OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Irish Saints

  • 'The Coming of the White Monks to Erin'

    March 18 is the feast of St Christian O’Conarchy of Mellifont Abbey, Co Louth. Mellifont was the first Cistercian foundation in Ireland, established in 1142 by Saint Malachy of Armagh with some help from the French connection he had established with Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. In the article below English writer Marian Nesbitt looks at the coming of the Cistercian Order to Ireland. She begins by acknowledging the chief founder of the Order, Saint Robert of Molesme, but naturally also pays tribute to the English monk, Stephen Harding. From there she sketches out the history of the Order in Ireland and takes in its famous foundations and some of its martyrs:

    The Coming of the White Monks to Erin

    The Celebrated ‘Abbey of the Virgin Mary

    BY MARIAN NESBITT

    IT is a well-established fact that practically all churches in the Cistercian Order are dedicated to Our Lady; and, it is scarcely necessary to add, that this same austere Order was in reality an offshoot of the great Benedictine stem, St. Robert, himself a Benedictine, being its holy founder. His original intention had been simply to carry out the Rule of his Father, St. Benedict, in all its primitive strictness; but, at the very outset, his plans were frustrated by the difficulty of finding monks willing to second his efforts (writes “Ave Maria.”) Such being the case, he, together with a few zealous companions, all anxious, like himself, to pursue a more rigid mode of life, established a monastery in the forest of Solesmes, near Chatillon, in the year 1075. Here the little community led an existence completely eremitical in its solitude and seclusion; but hot for long. Robert was not yet satisfied that their method of observance was in perfect harmony with the spirit of St. Benedict, and he therefore withdrew to a desolate spot called Citeaux (Citercium), some distance from Dijon, and there founded another monastery for those, says one of his biographers, “who should desire to follow the Benedictine Rule in its utmost rigor,” and who were destined to become known in.after time as Cistercians. It will be remembered that the saintly Stephen Harding, a monk from Sherborne Abbey, in England, and one of St. Robert’s successors at Citeaux, did wonders for the spread and perfection of the still new institute, besides being that member of his Order who had the honor of receiving into religion the young St. Bernard “with thirty of his kinsmen.” Stephen, too, it was who, later on, sent St. Bernard to found the famous Abbey of Clairvaux, whence came the first colony of Cistercians to Ireland, their appearance in the Island of Saints being coincident with that revival of monasticism brought about by the fervent efforts of St. Malachy O’Moore.

    First Home.
    It would seem that their first home was the celebrated “Abbey of the Virgin Mary” in Dublin, a house which, according to some writers, was originally established for Benedictines by Danes converted to Christianity; but an older tradition claims that it was the “pious work” of certain Irish princes as far back as 948. However this may be, it is admitted beyond question that, owing to the personal influence of St. Malachy, the noted abbey passed into the possession of the Cistercians in 1139. Nor is this surprising, when we remember that, as the dear friend of St. Bernard, Malachy was well aware of the saintliness and extraordinary adherence to religious discipline of the monks of Clairvaux. Their spirit was entirely in sympathy with the great object he had in view, viz., to promote the sanctification of the people by the presence of these cloistered men whose example and whose prayers night and day must surely oring showers of heavenly blessings on the land which was so dear to him.

    “St. Mary’s,” we read, “was richly endowed, and its abbot took rank as a peer of, the realm.” Far, however, above these temporal advantages was its splendid record when the dark days of persecution descended, upon it. It was the first house of the Order to be seized by the sacrilegious commissioners of Henry VIII., and, of the fifty monks dwelling there at the moment, all were captured, cast, into prison to endure the unspeakable horrors of a Medieval dungeon; and finally led out to receive the martyr’s crown at a place called Ballyboght, some time in the year 1541.

    Another great and well-known abbey, founded for the Cistercians at the request of St. Malachy, was that of Mellifont, County Louth. The most generous benefactor of this monastery, which was charmingly situated in a lovely valley — for St. Bernard loved the valley and Benedict the hill,— was Donogh O’Carrol, Prince, of Oriel; and Mellifont’s first community consisted of monks trained by St. Bernard himself at Clairveux. Amongst these religious were the four young Irishmen, sent thither by St. Malachy. The solemn ceremony of the consecration of the great abbey church took place in the presence of a large number of priests and prelates, as well as of the King of Ireland and many princes. We learn, moreover, that the royal offering on this occasion, made by King Murtagh, was “a hundred and forty oxen, sixty ounces of pure gold, and a townland near Drogheda.”

