OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Saints of Waterford

  • Saint Aedhan of Lismore, July 19

    On July 19 the Irish calendars record the commemoration of Saint Aedhan,  an abbot of Lismore, County Waterford. We will start with a summary of the history of this famous foundation by a diocesan historian:

    The church and monastery of Lismore, which grew to be one of the renowned centres of ancient Irish learning and piety, owed its foundation to St. Mochuda of the 7th century. Mochuda, otherwise Carthage, was a native of Kerry, and he had been abbot of Rahan in Offaly. It is probable that there had been a Christian church at Lismore previous to the time of Mochuda, for in the Saint’s Life there is an implied reference to such a foundation. Be this as it may, Mochuda, driven out of Rahan, with his muintir, or religious household, migrated southward, and, having crossed the Blackwater at Affane, established himself at Lismore in 630. In deference to Mochuda’s place of birth the saint’s successor in Lismore was, for centuries, a Kerryman. Lismore grew in time to be a great religious city, and a school of sacred sciences, to which pilgrims from all over Ireland and scholars from beyond the seas resorted. The rulers of the great establishment were all, or most of them, bishops, though they are more generally styled abbots by the Annalists. Among the number are several who are listed as Saints by the Irish Martyrologies, scil:

    Aedhan, abbot of Lismore .. . … July 19.

    Rev. Patrick Power, Waterford & Lismore – A Compendious History of the United Dioceses (Cork, 1937), 5-6.

    Canon O’Hanlon’s account of Saint Aedhan in Volume VII of his Lives of the Irish Saints, brings in a few other sources:

    St. Aedhan, Abbot of Lismore, County of Waterford.

    The name of St. Aedhan, Abbot of Lismoir, appears in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 19th of July. In the list of Aids or Aedhans given by Colgan, the present holy Abbot is included. In the Irish Calendar, compiled for use of the Irish Ordnance Survey, at xiv. of the August Kalends, there is an entry of this holy man, who is not designated, however, as Abbot. His name also occurs in the Martyrology of Donegal, at this date, as Aedhan of Lis-mor.

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  • Saint Lassar, May 14

    May 14 is the feast day of Saint Carthage of Lismore, a saint with a wealth of hagiographical traditions associated with him. By contrast it is also the commemoration of an obscure female saint, Lassar, one of fourteen saints who share this name, based on the Old Irish word for flame. It occurs too as a name for men, with Saint Molaisse or Laserian being the most famous example. Only one of the female saints Lassar has a surviving Life, a late 17th-century composition which may have been modernised from a Late Middle Irish original. The subject of that Life has a feast day on November 13 at which time I hope to bring some selections from the work. Whether there is any relationship between the various female saints Lassar is hard to fathom, it may be that there are a number of distinct individuals who happen to share the name or it may be that some were commemorated on more than one day. Canon O’Hanlon can only write a few lines on the Saint Lassar commemorated on May 14:

    St. Lassar, or Laisre.

    A record of Laisre is found in the published Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 14th of May, and it is also in the Franciscan copy. From the same source, the Bollandists  enter at this day the festival of St. Lasra, or Lassara, with a reference to what had been said regarding Cassara Virgo—evidently a mistake for Lassara Virgo—placed among the pretermitted feasts, at the 11th of May. On this day, veneration was given to Lassar, as we read, also, in the Martyrology of Donegal.

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  • Saint Colman O'Liathain, July 25

    July 25 is the commemoration of one of the many saints bearing the name of Colman. This one is a 7th-8th century abbot of Lismore, the great monastic foundation of Saint Mochuda, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

    Feast of St. Colman O’Liathain, Bishop or Abbot of Lismore. [Seventh and Eighth Centuries].

    The feast of this saint, called Mocholmoc, is set down in the “Feilire” of St. Oengus, at the 25th of July. A comment is affixed, which throws some light on his family. In this gloss we read ‘Colman, descendant of Liathan, of Less Mor Mochuda’. A festival is registered, likewise, at the 25th of July, in the Martyrology of Tallagh, to honour St. Colman, said to have been identical with Mocholmoc h-Fachrach. According to the Calendar of Cashel, a festival in honour of this holy person occurs, on the 25th of July. He has been confounded with another St. Colman, Bishop and Abbot of Lismore, whose feast was kept on the 22nd of January. This latter died in the year 702. The present saint appears to have succeeded Cronan Ua Eoan, Abbot of Lismore, who died on the 1st of June, A.D. 716.

    Colgan calls St. Colman O’Liathain a Bishop of Lismore, in one place. The Four Masters, however, when recording his death, only style him a select doctor. It is probable, that he was both Bishop and Abbot of Lismore; for, he is called Comorban or successor of St. Mochudda, in the Calendar of Cashel. According to his usual computation, the Rev. Dr. Lanigan places the death of St. Colman O’Liathain, in the year 726. This learned writer believes, likewise, that his natalis should be assigned to the 25th of July. The Four Masters place his death at A.D. 725, as also do the O’Clerys. Colgan, also assigns the death of St. Colman O’Liathain, Bishop of Lismore, to A.D. 725. In the Annals of Ulster, his death is placed at A.D. 730. In neither entry, however, do we find St. Colman O’Liadain called Bishop of Lismore. At this same date, the Martyrology of Donegal enters the name, Colman Ua Liathain, Doctor. In the table appended to this Martyrology, the compiler has a Latin comment, written in Irish characters, to the purport, that Oengus calls him Mocholmog, in the same way as Miarnog for Iarna, Mosiolog, Maodhdg, Moedoein.

     

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