OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Saints of Tipperary

  • Saint Colum of Terryglass, December 13

    December 13 is the feast of a saint known for his ascetic life – Saint Colum of Terryglass, County Tipperary. Saint Colum (also known as Columba or Colman) was a disciple of Saint Finnian of Clonard, whose feast we celebrated yesterday, and features among that elite group known as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. He was chosen by the ‘Tutor of the Saints of Ireland’ as the man to give his master the Holy Communion on his deathbed, as the Irish Life of Saint Finnian explains:

    2646. Once he sent his pupil, even bishop Senach, to find out what the folk of his school were doing. Different, in sooth, was that at which each of them was found, yet all were good. Colomb, son of Crimthann, was found with his hands stretched forth, and his mind contemplative in God, and birds resting on his hands and on his head. When that was told to Findian he said : ‘ The hands of that man,’ saith he, ‘shall give me communion and sacrifice at the ending days.’

    And this prophecy was fulfilled in a miraculous fashion:

    2769. Now, when it came to the ending days of this holy Findian, his guardian angel sent him to Inis Mac n-Eirc on Luimnech, and brought Colomb, son of Crimhthan [with his gillie], with his book-satchel, on two clouds to Clonard. And Findian received communion and sacrifice from his hand, and sent his spirit to heaven at the end of a hundred and forty years.

    Whitley Stokes ed.and trans. Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore, (Oxford, 1890).

    The Irish Calendars agree in recording Saint Colum’s feast on December 13. The entry for today in the early Martyrology of Oengus reads:

    13. For the dear multitudinous day,
    may they come with many thousands,
    Baethan the pious of Cluain,
    Colomb the abstinent of Tir (dá glais).

    while the later Martyrology of Donegal gives some information on the translation of the saint’s relics:

    COLUM, of Tir-dá-glas, son of Ninnidh, of the race of Cathaoir Mór, king of Erin, who is of the race of Labhraidh Lorc, son of Ugaine Mór, etc. ; and Mincloth, sister of Caemell, daughter of Ceannfionnan, son of Ceis, son of Lughar, was his mother.

    Him Aenghus calls Colum Mac Crimhthainn, and other authors call him Mac Ui Cremhthannain. It was he that gave the sacrifice to Finnen, of Cluain-Eraird ; and he was a disciple of Finnen.

    Macaoimhe, of Tir-dá-ghlas, and Odhran brought his relics to Inis Cealtra, as Ciaran of Saighir had foretold in his own Life, chap. 6, and as Mochaemhog had foretold when he was baptizing Odhran.

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  • The Daughters of Cainnech, September 24

    When I first saw the notice for The Daughters of Cainnech in the list of contents of saints commemorated on September 24 in Volume 9 of the Lives of the Irish Saints, I assumed that Canon O’Hanlon would be unable to bring us any details apart from the notices from the calendars. In this case, however, a County Waterford priest had written to the author with details of the lineage and locality of these holy women, whom he linked to Saint Declan. Cainnech’s daughters are only one of a number of similar filial groupings recorded on the Irish calendars, the most famous of which is probably the Daughters of Leinin, whose name lives on in the County Dublin placename now Anglicized as Killiney. In some of these cases, like Leinin’s daughters or the Daughters of Comgall who are commemorated on January 22, tradition records the names of the individuals who make up the group. That doesn’t seem to be the case here, but the locality where the daughters of Cainnech flourished is firmly identified with Molough, near Clonmel, County Tipperary. In the 14th century the Butler family founded a nunnery dedicated to Saint Brigid of Kildare on the site, and I have reproduced the details and sketch of the ruins.

    The Daughters of Cainnech, or Maghlocha, County of Tipperary. [Sixth Century.]

    According to the manuscript and published Martyrology of Tallagh, the Daughters of Cainnech had veneration paid them, at the 24th of September. The Martyrology of Marianus O’Gorman commemorates the festival of Cainnech’s chaste daughters, at this same day. The glossographer adds, that they belonged to Maigh Locha. Their parentage and locality have been fully identified. These holy women were the children of a chieftain who lived in the time of St. Declan, patron of Ardmore, and whose castle had been saved from fire by the latter. Their place was formerly called Magh Locha, now Molough, near the great bend of the River Suir, and not many miles from Clonmel, in the County of Tipperary. There they seem to have lived in religious retirement, most probably some time in the sixth century. Of their lives, however, we find no record.

    Long after that time, their place is said to have been the site for a nunnery, dedicated to St. Brigid, in the former diocese of Lismore. It is mentioned by Archdall, as being in the County of Tipperary; but, he is wrong in placing it near Carrick-on-Suir. The ruins of the old nunnery of Moylough are situated on level ground, about one furlong north of the River Suir. In the year 1840, two parts of this building remained, viz., a chapel and a lateral house; but, from the fragments of walls about them, it appeared to have been a habitation of considerable extent. The church or chapel remaining was then in a tolerable state of preservation, extending from east to west, and measuring in length on the inside 60 feet, in breadth it was 27 feet, 6 inches. Two windows were in the east gable, constructed of chiselled and brownish sand-stone. There were three windows on the southwall, but these were much disfigured and built up with rough masonry. The door-way was on the south wall, and at a distance of fourteen feet from the west gable; it was constructed of chiselled and ornamental lime-stone on the outside, and of chiselled sand-stone on the inside. The west gable had been surmounted by a belfry, having two semi-circular arches, constructed of brownish and chiselled sand-stone. The lateral house extended to the northwest of the chapel, and touching it at the north-west corner. It was fifty-five feet in length on the outside, and twenty-seven in breadth. Its walls were three feet six inches in thickness, and about fourteen feet in height.

    In the Martyrology of Donegal, their festival is also inserted, at the 24th of September.

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  • Saint Eoghan, March 15

    March 15 is the feast day of a Saint Eoghan, about whom no other information seems to be known. As the Bollandists note, this is a common name although the scholiast on the seventeenth-century Martyrology of Donegal tried to suggest that he may be Eoghan, the son of Saran, to whom the monastic rule of Saint Ailbhe was addressed, as Canon O’Hanlon reports below:

    St. Eugenius or Eoghan.

    The Martyrology of Tallagh enters a festival for S. Eugenius, simply, at the 15th of March. The Bollandists have merely the name, with an observation, that it is one often met with in the Irish Calendars. The Martyrology of Donegal this day records, Eoghan. “I think,” remarks the writer, “this is Eoghan, son of Saran, of Cluain Caolain, for whom Ailbhe, of Imleach lobhair, composed the very hard rule, which begins, ‘Say for me to the son of Saran,’ &c. For every other person of the same name, that is in the Martyrology, has some title, or church, which he possessed, except the Eoghan, who comes at this day.” In a subsequent page of the Martyrology of Donegal, Dr. Todd places Cluain  Coelain, in the county of Tipperary.
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