prevailed. Willibrord coming to him, and finding that he cherished a great devotion to the holy Oswald, said to him that he had “a portion of the stake on which Oswald’s head was set up by the pagans when he was killed: and if you believe, with a sincere heart, the Divine goodness may, through the merit of so great a man, both grant you a longer term of life here, and render you worthy of admittance into eternal life. He answered immediately that he had entire faith therein. Then I blessed some water (adds St. Willibrord) and put into it a chip of the aforesaid oak, and gave it to the sick man to drink. He presently found ease, and recovering of his sickness, lived a long time after, and being entirely converted to God in heart and actions, wherever he came he spoke of the goodness of his merciful Creator, and the honour of his faithful servant.” St. Willibrord added, that even in his distant mission among the Frisians miracles were wrought through the relics of Oswald.

    I have dwelt thus on the memory of this holy prince on account of his being trained to piety in the Irish schools, his zealous co-operation with St. Aidan in sanctifying his people, and the devoted affection which he ever displayed towards his Irish masters. He bequeathed a bright example of Christian heroism to the royal families of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and many were those who sought to emulate his perfect life. His festival was kept throughout England “with joyous and blessed gladness” on the 5th of August, and his name is entered in the Irish, Scottish, and Roman martyrologies on the same day. A foreign historian of England has well appreciated his true chararcter when he writes that “as his life was distinguished at once by activity and by a spirit of fervid Christian beneficence, so his Christian merits and his martyrdom rendered him a hero of the Christian world” and we may add with Montalembert, that, “crowned by the love and devotion of the people on whom he bestowed the blessings of peace and of divine truth, spending his life for its sake; gentle and strong, serious and sincere, pious and intelligent, humble and bold, active and gracious, a soldier and a missionary, a king and a martyr, slain in the flower of his age on the field of battle, fighting for his country and praying for his subjects. Where shall we find in all history a hero more nearly approaching the ideal, more richly gifted, more worthy of eternal remembrance, and, it must be added, more completely forgotten?”

    Right Rev. P.F. Moran, Irish saints in Great Britain (Dublin, 1879), 236-240.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2017. All rights reserved.

  • 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.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2017. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Mael-Muire Ua Gormáin (Marianus O'Gorman), July 3

    July 3 is the commemoration of a twelfth-century Augustinian abbot of the monastery of Cnoc na n-Apostol (Hill of the Apostles) in County Louth. Although this is the first post I have made in honour of his feast day, he is no stranger to the blog for Saint Mael-Muire ua Gormáin (Marianus O’Gorman) was himself a hagiologist whose lasting contribution to the study of the Irish saints is his calendar, known as the Martyrology of Gorman. His name appears quite simply on July 3 in the Martyrology of Donegal as ‘MAELMUIRE UA GORMAIN, Abbot of Lughmhagh.’ Below is an account of the man and his monastery from the nineteenth-century scholar, Whitley Stokes, who edited and translated Saint Mael-Muire’s metrical calendar from a manuscript copy in the Royal Library, Brussels:

    The Author of the Martyrology, and the Place in which it was composed.

    The author of the Martyrology now published was Mael-Maire hua Gormain, otherwise called Marianus Gorman, abbot of Cnoc na n-Apstol ‘ the Hill of the Apostles,’ a monastery of Canons Regular of St. Augustine at Knock close to the town of Louth. All that is really known of him is derived from the preface to his Martyrology, which uses the first person (rodherbsamar fuaramar, tuccsamar) when referring to the author,and may well have been written by Gorman himself, though Colgan ascribes it to an ancient scholiast.

    Hence it appears that Gorman was abbot of Cnoc na n-Apstol (otherwise called Cnoc na Sengán, ‘ the Hill of the Pismires ‘), and that he composed his Martyrology while Ruaidre hua Conchobair was King of Ireland, while Gelasius or Gilla mac Liac was archbishop of Armagh, and while Aed hua Cáillaidhi was bishop of Oriel, i.e., the present counties of Louth, Armagh, and Monaghan. Ruaidre began to reign as monarch of Ireland about the year 1166 and retired in 1183 to the monastery of Cong, where he died in 1199. Gilla mac Liac was archbishop of Armagh from 1137 to 1173, when he died. Aed hua Cáillaidhi was bishop of Oriel from 1139 to 1182. The result is, if the statements in the preface are true, that Gorman must have composed his Martyrology at some time between 1166 and 1174, ‘circa annum 1167,’ says Colgan.

