OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Saints of Louth

  • Saint Sarbile of Faughart, September 4

    September 4 sees the commemoration of Saint Sarbile from the Faughart district of County Louth, which some hagiographical traditions claim to be the birthplace of Saint Brigid of Kildare. The Faughart area is also hailed as the birthplace of Saint Monnina of Killeavy. The Irish sources agree that Monnina was not the original name of this holy woman and most record that she was originally called Dareca. This comment on the Leabhar Breac copy of the Feilire of Oengus, however also notes “Moninne of Slieve Gullion, and Sarbile was her name previously. Or Darerca was her name at first…” So it seems there may be some confusion here. In Volume IX of his Lives of the Irish Saints Canon O’Hanlon provides the few details on the life of Saint Sarbile:

    St. Sarbile, Virgin of Fochart, County of Louth.

    As Mary, mentioned in the Gospel, loved to sit at the feet of Jesus, so do holy virgins desire that calm and rest, in which His voice is best heard speaking to their hearts. We find set down in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 4th of September, that veneration was given to Sarbile, Virgin of Fochairde, or Fochart, in the old district of Murtheimhne. This is now a level country in the present County of Louth. It extends from the River Boyne to the Mountains of Cuilgne, or Carlingford. The Martyrology of Donegal simply records the name Sarbile, of Fochard, at the same date. This may have been the St. Orbilia, Virgin, whose Acts Colgan had intended to produce at the present day, as we have gathered from the list of his unpublished manuscripts.

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  • Saint Molocca of Tullyallen, August 7

    Among the saints commemorated on the Irish calendars at August 7 is one whom Canon O’Hanlon feels is associated with a locality in County Louth. All he can tell us of Saint Molocca is the recording of his name at this date:

    St. Molocca or Molacca, of Tulach-h-Olainn, or Tullyallen, County of Louth.

    The name Molocca or Molacca, of Tulach-h-Olainn, is set down in the Martyrologies of Tallagh, and of Donegal, at this date. In the former of these Calendars, his place is less correctly spelled Thilaigh olaind. The place is now Tullyallen, in the County of Louth .

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  • Saint Teca of Rooskey, October 18

    At October 18 the Irish calendars record the name of a female saint, Teca and associate her with the locality of ‘Ruscach, in Cuailgne’. The Martyrology of Donegal records:

    18. D. QUINTO DECIMO KAL. OCTOBRIS. 18. 

    TECA, Virgin, of Ruscach, in Cuailgne.

    The earlier Martyrology of Tallaght, however, gives an affectionate twist on her name and records at the same date:

    Mothecca Rúscaigi  (my Teca of Rúscach).

    The index of places appended to the Martyrology identifies our saint’s locality as Rooskey, County Louth. This place is mentioned in the Life of Saint Moninna, when that saint, originally named Darerca, was first involved with the religious life:

    There were with her at first, as they tell, eight virgins, as well as one widow who had a small boy named Luger. Darerca adopted the child as her foster son and when she had thoroughly accustomed him to the ways of the church, she raised him to the high dignity of a bishop.  He crowned his good works as leader of the whole of his people – the Conaille – by building the church of  Rúscach [Rooskey, Cooley, County Louth] in honour of God.

    Liam de Paor, ed and trans., ‘The Life of Saint Darerca, or Moninna, the Abbess’ in Saint Patrick’s World (Dublin, 1993), 282.
    I have no further information on Saint Teca or at what period she flourished.

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