So what do we know of this Saint John? Alas, nothing of his life, but the church is mentioned in medieval records:

St. John’s Chapel was valued at three marks in the Taxation of Pope Nicholas, under the name of “the chapel of Styoun,” which name seems to have been formed from the Irish words Tigh-Eóin, “John’s house.” In the calendar of the O’Clerys, the festival of its patron is mentioned on the 17th of August, “Eóin MacCarlain, of Teac Eóin.” Immediately after the coming of the English, Malachi, Bishop of Down, granted the church of “Stechian” to the Abbey of Down. At the Dissolution the tithes of this chapel, under the name of St. Johnstown, were appropriate to the Preceptory of St. John in the Ards. The church, which was of a very ancient style of architecture, measured twenty by thirteen feet in the clear.

Fr J. O’Laverty, An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor Vol 1, (Dublin, 1878), 152-3.

Thus Saint John, Eóin son of Carlan, is one of the many Irish saints about whose life nothing is known, but whose memory has survived in the placenames and ruins of the locality in which he flourished. May he continue to bless County Down and its people.

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On August 10 we commemorate the memory of an abbot of Drumbo, County Down. The hagiographical Tract on the Mothers of the Saints of Ireland suggests that our saint, Cuimmin, was one of a number of brothers, the most famous of whom is Saint Domangart of Slieve Donard, one of Saint Patrick’s early converts in the county. Their mother was reputed to have had four different husbands though! Canon O’Hanlon’s account follows below:

Men should love each other, as Jesus Christ hath loved us, according to His particular and specific injunction. He would commend this precept to us all, as a last and dying legacy.The love of God, therefore, and the love of our neighbour are of one and the self-same essential nature — so connected in theory and so intertwined in the souls of faithful men, that they cannot be separated. There was ever a union of both degrees of love in the souls of the saints. The present holy man was one among a band of saintly brothers, who were the sons of Derinilla, surnamed Cethuir-chicheach, or “of the four provinces.”  Her holy progeny is noticed by St. Aengus the Culdee. These various brothers are called St. Domangart, St. Aillean, St. Aidan,  St. Muran, and St. Cillen.  Although uterine brothers, these were not all children by the same father, for Derinilla is said to have married four different husbands. His place of habitation was Drumbo, Drumboe, or Druimbo, and as Jocelin called it “oppidum Druimbo,” we have sufficient authority for placing a town here, in or before the twelfth century. It is situated within the present County of Down. In the grave-yard stands a considerable portion of a Round Tower, which had the following measurements : viz., 34 feet, 2 inches in height ; the diameter at top 8 feet, 5  and a half inches in the clear; 15 feet 6 inches, out to out; the diameter at the base 8 feet 8 and a half inches; and 16 feet 8 and a half inches, out to out. Towards the close of the last century, this Round Tower appears to have been to its full height; at least, no contrary observation is made by Rev. Daniel Augustus Beaufort, LL.D., who had then seen it.  St. Patrick is represented as visiting this place, which we learn from his ancient Lives, and as hearing near it several gentiles constructing a rath or wall, on a Sunday. This being a day of rest and devotion for him, he prohibited the labourers from prosecuting their work. They mocked him, however, and would not cease. An abbey or a church is said to have been founded here, during the lifetime of the great Irish Apostle. The printed survey of Down, by Walter Harris, describes the old church ruins at this place, as they were before the middle of the last century. However, careless copyists of monastic story assert, that the ruined church there was the vestige of an abbey founded by St. Patrick, and in the beginning of the seventh century presided over by St. Mochumma. In the Book of Armagh, the patron saint of Ireland is said to have been near “Fretum quod Collum Bovis vocatur.” We find John O’Donovan has written: “This Fretum is now Belfast Lough, then called after Drumbo, the nearest and most celebrated town in this part of Uladh. Belfast, after which this strait is now called, was not in existence for centuries afterwards.” This place was near the sea, as we are told, at a port in the northern part of Ireland, and opposite the town of Drumbo, called in Latin “Collis Bovis.” It has been thought, that the present Drumbo, in the Barony of Upper Castlereagh, can hardly be the spot there alluded to, and it is supposed to be probable, that the inner bay of Dundrum may have been intended. A festival was celebrated at this date, as we find registered in the Martyrology of Tallagh,  of Marianus, and of Donegal, in honour of Cuimmin, Abbot of Druimbo, in Uladh.

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Following on the heels of Saint Cronan of Clondalkin, whose feast we celebrated yesterday, we commemorate another Saint Cronan on August 7, this one a seventh-century abbot associated with the County Down monastery of Moville. Whilst once again we do not have many details about our saint as an individual, it is thought that he was one of those mentioned in an exchange of letters between Irish clerics and the Pope during the Paschal dating controversy of the seventh century. Before moving to Canon O’Hanlon’s account, we can start with a few details from one of his contemporaries, Father James O’Laverty, who writes on the monastery of Moville in the second volume of his diocesan history of Down and Connor:

The ruins of the Abbey Church of Moville stand about a mile to the N.E. of Newtownards. It was founded about the year 540 by St. Finnian, or, as he is sometimes called, Findbarr (Whitehead), from the whiteness of his hair…Moville, under Finnian, became one of the greatest schools in Ireland… The Church of Moville was ruled until about the middle of the eighth century by successors of St, Finnian, in whom were united the dignities of bishop and abbot; but after the year 731 Moville is noticed in the Annals only as governed by abbots. The Four Masters record:

A.D. 659. “St. Cronan of Moville died on the 7th day of the month of August.” This is the “Cromanus Presbyter,” whose name appears in the letter written from Rome about the year 640 to the Irish clergy.

Rev. J. O’Laverty, An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, Vol. II (Dublin, 1880), 10-27.

And Canon O’Hanlon in his account of Saint Cronan from Volume VIII of his Lives of the Irish Saints writes:

ST CRONAN, OF MOVILLE, COUNTY OF DOWN.

[SEVENTH CENTURY]

ACCORDING to the Martyrologies of Tallagh and of Donegal, veneration was given, at the 7th day of August, to Cronan, of Magh-bile. This is said to have been the “Cromanus presbyter,” whose name appears in the superscription of that letter written from Rome, A.D. 640. Further particulars relating to this Epistle have been already recorded, in the Life of Diman or Dima Dubh, Bishop of Connor. The holy man Cronan, of Maghbile, died in the year 647, according to the Annals of Clonmacnoise; but, in A.D. 649, according to those of Ulster, and of the Four Masters.

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