OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

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  • 'Cherish in your Memories': All the Saints of Ireland, November 6

    November 6 is the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland, a feast established just over a century ago. It is also the day on which I launched Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae just over a decade ago to try and keep the memories of our Irish saints alive and to encourage a greater devotion to them. This same motivation was expressed in 1927 by Mary Maher in her book Footsteps of Irish Saints in the Dioceses of Ireland and she found an interesting support for it in an eighteenth-century pontifical brief addressed to the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland by Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758):

    When I placed my notes on Irish Saints in book form, I did so with one intention only – viz., to plead with the readers for increased devotion to our great Irish saints. For that purpose I began writing an explanatory Preface, but had only written a few lines, when a very old and valuable book came, by accident, into my hands. In this book I found a special devotion to Irish Saints, coming from a saintly and venerable Pontiff, Benedict XIV, addressed to the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland……..:

     “Cherish in your memories,” said the illustrious Pontiff, “St Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, whom our predecessor Celestine sent to you, of whose apostolic mission and preaching, such an abundant harvest has grown, that Ireland, before his time idolatrous, was suddenly called, and deservedly, ‘The Island of Saints’. Cherish in your memories St Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, who stood forth undaunted in every manner, prepared to convert the wolves into sheep, to admonish in public, to touch the chords of the heart. Cherish with yet more sincerity St Lawrence, Archbishop of Dublin, whom, born as he was of royal blood, our predecessor, Alexander III, constituted his Legate Apostolic for Ireland; and whom Honorius III, alike our predecessor, canonized. Yet more, we were to exhort you to cherish in your memories the very holy men Columbanus, Kylian, Virgil, Rumold, St Gall, with many others, who, coming out of Ireland, carried the True Faith over the provinces of the Continent, or established it with the blood of their martyrdom. Suffice it to commend you to bear in memory the religion and the piety of those who have preceded you, and their solicitude for the duties of their station, which has established their everlasting glory and happiness. And, in fine, cherish the virtues of your fathers – their piety and reverence for their pastors. Cherish the Faith that made them strong and invincible; be yours firm and immovable, as the rock on which it is founded; be yours illustrated with the earnest constancy of a Peter, the burning zeal of a Paul, the abiding confidence of a John.”

    Mary Maher, Footsteps of Irish Saints in the Dioceses of Ireland (London, 1927), v-vii.

    Wishing everyone the blessings of the Feast and thank you to all who supports my work here at Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae and on All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria. Beannachtaí na Féile oraibh go Léir! Orate pro nobis omnes Sancti Hiberniae!

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.

  • 'Great Mary's Holy Nativity': September 8

     

    The birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary is commemorated on September 8 and is a feast found on our earliest Irish calendars. The Martyrology of Oengus records:

    8. Thou shalt commemorate Mary: thou art not deadened on a scanty meal: with Timothy and three hundreds of martyrs.

    and the scholiast notes:

    8. is commemorated .i. natiuitas etc. Mary’s nativity is commemorated here, on a scanty meal, for pit means a meal, quasi dixisset thou shouldst not fast on Mary’s feast.

    It is obviously a mark of the joyful nature of the feast and its importance that the normal fasting rules are set aside and a ‘scanty meal’ is not deemed appropriate.
    The Martyrology of Tallaght also records the feast as:
    Natiuitas Mariae matris Iesu 
     
    and the later twelfth-century Martyrology of Gorman notes:
    Noemghein Maire móre
    Great Mary’s holy nativity.
    Canon O’Hanlon in the September volume of his Lives of the Irish Saints has a short article about the Feast in which he mentions that the County Wexford parish of Kilnenor was one of those which held a traditional pattern on September 8. I was able to consult an online version of the Ordnance Survey Letters which Canon O’Hanlon had cited in his footnotes and there I learnt that this pattern ‘was held on the 8th of September till the year 1798, when it was abolished’.

