OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Irish Saints

  • Saint Lonan of Ard Cruinn, July 11

    Another name to add to the ever-growing list of obscure Irish holy men – Saint Lonan of Ard Cruinn, commemorated on July 11. Canon O’Hanlon seeks to identify the locality of Ard Cruinn with Ardcroney in County Tipperary and tells us about an old church site there. No other details of the saint appear to be available:

    St. Lonan, of Ard-Cruinn. 

    Veneration was given, at the 11th of July, to Lonan, of Arda Crainn, as we find entered in the Martyrology of Tallagh. The Bollandists have recorded, at this same date, a feast for Lonanus of Ard-cruinn, as furnished by Father O’Sheerin. We may enquire, if Ard-cruinn can be identical with Ardcroney, a parish in the barony of Lower Ormond, and county of Tipperary. The left side of the direct road —as you advance from Borris-o-kane to Nenagh—affords the site for an ancient church, on a very elevated spot. Connected with this church appear the remains of an old castle; some of the side walls, chambers, winding stairs and window-places, are yet to be seen. The whole group of ruins is enclosed within a much frequented graveyard. The church walls are in tolerable preservation. In one end gable, a narrow cut-stone and pointed window remains entire. The opposite gable, near the old castle, appears rather to have been an interior cross-wall, under which a wide arch opens. The masonry in this group of buildings is very massiveand well cemented. The whole deserves an attentive study from the antiquary and archaeologist. In the Isle of Man—which is full of ancient Celtic ecclesiastical memorials—there is an old, and also a new one—the former giving name to a parish, known as Loman. Tradition states, that a St. Lonan, nephew of the Irish Apostle, is honoured there. The ruins of the ancient church stand in a lonely cemetery a mile and a-half off the main road from Douglas to Luney. In the Martyrology of Donegal,  the feast of this saint is also entered, at the 11th of July.

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  • Deacon Aedh of Cuil-Maine, July 10

    On July 10 Canon O’Hanlon brings details of a Saint Aedh, described in the Martyrologies as a ‘Deacon’. He identifies the locality associated with this holy man as Clonmany, County Donegal. Pádraig Ó Riain’s entry for the saint, however, places him instead in the County Fermanagh parish of Magheraculmoney and suggests that he is identical with Saint Maodhóg of Ferns. Deacon Aedh has a second feast day on August 31, one he shares with a couple of namesakes. So, he is one of the Irish saints who well illustrates the difficulties in trying to work through the evidence from genealogical, martyrological, and place name sources. Ó Riain’s account of the saint can be found on page 70 of his  A Dictionary of Irish Saints (Dublin, 2011), below is that of Canon O’Hanlon from Volume VII of his Lives of the Irish Saints:

    Deacon Aedh, of Cuil-Maine, now Clonmany, County of Donegal. 

    Veneration was given, at the 10th of July, to Aodh Deochain in Crichmaine, according to the Martyrology of Tallagh. Elsewhere this record styles him Mac Maine. Marianus O’Gorman remits his feast to the 31st of August, as the Bollandists, who notice him at the 10th of July, observe. At the the same date, an entry appears in the Martyrology of Donegal, regarding Deacon Aedh, of Cuil-Maine. This was the ancient name of the parish of Clonmany, in the north-western part of the barony of Inishowen, and county of Donegal. This church was served by a vicar, to the close of the fifteenth century. The village here is pleasantly situated on a small rivulet, which rising in the adjoining mountains finds its course to the Atlantic Ocean. Another festival, in honour of the present saint, seems to have been observed, on the 31st of August.

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  • The Children of Senchán, June 23

    I have always been interested in the collective commemorations of groups of saints found in the Irish calendars. There are two such groups remembered at June 23, the Daughters of Moinan, a post on whom can be read here, and The Children of Senchán. Often these groups incorporate the sacred number seven and today’s actually comprises fourteen individuals.  I wish it were possible to find out more about them and of their Scottish connection. Canon O’Hanlon brings only the the barest details:

    Article III.—The Children of Senchan.
    In the Martyrology of Donegal, a festival intended to honour the children of Senchan is set down, at the 23rd of June. Among the saints of Scotland, we find enumerated the fourteen sons of Senchan or Clann Senchan, for this same date.

    Article IV.—The Children of Senan.
    We read in the Martyrology of Donegal,  that the children of Senan were venerated, at the 23rd of June. We think, however, that this is only another form for a previous entry.

    The same double entry for ‘Senchán’s children and Senán’s’ is found in the Martyrology of Gorman, but their names are not found at all in the earlier martyrologies of Oengus and Tallaght.

    The Calendars edited by the Scottish Bishop Alexander Forbes also list Senchán’s clan:

    SENCHANIUS, the Fourteen Sons of June 23.—These are probably the Clann Senchain who are commemorated in the Mart. Donegal at 23d June. A curious ” Description of the Island of Sanda,” by Father Edmund MacCana, makes mention of the sepulchre of the fourteen sons of Senchanius in that island. It is printed with observations by Dr. Reeves in the Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., vol. viii. p. 132.

    Father McCana was an Irish Franciscan who visited the island of Sanda, which lies a few miles off the Mull of Kintyre, in the early seventeenth century.  The text published by Bishop William Reeves is written in Latin and includes these details of the twice seven sons of Senchán:

    Corpora bis septem, tota veneranda per orbem, 

    Senchanii natum Sanda beata tenet.
     Doctorum divumque parens, Hibernia quondam . 
    Quos genuit sanctos, Scotia terra tegit …..
    The paper is available through the Internet Archive here. If your Latin is as rusty as mine you may find it more useful to consult the reprint in the appendix to a 2010 paper on the island, as it includes a translation, here:
    ‘Fourteen bodies, throughout the world revered,
    Of Senchanius born blessed Sanda holds.
    Ireland, the mother of divine teachers, once
    Begat the saints whom Scotland’s soil covers….
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