OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

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  • Saint Abbán of Moyarney, October 27

    One of the saints, commemorated on October 27 in the Martyrology of Oengus as ‘Abbán an abbot fair and train-having’, presents us with something of a mystery as to his identity. One problem is that as the scholiasts’ notes make clear, the lifespan of this saint was said to have exceeded three hundred years:

    27. Abbán, great-grandson of Cormac, i.e. from Cell Abbain in Hui Muiredaig and from Mag Ernaidi in Húi Cennselaig, i.e. in Húi Buidi; and a great-grandson of Cormac is he himself; and this is the feast of his nativity.

    Abbán, son of Laignech, son of Cainnech, son of Imchad, son of Cormac, son of Cucorp.

    Seventeen pure-shaped years, in addition to the number three-hundred, the age of Abbán, shapely lord, while he was in the body.

    This plus the extraordinary number of churches which claim Abbán as founder, has led many writers to speculate that there must have been more than one saint of this name, even though the sources try to present a single individual, Abban of Kilabban, a nephew of Saint Ibar, whose feast is commemorated on March 16. Writer Eoin Neeson attempts to clarify the matter:

    ABBAN of Moyarney, County Wexford. An abbot who has been confused with Abban of Killabbban in Laois and whose feast-day is on March 16. They may have been the same individual, but there is no certainty either way. Tradition would suggest that there were two Abbans, while holding that there was only one; but if so he must have been singularly long-lived for he died in 630, yet is reputed to have preached before the coming of Patrick (432). It is probable that there were two Abbans, to-day’s being the latter. He was of royal blood and, indeed, was imprisoned by his father because he chose the Church rather than the local kingship. He is invoked against shipwreck.

    Eoin Neeson, The Book of Irish Saints (Cork, 1967), 190.

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  • Saint Caidin of Domhnach Caoide, October 25

    The feast of Saint Caidin is recorded in some of the Irish Martyrologies for 25 October. The table in the Martyrology of Donegal lists:

    Caoide, abbot, of Domhnach-Caoide, in Tir Eoghain, diocese of Derry, 25 Oct. (8 Cal. Nov.); Cadinus in Latin. His church, his bell, and his staff are preserved.

    The actual entry reads:

    25. D. OCTAVO KAL. NOVEMBRIS. 25.

    [The festival of CAOIDE, Abbot, patron of …. chaidh.]

    to which the notes add:

    The blank in the text ought to be filled by the word Domhnach. (R.)

    The locality of Domhnach Caoide, or Downaghede as it was anglicized, is mentioned in a later medieval record of the Diocese of Derry. The editor of these records, Bishop Reeves, quoted Colgan, who mentions the 28th October, rather than the 25th in connection with this saint. He also introduces something of a red herring in identifying Caidin with a Saint Cadoc, a missionary to the Morini in France:

    Downaghgede. — Domnach Caoide, Dominica Caidini. ” S. Caidinus Confessor colitur in ecclesia de Domhnach Caoide, dioacesis Derensis in Ultonia, 28 Octobris.” — (Act. SS., p. 162 &.) Colgan observes that, the termination oc being a diminutive, Caidan or Caidin and Caidoc are the same. Caidocus al’ Caidinus was a companion of St. Columbanus, and the apostle of the Morini. The herenagh paid 40s. per an. to the bishop Inq. The ruins of the old church of Donaghedy are in the townland Bunowen, a little N. E. of the present church (Ord. Surv., s.3.)

    Rev. W. Reeves (ed), Acts of Archbishop Colton in his metropolitan visitation in the diocese of Derry, A.D. MCCCXCVII (Dublin, 1850), 73.

    This suggested link to a Saint Cadoc, missionary to the Morini, whom Colgan conveniently placed for commemoration on the same day as the better-known Saint Cadoc of Wales (January 24), is not the only source of confusion surrounding the precise identity of Caidin of Domhnach Caoide or of his feastday. For the Irish Martyrologies also list a saint of the same name on the previous day, October 24. This Caidin, however, is clearly identified as having been a bishop of Iona (or Hy). The Martyrology of Donegal records:

    24. C. NONO KAL. NOVEMBRIS.

    CAETI, Bishop. The Cain Adamnain states that Ceti, the bishop, was one of the saints who were security to free the women from every kind of captivity and slavery ; and it is likely that it is of him he speaks.

    to which the Notes add:

    Ceti, the bishop. The Annals of Ulster, at 711, and the Four Masters, at 710, record the death of Coeddi, bishop of Ia, or Iona. This date tallies very well with the supposed period at which the synod of Adanman was held. Colgan latinizes the name Caidimis. See Trias Thaum., p. 499 a, and Actt. SS. p. 162 6, note 2. Caideus, which occurs at the following day, is the same name. The blank in the text ought to be filled by the word Domhnach. (R.)

    The death of this bishop is also noted by Father Lanigan in his Ecclesiastical History of Ireland:

    St. Caide or Caidin, who was bishop at Hy, died in 711 and his name is in the calendars at 24 October.

    Rev. J. Lanigan, The Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, Vol 3., (2nd edn., Dublin, 1829), 153.

    The Martyrology of Marianus O’Gorman, incidentally, lists only Coeddi, a bishop, on 24 October and has no entry for another saint of the same name on the following day.