    It must, however, be admitted that the Martyrology commemorates two saints—Gilla mac Liacc at March 27, and Gilla mo Chaidbeo at March 31, of whom the former died in 1 173, the latter in 1174. We are therefore driven to one of two hypotheses—either the statements in the preface are not true, and the Martyrology was composed after 1174, or the commemorations just mentioned were added after the completion of the poem. The latter hypothesis seems the more probable. The tradition of the Irish literati agrees with the preface, and the commemorations in question are at the ends of the stanzas in which they respectively occur, and may well have been inserted in accordance with the suggestion in the preface: ‘If defects are found therein, let the erudite . . . add; but let them not spoil the course of the poem.’ Who made these insertions does not appear. In 1181, according to the Four Masters, Maelmuire Hua Dunain, Abbot of Cnoc na Sengán in Louth, died. Of him Colgan, Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae, p. 737, says :

    ‘ Hic videtur esse B. Marianus Gormanus, author Martyrologii, a nobis laudatus, quem constat anno 1172 fuisse eiusdem monasterii Abbatem, ut praefatio eius Martyrologio prefixa, tradit’ If Colgan’s conjecture be right—and Lanigan agrees with him—the insertions may have been made by Gorman himself But I know of no sure instance of an Irishman being called at one time after his paternal, at another after his maternal, grandfather.

    Gorman is commemorated in the Martyrology of Donegal at July 3. He was probably canonised, not by the Apostolic See, but by his metropolitan, the archbishop of Armagh, just as in 1153, St. Gaultier, Abbot of Pontoise, was canonised by the archbishop of Rouen.

    The monastery of Cnoc na nApstol, or Cnoc na Sengán, in which Gorman probably wrote, was founded by Donnchad húa Cerbaill, King of Airgeill (Oriel), in honour of SS. Paul and Peter. The best evidence of these statements is an Irish entry, dated Jan. I, 1170, in an antiphonary formerly belonging to the cathedral church of Armagh, but now in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, Class B, Tab. I. No. i. This entry is printed in Petrie’s work on the Round Towers, p. 391, with the following translation :

    Kalend. Januar. V. feria bin. X. Anno Domini MCLXX. A prayer for Donnchadh O’Carrol, supreme King of Airgiall, by whom were made the book of Cnoc na nApstal at Louth and the chief books of the order of the year, and the chief books of the Mass. It was this great king who founded the entire monastery both [as to] stone and wood, and gave territory and land to it, for the prosperity of his soul in honour of [SS.] Paul and Peter. By him the church throughout the land of Oirghiall was reformed, and a regular bishopric was made, and the church was placed under the jurisdiction of the bishop. In his time tithes were received, and the marriage [ceremony] was assented to, and churches were founded, and temples and cloictheachs were made, and monasteries of monks and canons and nuns were re-edified, and nemheds were made. These are especially the works which he performed for the prosperity [of his soul] and reign, in the land of Airghiall, namely, the monastery of monks on the bank of the Boyne [both as to] stone and wooden furniture and book, and territory and land, in which [monastery] there are one hundred monks and three hundred conventuals, and the monastery of canons of Termann Feichin and the monastery of nuns, and the great church of Termann Feichin, and the church of Lepadh Feichin and the church of * * *.

    So the Four Masters at the year 1148: ‘ The church of Cnoc na Sengán was finished by the bishop Ua Caellaidhe and Donnchadh ua Cearbhaill, and was consecrated by Ua Morgair, a successor of Patrick; and a neimeadh, i.e., ecclesiastical land, was assigned to it in Lughmadh….

    Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans.,  Félire Húi Gormáin, The Martyrology of Gorman, (London, 1895), xix-xxi.

     

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2017. All rights reserved.