    Bectiff.
    On the banks of the Boyne, County Meath, there are the ruins of what was once a magnificent Cistercian abbey— that, namely, of Bectiff, endowed for the White Monks by Murchard O’Meaghljn, King of Meath, and dedicated to Our Lady (A.D. 1146). Beaubec, another Cistercian house in the same county, was built by Walter de Lacy, Lord of Meath, in the Thirteenth Century, and dedicated to the Blessed Mother of God and St. Laurence; whilst in the adjoining County of West Meath, yet another was erected for the same Order, on the site of the ancient monastery of Kilbeggan, founded by St. Becan in the Sixth Century. Again the community was supplied from Mellifont, and again the Immaculate Virgin was chosen as the patroness.

    The abbey at Baltinglass, County Wicklow, endowed about 1148 by Diarmit MacMurrough, is interesting because an incident in connection with it gives us a vivid picture of the character of its inmates. When John Comyn, the English Archbishop of Dublin, convened a synod in Christ Church, Albinus O’Mulloy, Abbot of Baltinglass, and afterwards Bishop of Ferns, was present, and protested so convincingly and courageously ‘against certain abuses and scandals existing among the English and Welsh clergy that he succeeded in getting those evils removed,” despite the fact that Archbishop Comyn had insisted on the famous Gerald Barry coming forward to refute the charges made. Barry, though he did his utmost to defend his countrymen, at the same time felt compelled, in the interests of both justice and honor, to speak ‘in the highest terms of the exemplary lives of the devoted priests of Ireland, who “excelled in all virtues, being most diligent in prayer and study, and opposed to all worldliness; their austerity, too, was so great,” he added, that “most of them fasted until dusk every day.”

    There was a very large and important Cistercian abbey at Boyle, County Roscommon. This house was endowed by MacDermott, Prince of Moylurg, and soon became one of the most renowned monastic institutions in Europe. Its church was consecrated with stately ceremonial, and placed under the protection of Our Lady. Seven years later however, in 1235, the cloistered calm of these holy religious was rudely broken. The English troops, commanded by Maurice Fitzgerald and Mac William Bourke, sacked the glorious abbey; though “the effects of their ravages,” we are told, were “soon repaired by the piety of the Irish faithful.” There are a number of noted and interesting persons whose names are connected with Boyle; amongst them one of its abbots, Dunchad O’Daly, known as the “Ovid of Ireland.”

    Again, Dermot Roe MacDermot— a descendant of the noble founder — heard the divine call, and gladly resigned his rank and all earthly pleasures and ambitions (for he, too, was Prince of Moylurg), in order to become a monk in the abbey which had probably benefited not a little by his generosity while he was still in the world. Another member of the MacDermot family, Tumaltach, was abbot at the time of the dissolution or suppression of the monastery in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; whilst his successor, Father Gelasius O’Cullenan, who belonged to an old Connaught family, was to shed, not only the glory of a saintly and illustrious name, but the far higher honor of a sanctity crowned by martyrdom, on this celebrated house over which he had ruled wisely and so well.

    Wonderful and Mysterious.
    With extraordinary courage, he demanded that all the monastic lands and buildings should be restored to their rightful possessors by the apostate nobleman on whom they had been bestowed; and so wonderful and mysterious are the workings of divine grace, that this royal favorite gave back everything granted to him by Elizabeth’s agents; but what is more, his intercourse with the abbot, and the influence of the latter, or, rather, the beauty of his holiness, combined with the austere life led by him and his community, so wrought upon the erstwhile heretic that “he himself actually took the religious habit among them, after having given a most; edifying proof of the sincerity of his conversion.” Nevertheless, the insensate bigotry, so relentless and so vigilant in those so-called “spacious days,” was soon destined to put the abbot’s intrepidity and fortitude to a still more terrible test.

    Father Gelasius was arrested in Dublin (15S0), liberty and all kinds of honours and rewards being offered to him on condition that he would renounce his faith as a Catholic, and conform to the new religion. Needless to say that he scorned to listen to such proposals, and was immediately sentenced to a most cruel death, which he met with such unshrinking courage, calmness and, indeed, holy joy, that all who were privileged to behold him before and during that awful ordeal, unhesitatingly declare him to have been “the pride of the Cistercian Order, the light of that century and the glory of all Ireland.”