    So it would appear that there is some degree of confusion surrounding our Saint Caidin. It is of course possible that we are dealing with one individual here. Saint Caidin could have been both a monastic at a foundation of his own in Ireland and then later acted as a bishop on Iona. On the other hand, it would seem equally plausible that there could be two saints of the same name, one an abbot in the diocese of Derry, the other a bishop of Iona. The Iona Caidin of October 24 is clearly identified as having died in the early eighth-century, but it may be significant that the other Caidin of October 25 is associated with the placename ‘Domhnach Caoide’. The prefix Domhnach is associated with the very earliest church foundations in Ireland, and indeed in The Tripartite Life of Patrick there is a Domhnach Cati listed as one of the seven churches of Saint Patrick at the Faughan River. Thus if we are dealing with two individual saints called Caidin, the one commemorated on October 25 who left his ‘church, bell and staff’ may be a very early saint indeed, and thus distinct from his later namesake of Iona.

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  • Saint Donatus of Fiesole, October 22

    October 22 is the feast day of one of my favourites among the Irish saints who laboured in continental Europe: Saint Donatus of Fiesole. This wonderful man brought everything that was best about the early medieval Irish Church to his adopted homeland and he maintained a saintly humility whilst dealing with both ecclesiastical and secular politics at the highest level. Last year I posted the account of his life from the work of Margaret Stokes here. Saint Donatus cherished a deep devotion to Saint Brigid of Kildare and a post on the Prologue to the Life of Saint Brigid which he composed can be found at my other site here  plus a modern scholarly commentary here. This year we have a tribute to Saint Donatus from an Italian author, Vincenzo Berardis, a former diplomat who wrote a book on the relationship between Ireland and Italy in the Middle Ages:

    There are many saints of whom something must be said because they lived and died in Italy, where there are so many reminders of their culture and their teaching. They belong to the period of the scholars and the apostles, and were men who played a part in the political life of Italy. These scholars were almost all ecclesiastics who had been trained in the great monastic schools of Ireland; they were endowed with great strength of character and intellect, and were masters of every branch of learning – men who rendered great services to civilization on the Continent, especially during the Carolingian era. Not a few of these scholars after a period of teaching, deserted the courts of princes and the uncertainties of public life and entered the monasteries so as to enjoy that solitude which is the spiritual home of men of great strength of character. Although most of these learned men went to France, Italy attracted many who took part in the directly apostolic work of the Church.

    Such a one was St. Donatus who became famous both as a politician and a man of letters. He was Bishop of Fiesole for nearly fifty years and is a somewhat solitary figure, remote from the Carolingian world where culture was valued more as a means to acquire feudal and imperial prestige than as a method of attaining intellectual freedom. He had apparently studied and taught at the monastery of Iniscaltra; like many other monks he visited the Holy Places, being accompanied there by his faithful companion, Andrew. When he arrived in Italy he travelled to the tombs of the martyrs, the monasteries and the hermitages. At Fiesole he was welcomed by a crowd of the faithful “mysteriously gathered together in the Cathedral”, who during this still more “mysterious period of waiting” acclaimed him as bishop of the vacant See. During his episcopate the learned Irishman had to face a precarious and dangerous political situation, for the property of the Church was pillaged by Saracens and Northmen who sailed up the Arno and even sacked the Bishop’s palace at Fiesole. He was not called upon to do missionary work but he had to defend the rights of the Church against many tyrannical acts of partisan factions, and he did so with great ability and energy. As Bishop and feudatory of the Empire, he was present at the coronation of Louis II; he commanded his own vassals in an imperial expedition; he took part in company with the Pope and the Emperor in deciding an old ecclesiastical quarrel and he attended the Council in Rome summoned by Nicholas I. Having reached this eminence, he consolidated his temporal authority, rendering it independent of the imperial administration and acquiring – by an imperial rescript – fiscal and juridical rights.

    St. Donatus interested himself not only in politics and administration but undertook with equal success the post of professor in the school of Florence, where he proved himself to be a learned Latinist and a writer of verses. According to Davidson, he specialised in teaching and commenting on Vergil. In his verses, which served as a preface to the biography of St. Brigit, his miracle-working compatriot, he quoted Democritus and Hesiod. Even centuries after his death his poems were much admired. He also left a life of St. Brigit in prose, much fuller than that in verse. It contains some descriptions of Ireland which he praises for its richness, “the absence of savage beasts and poisonous snakes”, and for the progress of its people in learning, in peace and in faith. It is related that when hear his death, St. Donatus appeared at a meeting of his brethren where he had to recite his poetic beliefs, which he did in terms of Virgil’s eclogue, dying as he came to the last words. Papini declares that “like Augustine, the Emperor Constantine, Eusebius, Lactantius, Innocent III and even Abelard, St. Donatus believed that Virgil had announced the coming of our Saviour.”

    During the last years of his life he built a church at his own expense in Piacenza and dedicated it to St. Brigit. This church he left in his will to the Abbey of Bobbio, with the obligation of maintaining a hospice for Irish pilgrims. The work and constructive ability of St. Donatus have always remained an example to members of the Church. He is still remembered in Tuscany and many boys are christened with his name in the provinces of Florence, Pisa, Leghorn and Lucca.

    Vincenzo Berardis, Ireland and Italy in the Middle Ages (Dublin, 1950), 108-110.

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