    Article VI. Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

    In the ancient Irish Church, the Festival of the Birth of our Divine Lord’s Mother was celebrated on the eighth day of September, as we learn from the Feilire of Aengus. On this there is a short comment. About the year 695, this feast was appointed by Pope Servius. In various parts of Ireland, this festival was celebrated formerly with very special devotion, as parishes, churches and chapels had been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and this was a favoured festival day. The patrons or patterns that until of late were yearly celebrated very conclusively attest it. In Kilnenor parish, County of Wexford, there is a holy well, at which a patron was formerly held on the 8th of September. According to a pious tradition a concert of angels is said to have been heard in the air to solemnize the Nativity or Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.

  • The Night when the Book-Satchels Fell: Death of Saint Lon-garadh

    Book of Armagh Satchel. Source: TCD

    September 3 is the feast of Saint Lon-garadh, a saint with a reputation as one of the chief scholars of Ireland. I have previously posted a full account of this saint here, but below a reminder of the famous story about how the book satchels fell to the ground in all the monasteries of Ireland in sorrow at his death. Sadly, little historical information has survived about Saint Lon, but the legend associated with him was mentioned in the first lecture given by Professor Eugene O’Curry in March 1855 at the Catholic University of Ireland:

    There is a curious account of a private collection of books, “of all the sciences”, as it is expressed, given in a note to the Féliré, or metrical Festology of Aengus Celé Dé, or the “Culdee”; it is to this effect: Saint Colum Cille having paid a visit to Saint Longarad of Ossory, requested permission to examine his books, but Longarad having refused, Colum then prayed that his friend should not profit much by his refusal, whereupon the books became illegible immediately after his death; and these books were in existence in that state in the time of the original author, whoever he was, of the note in the Féliré.
    The passage is as follows: it is a note to the stanza of the great poem, for September 3; which is as follows:

    “COLMAN OF DROM-FERTA,
    LONGARAD, A SHINING SUN; 

    MAC NISSE WITH HIS THOUSANDS, 
FROM GREAT CONDERE”. 


    [NOTE.]—”Longarad the white-legged, of Magh Tuathat, in the north of Ossory (Osraighé); i.e., in Uibh Foirchellain; ie in Magh Garad, in Disert Garad particularly, and in Cill Gabhra in Sliabh Mairge, in Lis Longarad. The ‘white legged’, i.e., from great white hair which was on his legs; or his legs were transparently fair. He was a Suidh (Doctor or Professor) in classics, and in history, and in judgment (law), and in philosophy [filidecht]. It was to him Colum Cille went on a visit; and he concealed his books from him; and Colum Cille left a ‘word’ [of imprecation] on his books, i.e., ‘May it not be of avail after thee’, said he, that for which thou hast shown inhospitality’. And this is what has been fulfilled, for the books exist still, and no man can read them. Now, when Longarad was dead, what the learned tell us is, that all the book-satchels of Erinn dropped [from their racks] on that night. Or they were the satchels which contained the books of sciences [or, professions] which were in the chamber in which Colum Cille was, that fell. And Colum Cille and all that were in that house wondered, and they were all astounded at the convulsions of the books, upon which Colum Cille said: ‘Longarad’, said he, in Ossory, i.e., a Sai  (Doctor) in every science [it is he] that has died now’. ‘It will be long until that is verified’, said Baithin. May your successor [for ever] be suspected, on account of this’, said Colum Cille; et dixit Colum Cille:

    Lon is dead [Lon is dead];
    To Cill Garad it is a great misfortune;
    To Erinn with its countless tribes;
    It is a destruction of learning and of schools.
     
Lon has died, [Lon has died]; 
    
In Cill Garad great the misfortune;
    It is a destruction of learning and of schools,
    To the Island of Erinn beyond her boundaries”. 


    However fabulous this legend may appear, it will suffice, at all events, to show in what estimation books were held in the time of the scholiast of the works of Aengus, and also the prevalent belief in his time in the existence of an Irish literature at a period so long antecedent to his own. The probability is that the books were so old at the time of this writer as to be illegible, and hence the legend to account for their condition.

    Eugene O’Curry, Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History (Dublin, 1861),  17-18.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.