    Another of the earliest Cistercian houses established in Erin was undoubtedly that of Odorney, County Kerry, endowed by a member of the FitzMaurice family, in 1154; and, of course, dedicated to Our Lady. From the fact that its abbot took rank as a peer of the realm, it is evident that this abbey was one of those important houses of the Order. Here, too, that zealous prelate, Christian O’Conarchy, Bishop of Lismore and Legate Apostolic in Ireland, retired towards the close of his episcopal labors, and in this holy retreat died (1186).

    There were two Cistercian monasteries in County Longford, both dedicated to the Mother of Our Lord — one at Shruel, and the other at Lerrha. The latter abbey suffered severely at the hands of the rough soldiers of Edward Bruce.

    The White Monks at Newry.
    The abbey of the White Monks at Newry was also one of the early Cistercian foundations. It was endowed by Maurice MacLoughlin, “Monarch of Ireland.” From its annals, we learn that in 1162 its library was destroyed by fire as well, as the “Yew Tree” said to have been planted by St. Patrick, and from which Newry derives its name.This was one of the monasteries which, because it had been established for the “mere Irish,” King Edward III., with a singular lack of what has been termed ‘the English love -of fair play,’ robbed it of all its possessions, granting most of the land to one of his English subjects. We also find that, by an iniquitous act, made some years later, Irish subjects were excluded from certain monasteries even in their own land. Such was the case in the Cistercian abbey at Tracton, County Cork.

    The Abbey of Ashroe on the River Erne, near Ballyshannon in County Donegal, was built by Roderick O’Cananan, Prince of Tyrconnell, and was the home of many noted personages. A king of Tyrconnell, Donnell O’Donnell, went there to prepare for his end in 1240. Another member of the same family, Thomas MacCormac O’Donnell, an abbot of this monastery, renowned for his sanctity and learning, was consecrated Bishop of Raphoe, and another of its monks governed the See of Achonry. The whole of the property belonging to Ashroe was seized by the Elizabethan plunderers; and when the protectors of the monks, the noble O’Neills and O’Donnells, had at last been driven by the English into exile, the abbey was ruthlessly pillaged, and four Fathers, amongst whom was Father Edmund Mulligan, ‘the oldest of the Cistercians in Ireland,’ at different times during that awful period of persecution, laid down their lives for the faith they had professed with such heroic constancy.

    The Abbey of Corcumroe, County Clare, “was royally endowed for the Order of Citeaux.” It, too, was under the patronage of Our Lady, and went by the name of “Abbey of the Fertile Rock,” probably because it stood not far from a celebrated holy well dedicated to St. Patrick on the very summit of Rosraly Mountain; while the surrounding neighborhood bore the charming title of the “Glen of the Monks.”

    The Roches founded an abbey for the Cistercians at Fermoy, on the Blackwater; and as the years went on, Cistercian abbeys sprang up in other parts of the country, bringing holiness and learning wheresoever they were. We can not wonder, therefore, at the horror and indignation expressed by even the most hostile of the modern critics of the Catholic Church when reflecting on those wanton sacrileges and insensate destruction of , all that was beautiful and of prayer, as well as the run of the glorious buildings themselves, brought about by the suppression of the monasteries.

    It has been truly said that “the priests of England and Scotland were by no means indifferent to the calamity which had fallen upon them also; but the efforts of heroic confessors among them could not prevail against the self-interest blinding the ignorant people of both those countries to the value of the treasure of which they were being deprived.” In Ireland, however, the fervour of the faithful, their devotedness to the suffering servants of God, and the immensity of the sacrifices they were called upon to make, seemed only to render more precious in their eyes that priceless heritage of Christian truth which they have preserved unsullied through the most cruel persecutions that it was their lot to endure.

    The Cistercian Order is now represented in Erin by the Monasteries of Mount Melleray and Roscrea.

