OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Saints of Down

  • Saint Sillan of Moville, August 25

     

    August 25 is the commemoration of a saintly abbot of Moville, although whether this was the County Down monastery founded by Saint Finnian or another foundation in the County Donegal location of the same name is open to debate. Although not a great deal is known of Saint Sillan as an individual, his feast is well-attested on the Irish Calendars, as Canon O’Hanlon records:

    St. Sillan, Bishop and Abbot of Magh-bile, or Moville. [Sixth and Seventh Centuries.]

    In the published Martyrology of Tallagh, a notice of this holy prelate’s parentage and place of residence will be found. At the viii. of the Kalends of September, or the 25th of August, his name is likewise to be met in the Tallagh Martyrology contained in the Book of Leinster; and there, besides his being called Bishop and Abbot of Magh-Bile, he is said to have been son to Findchain… The present holy man must have been born about the middle of the sixth century. Where his birth took place does not seem to be known, but probably it was in the northern part of Ireland, and most likely he was trained in a school established in Moville, County of Donegal, at a very early date. However, others consider him to have been connected with Magh-bile, or Moville, in the County of Down.

    …It would seem that St. Sillan flourished towards the close of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century. About this time, he lived in or presided over the ancient monastery founded at Moville. Tighernach and the Annals of Ulster simply style him abbot. The Annals of the Four Masters and of Inisfallen, at 613, call him both bishop and abbot; but the territory in which he actually lived has not been indicated. In our Calendars, Martyrologies, and Annals, Maghbile is often mentioned, and in a general and an absolute manner, without any allusion to a second monastery of that name.

    …At the year 613, the Annals of Innisfallen call this saint, a bishop and an abbot, when recording his death. This event is placed at 618, by the O’Clerys, both in the Martyrology of Donegal, and in the Annals of the Four Masters. According to the statements of Tigernach, the Chronicon Scotorum, and the Annals of Ulster, his demise is recorded at 619. Under the head of Magh-Bile, at this date, Duald Mac Firbis enters Siollan, who is called the son of Fionchan. He is, likewise, styled bishop and abbot of Magh, or Maigh-Bile. Without particularizing his locality, at this same date, the Martyrology of Donegal designates him, Siollan, Bishop and Abbot of Magh-bile. The Irish Calendar, belonging to the Irish Ordnance Survey Records and that at present preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, has a notice of this saint, at the 25th of August.

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  • Saint Eóin MacCarlain, August 17

    August 17 is the feastday of a Saint John (Eóin) of Saint John’s Point, County Down. Virtually nothing is known of this saint, but I visited the church at the location which bears his name in 2009 while on holiday. It is a charming building right on the coast and has only a few farmhouses and a lighthouse for neighbours. There is both a ‘bullaun’ and a holy well immediately outside the fenced perimeter, as I am pleased to say that Environment and Heritage Service take care of the church ruins. Their sign below shows how the church would have looked originally, it certainly wasn’t designed for large numbers or for large people!

    Bullauns are stones with a bowl-shaped depression where water can collect, they are commonly found in Ireland at ecclesiastical sites, and the water in them often used as a cure for headaches. Those who are interested in the New Age line on ‘megaliths’ invest them with a deep significance, but a more prosaic explanation is that they are simply discarded quern stones. This is the bullaun from Saint John’s Point, the step down leads to the well:

     

    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.
    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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  • Saint Cuimmin of Drumbo, August 10

    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:
    Doorway of Drumbo Round Tower (1845)

     

    St. Cuimmin, Abbot of Drumbo, County of Down.

    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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