OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Saints of Cork

  • Saint Eolang of Aghabullogue, September 5

    September 5 is the commemoration of a County Cork saint, Eolang of Aghabullogue. As Canon O’Hanlon’s account below makes clear there was some confusion among hagiologists about the locality where he flourished, with some being misled into identifying ‘Achaid-bo’ as Aghaboe, County Laois. Professor Pádraig Ó Riain, who has made a special study of Cork patron Saint Finbarr, confirms in his 2011 Dictionary of Irish Saints that Eolang was patron of the East Muskerry church of Aghabullogue. The twelfth-century Life of Saint Finbarr presents Eolang as Finbarr’s father-confessor and includes episodes such as this:

    “Eolang placed Barra’s hand in the hand of the Lord himself on the site of Eolang’s tomb in the presence of angels and archangels, and said: ‘O Lord, receive this just man.’ Whereupon the Lord raised Barra’s hand to himself in heaven. However, Eolang then said: ‘O Lord do not take Barra away from me until it is time for his body to be released.’ The Lord then released Barra’s hand, and from that day on no one could look at the hand because of its brightness. That is why he always covered it with a glove.”

    Pádraig Ó Riain, ed.,  Bheatha Bharra, Saint Finbarr of Cork: The Complete Life (London, 1994), 81.

    Canon O’Hanlon’s account also mentions a holy well associated with the church of Aghabullogue and dedicated to our saint under the anglicised version of his name, Olan. In a study of the holy wells of East Muskerry, P.J. Hartnett described the well, its associated sites and the traditional ‘stations’ performed there:

    Regarding the rounds paid I must, first of all, point out that St. Olan’s Well is one of a chain of three “Stations”; the other two – St.Olan’s Stone and St. Olan’s Cap – being located in the neighbouring town land of Coolineagh. The Olan whose name is here perpetuated was, of course, the patron saint of the parish of Aghabullogue, as well as being the preceptor of St. Finbarr of Cork. His name is recorded in the Martyrology of Donegal as Eolang, Eulang, or Eulogius, and his feast-day occurs on September 5th. It is on this date that rounds are paid at all three stations. 

    P. J. Hartnett, ‘The Holy Wells of East Muskerry’ in Béaloideas, Iml. 10, Uimh 1/2 (Jun. – Dec., 1940), pp. 101-113.

    Hartnett goes on to give some interesting details of these three stations including the fact that both the well and the cap include stones with ogham inscriptions. Saint Olan’s Cap had a reputation for healing and ‘was much sought after for various feminine ailments, particularly maternity cases’. Saint Olan’s stone had two ‘foot-like’ impressions which local people believed to be the imprints of the holy man’s bare feet!
    So, let us conclude with the entry from Volume IX of Canon O’Hanlon’s Lives of the Irish Saints:

    St. Eolang, said to have been of Aghaboe, Queen’s County, yet probably of Aghabollogue, County of Cork.

    This holy man must have lived during an early century of Christianity in the Irish Church, since his name has been entered in the Calendar of Oengus, where he is designated a “fair pillar” and a “victory of piety.” The published Martyrology of Tallagh mentions, and also the copy in the Book of Leinster, that, at the 5th of September, veneration was given to Eolang, of Achaid-bo. This is the celebrated Aghaboe, a parish in the barony of Clarmallagh, and in the southern part of the Queen’s County. In the Martyrology of Donegal, at the same date, he is recorded as Eolang, of Achadh-bo-Cainnigh, in Osraighe. The O’Clerys state, that he was descended from the race of Conaire, son to Moghlamha, Monarch of Erin, according to the poem beginning, “The Saint-History of the Saints of Inis Fail.” After the entry of this holy man’s name in the last-mentioned calendar, a space is left, as if to supply a notice of his ecclesiastical rank, when that might have been better ascertained. However, such identification of his locality seems to be more than doubtful, since Mr. William M. Hennessy states: “There is a Tober Eolang, near Aghabollogue, County of Cork, where Eolang’ s name is venerated at the 5th of September.” In the table appended to the Martyrology of Donegal, this saint’s name is Latinised Eulogius. Among the abbots or religious of Aghaboe, as entered in the Irish Annals, the name of Eolang does not occur.