    Freeman’s Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 – 1932), Thursday 17 February 1927, page 41

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  • Saint Bríg of Annaghdown: Ireland’s Saint Scholastica


    February 10 is the feast of Saint Scholastica, twin sister of Saint Benedict, the father of western monasticism.  The pair enjoyed what modern scholar Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg has described as ‘perhaps one of the most famous examples of affection and love within the saintly sibling relationship’. I have always enjoyed how the Irish priest, Father Jerome Fahy, in an article on the Diocese of Annaghdown which you can read at the blog here, likened their relationship to that of the Irish saints Brendan and Bríg, describing them as ‘the Benedict and Scholastica of Ireland’. Unfortunately, whilst Saint Scholastica has her own day defined on the calendars of the saints, her Irish counterpart does not. There are over a dozen Irish female saints who share the name Bríg (Briga, Brígh), most of whom are untraceable. Canon O’Hanlon suggested in his entry for Saint Bríg of Coirpre on January 7 that she may be Brendan’s sister, but provided no supporting evidence. The place name Coirpre (Cairbre, modern Carbury) occurs in a number of different localities in Ireland. However, the Life of Saint Brendan clearly associates his sister with the County Galway monastery of Annaghdown, yet no feast for Bríg of Annaghdown is to be found on the calendars. Like other Irish female saints who have no written Life of their own, what we know of Bríg is drawn from the Life of her famous brother, just as our knowledge of Scholastica is founded on the Dialogues of Pope Saint Gregory the Great, who dedicated Book II of his four-volume collection on the lives and miracles of Italian saints to Saint Benedict. The Lives tell us that Saint Scholastica was the abbess of Plumbariola, just a few miles away from her brother’s foundation at Monte Cassino, whilst Bríga was at the convent of Annaghdown, County Galway, where the local church to this day remains dedicated to Saint Brendan. Scholastica seems to have visited her saintly sibling on an annual basis, the leadership of a monastic familia taking precedence over biological family ties for those dedicated to the religious life. As Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg points out:

    It was only with the realization of impending death that some of these male siblings finally felt free to see their sisters and express the affection which they had withheld for ascetic purposes during their lifetime. A primary focus of many of the vitae is on the saint’s final hours and deathbed scene: this was an especially important moment to be shared with one’s closest relatives and friends. Therefore, sisters and brothers often assumed a crucial role in the events surrounding the death of their saintly siblings: they were designated to carry out special instructions for burial; they remembered each other in prayers…; they frequently expressed a final wish that they be buried together, and promised each other that they would meet again in the celestial realm.

    Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500–1100 (University of Chicago Press, 1998), 297.

    The author also points out a further trope found in a number of the vitae – the foreknowledge of a sibling’s death or a description of their arrival in heaven. This is the case with Saint Benedict and his sister, described below by Pope Saint Gregory the Great who first establishes the background to the death of Saint Scholastica. I noted here that it is the woman, Scholastica, who seems to meet with the writer’s approval rather than the  subject of the Life, Saint Benedict, much as another Irish woman saint, Cannera of Bantry, does in her encounter with Saint Senan of Scattery Island:

    CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: Of a Miracle Wrought by his Sister, Scholastica.

    ….I must tell you how there was one thing which the venerable father Benedict would have liked to do, but he could not.

    His sister, named Scholastica, was dedicated from her infancy to our Lord. Once a year she came to visit her brother. The man of God went to her not far from the gate of his monastery, at a place that belonged to the Abbey. It was there he would entertain her. Once upon a time she came to visit according to her custom, and her venerable brother with his monks went there to meet her.

    They spent the whole day in the praises of God and spiritual talk, and when it was almost night, they dined together. As they were yet sitting at the table, talking of devout matters, it began to get dark. The holy Nun, his sister, entreated him to stay there all night that they might spend it in discoursing of the joys of heaven. By no persuasion, however, would he agree to that, saying that he might not by any means stay all night outside of his Abbey.

    At that time, the sky was so clear that no cloud was to be seen. The Nun, hearing this denial of her brother, joined her hands together, laid them on the table, bowed her head on her hands, and prayed to almighty God.

    Lifting her head from the table, there fell suddenly such a tempest of lightning and thundering, and such abundance of rain, that neither venerable Benedict, nor his monks that were with him, could put their heads out of doors. The holy Nun, having rested her head on her hands, poured forth such a flood of tears on the table, that she transformed the clear air to a watery sky.

    After the end of her devotions, that storm of rain followed; her prayer and the rain so met together, that as she lifted up her head from the table, the thunder began.  So it was that in one and the very same instant that she lifted up her head, she brought down the rain.

    The man of God, seeing that he could not, in the midst of such thunder and lightning and great abundance of rain return to his Abbey, began to be heavy and to complain to his sister, saying: “God forgive you, what have you done?” She answered him, “I desired you to stay, and you would not hear me; I have desired it of our good Lord, and he has granted my petition. Therefore if you can now depart, in God’s name return to your monastery, and leave me here alone.”

