OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

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  • Star of the world, Catherine, helper of the Greeks

    November 25 is the feastday of a saint much-loved in the East – Catherine of Alexandria. In common with other eastern martyrs, like Saints George and Margaret of Antioch, her cult flourished in the medieval West and accounts of her martyrdom appear in a number of European versions, including a fifteenth-century Irish one. I was particularly pleased whilst visiting the National Museum in Dublin to see on one of the reliquaries a figure of Saint Catherine, complete with her wheel, in the company of our native saints. They also join her in the medieval Irish poem, Réalta an chruinne Caitir Fhíona. Below is a  translation by Father Lambert McKenna, published as part of a series on bardic poetry in the Irish Jesuit periodical, Studies. I think it is a beautiful tribute to the great martyr and I love its presentation of our native saints as exemplars of the same holy virginity that Saint Catherine embodied.

    1. Star of the world, Catherine, helper of the Greeks; she succours most of the races of every province there against death.

    2. Catherine curly-haired maid, branch of victory; face as the bloom of fresh apple-tree; bright brow.

    3. Bright brow has she, daughter of the King of the Greeks, who never accepted suitor; in the hue of her cheeks is the sheen and colour of the berry.

    4. The berry’s colour and summer sunshine is in her ruddy cheek; many the curl bending from its stem in her coifed hair.

    5. In the shape of Catherine’s round eyes no Grecian woman surpassed her; round eye that gazed on no young warrior; lips deep-red and white.

    6. Face as apple-blossom; bosom as swan; maid inviolate; down is not whiter than her gleaming white hand; grey eye in fair cheek.

    7. No maiden do I see like her in charm but I entreat her; may Mary’s Son hide away my folly.

    8. Brighid of Éire and Alba, Virgin of the Isles, she is the soft white bloom of virgins, ….

    9. Athrachta succour of the Luighnigh; great her zeal; she is the fair-footed virgin of the Búill; waxen candle.

    10. Bright gentle Ciarán, Colum Cille – gentle the company! – Pádraig, Martain, Mongan, Manann, Comann, Coireall.

    11. The Trinity, great Mary and Michael, the host of the sun, (and) eleven thousand virgins of the Búill, flower of fair maids.

    Notes


    9. Athracta of Cell Sáile in Críoch Conaill; but she is here connected with Luighne, Co. Sligo.

    10. Mongan, Martyr Oeng., Sept. 3; Manann, Martyr Don., Feb. 23; Caireall, ibid, June 13; several saints named Comman occur in the Martyrologies.

    Lambert McKenna, ed. and trans., ‘Some Irish Bardic Poems XV. St. Catherine of Alexandria’ in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 19, No. 75 (Sep., 1930), pp. 439-440.

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  • Saint Roinne, November 23

    We have a completely obscure saint commemorated on the Irish calendars at November 23, Roinne. The Martyrology of Donegal simply records the name ‘Roinni’ as its sole entry for this day. The Martyrology of Gorman concludes its listing of half a dozen non-native saints with a mention of:

    23. E.

    is Roinni reidh rathmair.
    and of Roinne, smooth and gracious.

    The name of Roinne does not occur on the Martyrology of Oengus at this date and I cannot find any further references to the saint.

     

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  • Saint Coirpre of Cuil Raithin, November 11

    November 11 is the feast of Saint Coirpre (Cairbre, Carbreus), an early bishop of Cuil-Raithin, now anglicized as Coleraine, County Derry. His memory is recorded in the Martyrology of Donegal on this day:

    11. G. TERTIO IDUS NOVEMBRIS. 11.

    COIRPRE, Bishop, of Cuil-Raithin, son of Decill, son of Nadsluagh, of the race of Irial, son of Conall Cearnach.

    but notices of this saint are also preserved within the hagiography of Saint Patrick, as Father O’Laverty explains in his history of the northern dioceses of Down and Connor:

    The earliest notice we have of Coleraine is in connexion with the missionary visit of St, Patrick. The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick relates, that when the saint arrived in Dal-Araidhe, he found the territory parcelled out among the twelve sons of Caelbadh, a prince who had been King of Uladh, or Ulidia, and of Ireland for one year, and was slain in the year 357. Of the twelve sons three are mentioned in the Life—Saran, Connla, and Nadsluagh.

    Saran’s brother Nadsluagh, was submissive to Patrick; and he was in captivity on Patrick’s arrival. ” You shall have from me,” said he “the site of your regles (monastery).” “Where shall you give it me?” asked Patrick. “On the brink of the Bann, in the west,” said Nadsluagh, “where the boys are burning the ratha (ferns).” “It shall be mine truly,” said Patrick, “a descendant of mine and thine shall be there,” that is Bishop Coirpre, son of Deggel, son of Nadslaugh; it is he that is in Culrathain on the eastern brink of the Bann. Bishop Brugach, who is in Rath-Maighe-Aenaighe (Eaymochy), in Crich-Conaill (Co. Donegal), it was that conferred orders on Bishop Coirpre. Patrick also it was that conferred orders on Bishop Brugach; so that he (Bishop Coirpre) is a descendant of Patrick in this wise.”— Tripartite Life transiated by W. M. Hennessy, Esq., M.R.I. A.

    …Coleraine in Irish Cuil rathain (pronounced Cooil-rawin) takes its name, as O’Brien in his dictionary explains, from the words Cuil rathan—’ ferney corner.’ The Life of St. Patrick, by Tirechan, in the Book of Armagh states :

    “And he proceeded across the river Bann, and he blessed the place in which is the little cell of Cuile Raithin in Eilniu, in which there was a bishop, and he made many other cells in Eilniu, and he made a passage through the river Bush . . . And he returned into the plain Elni, and he built many churches, which the Coindire (the bishops of Connor?) possess.”

    It would seem, therefore, that the country between the Bann and the Bush was named ‘ The Plain of Elniu’, called also Magh Elne, and that the Church of Coleraine in the time of St. Patrick was unimportant, if it existed at all before the time of Bishop Coirpre, or Carbreus, who, as Dr. Reeves, on good authority, supposes, flourished about the year 540, and died about 560. His festival was celebrated on the 11th of November. The entry in the Calendar of Donegal is “Coirpre, Bishop of Cuil-Raithin, son of Decill, son of Nadsluagh, of the race of Irial, son of Conal Cearnach,” and the note given in the Leahhar Breac to the entry in the Calendar of Aengus says—” In the north of Dalaradia is Cul Raithin.”

    Rev. J. O’Laverty, An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, Vol IV (Dublin, 1887), 160-161.

    The ‘good authority’ quoted by Bishop Reeves in dating Bishop Coirpe to the sixth century, is the great 17th-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan:

    The genealogy of Carbreus is thus given by Colgan: “Sanctus Carbreus Episcopus de Cuilraithen, filius Degilli, filii Natsluagii, filii Coelbadii, filii Crunnii Badhraoi, &c.” — (Trias Thaum., p. 183, col. 2.) Accordingly the year 540 is generally assigned as that in which he flourished, and 560 has been (at p. 138) given as the year of his death.

    Rev. W. Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore (Dublin, 1847), 247.

     

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