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  • Saint Ultán of Cork, July 12

    July 12 is the commemoration of a County Cork saint, Ultán. Canon O’Hanlon, as he often does when there is not much to say about the individual life of a saint, talks instead about places, in this case Cork city. Modern scholar Pádraig Ó Riain however, informs us in his Dictionary of Irish Saints that our saint is most likely to be associated with Caherultan in the parish of Ballyoughtera, not far from Clonpriest, whose patron Colmán shares Ultán’s July 12 feast day. Canon O’Hanlon’s account below does not make this connection:

    St. Ultan, of Cork, County of Cork.

    The Martyrology of Donegal mentions, that veneration was given to Ultan of Corcach, at the 12th of July. The city of Cork derives its name from the Irish word Corca, “marsh” sometimes called Corca-mor,” the great marsh.” It was a tract of low ground, often flooded, near the debouchment of the River Lee. This celebrated district has a pre-Christian history ; but its Christian origin dates back to the earlier part of the seventh century.  Other accounts, at an earlier period, make St. Finbarr first founder of a religious house at this place. The present city of Cork—the main part of it south of the river—stands over a concealed network of running waters, veins from the Lee, and above the city is the public walk called Mardyke—interpreted Marshes-dyke. At the 12th of July, likewise, the Bollandists  record a festival for Ultanus mundus de Corcagia.

     

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  • Saint Inneen of Dromtariff, May 6

    The female saint commemorated today, May 6, is interesting on two counts. First, because her festival is not actually recorded on the calendars but is preserved in popular devotion and secondly because she has no proper name. Irish readers will recognise the word iníon, ‘daughter’ in the anglicized word Inneen. Folklore records that she was one of three sisters, her sibling Lateerin has an interesting tale associated of her own to which we will return on her own feast day of July 24. Here is a brief introduction to Saint Inneen from a contributor to the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, who wrote under the pseudonym ‘Mananaan Mac Lir’:

    The 5th of May is the festival of a nameless saint who is known as An Inghen Buidhe a Drom Tarbh, i.e. “the yellow (haired) daughter of Dromtariff” (“the ridge of the bull”). The local tradition is that SS. Lateerin of Cullin, Lassera of Killossory, in Kilmeen parish, and this “yellow-haired daughter,” were sisters who led an eremitical life in those three respective and adjoining parishes in Duhallow. One night the angels came down from heaven and made a tochar  i.e. “causeway,” from Killossory to Dromtariff, and thence to Cullin, so that those holy women might the more easily meet and converse with one another. The “patron day ” at Killossory is now discontinued, but a large “patron” isstill held at Dromtariff holy well on each recurring May 5. The locality of “the yellow-haired daughter’s” holy well — about one hundred and fifty yards south of Dromtariff grave-yard and overlooking the majestic Blackwater — is shown on the Ordnance Townland Maps for the county Cork, sheet 31.

    Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, Volume II (1896), 319.

    Canon O’Hanlon has little other information to offer, although he cites May 6 rather than May 5 as the feast day:

    St. Inneen, Dromtariff Old Church, County of Cork.

    In the diocese of Kerry, there is an old church at Dromtariff, in the parish so called, and county of Cork, where a female saint, called Inneen, was venerated, on the 6th of May. According to popular tradition, she was the sister of St. Lateerin, who is likewise popularly known, at Cullin, in that part of the country, and to an older sister, who lived at Kilmeen. It it stated, according to a local tradition, that the angels of Heaven made a road, one night, from Kilmeen  through Dromtariff and on to Cullin, so that the three sisters might the more conveniently visit each other once every week. Much obscurity hangs over their history, as their celebrity appears to be merely local; although, the people, in their part of the country, have a great veneration for those sisters.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.