    But the good father, not being able to leave, tarried there against his will where before he would not have stayed willingly. By that means, they watched all night and with spiritual and heavenly talk mutually comforted one another.

    Therefore, by this we see, as I said before, that he would have had one thing, but he could not effect it.  For if we know the venerable man’s mind, there is no question but that he would have had the same fair weather to have continued as it was when he left his monastery.  He found, however, that a miracle prevented his desire. A miracle that, by the power of almighty God, a woman’s prayers had wrought.

    Is it not a thing to be marveled at, that a woman, who for a long time had not seen her brother, might do more in that instance than he could? She realized, according to the saying of St. John, “God is charity” [1 John 4:8]. Therefore, as is right, she who loved more, did more.

    This proves to be the last encounter between the siblings as the next chapter describes Saint Benedict’s vision of his sister’s death and his determination that they would remain united:

    CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: How Benedict Saw the Soul of his Sister Ascend into Heavenly Glory.

    GREGORY: The next day the venerable woman returned to her nunnery, and the man of God to his abbey. Three days later, standing in his cell, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he beheld the soul of his sister (which was departed from her body) ascend into heaven in the likeness of a dove.

    Rejoicing much to see her great glory, with hymns and praise he gave thanks to almighty God, and imparted the news of her death to his monks.  He sent them presently to bring her corpse to his Abbey, to have it buried in that grave which he had provided for himself. By this means it fell out that, as their souls were always one in God while they lived, so their bodies continued together after their death.

    Gregory the Great (c. 540-604), Dialogues, Book II (Life and Miracles of St. Benedict).

    Sadly, the accounts of the Irish Benedict and Scholastica are not quite so detailed. In the Betha Brendain, the Irish Life of Saint Brendan, we first meet Saint Bríg when the young Brendan is studying with his foster father Bishop Erc and the hagiographer leaves us in no doubt about the strong bond of love between the siblings:

    (12) Brig, daughter of Findlug, his sister, was with him there, and great was his love for her, for he saw the attendance of angels above her.

    Having established this affectionate relationship between the siblings in childhood, it is at the end of his life that we encounter Saint Bríg once again:

    (206) Brendan after this went to visit his sister Brig at the fort of Aed son of Eochaid, which is now called Enach Duin. So then, after traversing sea and land, after raising dead men, healing lepers, blind, deaf, lame, and all kinds of sick folk, after founding many cells, and monasteries, and holy churches, after appointing abbots and masters, after blessing cataracts and estuaries, after consecrating districts and tribes, after putting down crimes and sins, after great perils by sea and land, after expelling demons and vices, after pre-eminence in pilgrimage and (ascetic) devotion, after performance of mighty works and miracles too numerous to mention, St. Brendan drew near to the day of his death.

    (207) Then said Brendan to the brethren after Mass on the Sunday, and after receiving the body of Christ and His blood: ‘God,’ said he, is calling me to the eternal kingdom; and my body must be taken to Clonfert, for there will be attendance of angels there, and there will be my resurrection…..

    (208) When he had finished saying all this, he blessed the brethren and his sister Brig, and when he reached the threshold of the church, he said: ‘In manus tuas, Domine,’ etc, Then he sent forth his spirit….

    C. Plummer, ed. and trans., Bethada Náem nÉrenn – Lives of Irish Saints, Vol. II (Oxford, 1922), 46; 91.

    It is at Annaghdown then, his beloved sister present among the monastic brethren, that Saint Brendan’s earthly life ends. I noted too how the hagiographer specifically named Saint Bríg as a recipient of her brother’s final blessing, thus putting her, along with Saint Scholastica, into the category of Sorores Sanctae identified by Tibbetts Schulenburg.

    Deus, qui beátae Vírginis tuæ Scholásticæ ánimam ad ostendéndam [innocéntiæ viam in colúmbæ spécie cælum penetráre fecísti: da nobis eius méritis et précibus ita innocénter vivere; ut ad ætérna mereámur gáudia perveníre. Per Dóminum.]

    Let us pray: O God, Who, to show the innocence of her life, didst cause the soul of Thy blessed Virgin Scholastica to ascend to Heaven in the form of a dove: grant, we beseech Thee, by her merits and prayers, that we may live so innocently, as to deserve to arrive at eternal joys. Through Jesus Christ, Thine only-begotten Son, Our Lord, Who with Thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, God, for ever and ever.

