OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

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  • A Prayer to Saint Odhran

    February 19 is the commemoration of Saint Odhran, whom tradition remembers as Saint Patrick’s charioteer and as a martyr who sacrificed his life for his master. Below is a prayer to Saint Odhran, taken from the 1941 edition of the Catholic prayerbook, Saint Anthony’s Treasury. The prayer to Saint Odhran sounds like a product of the 19th-century nationalist revival, there is a strong emphasis on the land of Ireland but combined with an appreciation of the saint’s heroism and a desire that his ‘noble sacrifice’ should not be forgotten:

    Prayer to St. Odran

    (St. Patrick’s Charioteer)

    (Who gave his own life to save that of his master)

    Blessed Saint Odran, faithful and loyal to God and man! you whose name is almost forgotten by those who owe you an everlasting debt of gratitude, accept our poor thanksgiving, offered in the name of all Ireland, for your noble sacrifice of your life to save that of Ireland’s Apostle. You had toiled in his service long and devotedly; you had learned what priceless service he could render to God and the Irish land and, when the moment came when he or you should die, by pagan hands, quickly and resolutely you laid down your life, that your master might live and labour for the Divine Master of all.

    By your crown of martyrdom so gloriously won, by your centuries of endless peace and joy, we beseech you to look down on the toiling sons of Ireland and on those who try to guide them to their eternal rest. Look down on us all, O blessed Saint! for the love of him whose heart burned with love for Ireland, and pray that the blessing of the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Ghost – may descend on us and remain with us for ever. Amen.

    St. Anthony’s Treasury – A Manual of Devotions (Anthonian Press, Dublin, 12th edition, 1941), 285-286.

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  • Saint Dubhthach of Iona, February 5

    A further suggestion was made by writer Eoin Neeson in his entry for this day in The Book of Irish Saints. He records: ‘Dubhthach, Duach or Duffy, abbot and alleged nephew, successor and coarb of Colmcille (June 9).’ Neeson does not give references in his book so I am not sure what was the source of the alleged family link with Saint Colmcille. The only Dubhthach, coarb of Colmcille, whom I could find was a Dubthach, son of Duban, whose repose is recorded in the Annals of Ulster at the year 938. Given that Saint Colmcille reposed in the year 597 a contemporaneous family relationship with this Dubhthach can be ruled out, although they were kinsmen. In the introduction to his translation of Adamnan’s Life of Columba, Bishop William Reeves identifies the 10th-century Dubhthach as the saint commemorated on this day:

    XXVI.— DUBHTHACH. Coarb 927-938. Ob. Oct. 7.

    Son of Duban, of the race of Conall Gulban, from whom, according to the pedigree in the Naemhseanchas, he was fourteenth in descent, and in the same line as his predecessor, Maelbrighde. He was abbot of Raphoe as well as of Hy, and is styled by the Four Masters “Coarb of Columcille both in Erin and Alba.”

    Rev. W. Reeves, The Life of Saint Columba: Founder of Hy (Edinburgh, 1874), clxxvi.

    In her study of the monastic familia of Columba, Máire Herbert revises Bishop Reeves’ view that Dubhthach was abbot of Raphoe and Iona and feels it more likely that he exercised his office from the monastery of Kells:

    That Dubhthach was a kinsman of his predecessor, Máel Brigte, as well as of the saint himself, is likely to have been a key factor in his selection as head of the Columban federation. It is not possible to ascertain whether he was based in Kells at the time of his selection, or whether a conscious decision was made at that period to designate Kells in place of Iona as the seat of the comarba. The title of ‘successor of Colum Cille and Adomnán’ which the annals accord to Dubhthach and to his successor Robartach, has been interpreted by Reeves as meaning that the holders were abbots of Raphoe as well as of Iona. However, while the monastery of Raphoe may have been particularly associated with Adomnán, it is clear from a ninth-century annal that it belonged to the familia of Colum Cille. Adomnán was not a founder of a monastic paruchia, and his commemoration is seen alongside that of Colum Cille in various churches of the Columban federation. The title of ‘successor of Colum Cille and Adomnán’ certainly implies especial consideration accorded to the saint’s biographer by the tenth-century leaders of Colum Cille’s familia, and the possibility cannot be discounted that Dubhthach, first holder of the title, held the abbacy of Raphoe, or of another church associated with Adomnán, at some time previous to his appointment as comarba. However, it is not unlikely that Kells, founded from Iona, would also have commemorated the most famous holder of the Iona abbacy after Colum Cille himself…

    Máire Herbert, Iona, Kells and Derry – The History and Hagiography of the Monastic Familia of Columba (Dublin, 1996), 80.

    Professor Herbert makes no reference to a possible date for the feastday of Abbot Dubhthach and thus we cannot be entirely sure if this ninth-century leader of the Columban monastic federation is the saint commemorated today.

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  • Saint Acobran of Kilrush, January 28

    January 28 is the feast of Saint Acobran of Kilrush, about whom not a great deal appears to be known. We have already met this saint, for in a post on a trio of saintly brothers commemorated on 28 November, I mentioned the contention of the English writer, Sabine Baring-Gould, that one of these brothers, also called Acobran, was to be identified with today’s saint. If our Acobran did indeed go off to Cornwall and later on to France as Baring-Gould claims, Canon O’Hanlon knows nothing of it, and it would not be like the good Canon to fail to claim such a career for an otherwise obscure Irish saint. On the contrary, in the Lives of the Irish Saints Acobran is depicted as a shadowy figure whose very location is the subject of doubt, with the Martyrology of Donegal initially identifying him with Kilrush, County Clare but then suggesting in the table appended to the Martyrology that this particular Kilrush is to be found in County Kildare. In the late 1830s when O’Donovan and his co-workers were carrying out their Ordnance Survey work in the parish of Kilrush, County Clare a letter noted ‘According to the Irish Calendar the Saints Mellan and Occobran were venerated at Cill Rois in the Termon of Inis Cathaigh on the 28th of January, but neither of them is now remembered in the Parish’. It may be that the cult of the most famous saint of Inis Cathaigh, Saint Senan, overshadowed and eventually displaced that of Saint Acobran. Canon O’Hanlon, as he often does when there is not much to say about a saint, goes into a description of church ruins associated with Saint Senan, but below are the essentials of what he has to tell us of Saint Acobran:

    St. Acobran of Kilrush, Probably in the County of Clare.

    …Without any other distinction, he is mentioned in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 28th of January, But we are not left in doubt regarding his locality, if we depend on the succeeding statement. According to the Martyrology of Donegal, we find Accobhran, of Cill-Ruis, in the Termon of Inis-Cathaigh, as having a festival celebrated on this day. In a table postfixed to this Martyrology, his place is thought to have been Kilrush, in the county of Kildare. He is said to have been otherwise called Occobhran, whence Ocobrus, Ocoras [Desiderius). The place usually designated for this saint is the present Kilrush, a parish in the barony of Moyarta and county of Clare. The present saint, to whatever place he belonged, appears to have lived in or before the eighth century. This is proved from the “Feilire” of St. Aengus the Culdee. With its English translation, Professor O’Looney has furnished the following stanza from the Leabhar Breac copy in the R. I. A.

    G. u. kl. With Acobran we celebrate
    The passion of eight noble virgins;
    They gained a triumph of righteousness,
    The great Miserian host.

    These latter seem to have been martyrs in Africa, and to have been part of a band, commemorated in St. Jerome’s ancient Martyrology….

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