OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Irish Saints

  • Saint Nechtlic the Bishop, May 23

    On May 23 the Irish calendars record the commemoration of a saintly bishop, but Saint Nechtlic is one of the many Irish saints for whom we have no other details. Canon O’Hanlon shares what the calendars record:

    St. Nechtlaice, or Nechtlic, Bishop.

    The name Nechtliacc, Bishop, is venerated, in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 23rd of May. The Bollandists, in like manner, commemorated Nechtlagius Episcopus, at the same date; but, we find no means of knowing when he flourished, or where he presided over any See. It is entered, likewise, in the Martyrology of Donegal, that Nechtlic, Bishop, had a festival on this day.

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  • Saint Meithcearn, April 23

    On the Irish calendars April 23 is primarily the feast of Saint Ibar, but he shares the day with a much more obscure saint, Meithcearn, of whom all we know is the recording of his name in the calendars, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

    St. Meithcearn.

    On this day, according to the Martyrology of Donegal, there was a festival in honour of Meithcearn. We can find nothing more to throw light on this saint’s memory.

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  • Saint Aedhan Mac Ua Duibhne, April 8

    On April 8 Canon O’Hanlon brings us an account of a Saint Aedhan, distinguished from others of the same name by the patronymic Mac Ua Duibhne. The seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father Colgan, believed he was the same man as a ninth-century monastic of Durrow:

    St. Aedhan, Mac Ua Duibhne.

    The published Martyrology of Tallagh has a record, at the 8th of April, regarding a festival to Aedan Mac h. Suibne. Marianus O’Gorman enters a St. Aidan, at this day. Colgan thinks, he must be identical with a Scribe or Chronographer of Durrow, in the King’s County, and whose death is recorded, in the Annals of the Four Masters, under A.D. 827. At another reference, where Colgan enumerates various saints, who bore the name of Aidan, in his Appendix to the Acts of St. Maidoc, also called Aidan, or Aedan, he introduces the present holy man, known as Aidanus filius Hua Duibhna.The Bollandists have entered his feast, at the 8th of April, as Aidanus filius Hua-Dubnei. Thus, uncertainty prevails regarding him. Aedhan, Mac Ua Duibhne, was venerated, on this day, as we read in the Martyrology of Donegal.
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