    R. Amen.

    Collect for the Feast of Saint Scholastica, February 10.

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  • Saint Molaisse of Kilmolash, January 17

    January 17th is the feast of Saint Molaisse of Kilmolash, County Waterford. Like the other male saints with whom he shares his feast day, Ultán, Earnán and Clairnech, his name is also one shared by a number of saints. There are at least forty other saints called Molaisse found on the twelfth-century List of Homonymous Saints and thus trying to distinguish one from another is not an easy task. The most well-known bearers of this name are the patrons of Leighlin and Devenish and it is likely that some of the other saints Molaisse are doubles of this better-known duo. John O’Donovan, who was in the district of Kilmolash in June 1841 as part of his work for the Ordnance Survey, said of the parish ‘[Its name] is in Irish Cill Molaise, which signifies the church of St Molash, the celebrated saint of Devenish on Lough Erne’. It appears, therefore, that he believed Molaisse of Kilmolash to be the same person as Molaisse of Devenish. O’Donovan also recorded of the holy well that ‘Stations are still performed here but on no particular day, St Molaise’s being now forgotten’ (OS Letters, Waterford, p.133, 136).

    Since not much can be confidently stated, Canon O’Hanlon takes refuge in poetry in the entry for Saint Molaisse in Volume I of his Lives of the Irish Saints:

    Article VI. St. Molaisse, of Cill-Molaisi, now Kilmolash, County of Waterford.

    A festival in honor of Molaisse, of Cill-Molaisse, is entered in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 17th of January. From the following notice, this place should be sought for in the Decies of Munster; for on this day, Molaisi, of Cill-Molaisi, in Deisi-Mumhan, is recorded in the Martyrology of Donegal. We find the exact place, in the present denomination of Kilmolash parish, partly in the barony of Decies-within-Drum, but chiefly in that of Decies-without-Drum, in the county of Waterford. The ruins of religious edifices may yet be seen within this parish, and on a townland bearing a like name. Although the time when this present saint flourished has escaped detection, yet of his place the truant imagination depicts in the times of old

    ” various goodly-visaged men and youths resorting there,
    Some by the flood-side lonely walked; and other some were seen
    Who rapt apart in silent thought paced each his several green;
    And stretched in dell and dark ravine, were some that lay supine,
    And some in posture prone that lay, and conn’d the written line.”

    [“Congal” by Sir Samuel Ferguson, Book i, lines 18-22.]

    Rev. John O’Hanlon, Lives of the Irish Saints, Volume I (Dublin, 1875?), p.299.

    Diocese historian, Canon Patrick Power, mentioned a holy well less than a mile from Kilmolash but attributed its dedication to Saint Colum Cille, whilst noting that a well which once adjoined the church was now lost:

    Proceeding along the bank of the Finisk in a south-easterly direction for about a mile, we come to Kilmolash Bridge, adjoining which stand the ruins of a very ancient church, known as Kilmolash Church. It stands in the centre of an enclosed graveyard, on a higher level than the road, which passes within a few yards of it, and its evident antiquity adds considerably to the interest of the locality, which is extremely picturesque. The townland is situated in the electoral division of Whitechurch, and it is also a parish in the Dungarvan Union. I have been informed by several old people of the place that a holy well exists in a field adjoining the church, but that it was covered in many years ago, and now no trace of it can be found.

    It is stated by the Bollandists that the Danes plundered Kilmolash.
    As it is recorded that in the years 912, 913, and 915 Dungarvan and Lismore were plundered by these marauders, in fact that the greatest part of Munster was wasted by them and the booty taken to Waterford, in all probability Kilmolash suffered from them on their march from Dungarvan to Lismore.

    About half-a-mile distant from Kilmolash Church may be seen the Holy Well of St. Columbkille. It is situated in Curraghroche Wood, in a very secluded spot, and surrounded by fine specimens of oak trees. The people of the district hold this well in great veneration, and sick and afflicted people are often brought there in the pious belief that the great saintwill restore them to health. When and under what circumstances St. Columbkille visited this locality I have no record to show, but perhaps some of the many readers of the Journal may be able to point out.

    Rev. P. Power, ‘Ancient Ruined Churches of Co. Waterford’, Journal of the Waterford & South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, (1894-95), Volume 1, 155-56.

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