OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

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  • Saint Finntina of Cluain Guithbhinn, November 1

    The Irish calendars record the name of yet another of our obscure female saints on November 1. Alas, the earliest of these, the Martyrology of Tallaght, has a hiatus in the surviving manuscripts and the entire month of November plus the first sixteen days of December are missing. The name of Saint Fintinna, Virgin, of Cluain Guithbhinn, is however recorded in the later calendars of Marianus O’Gorman and of the O’Clery’s. The 1857 edition of The Martyrology of Tallaght produced by Father Matthew Kelly supplements the missing entries with those from the Martyrology of Donegal. It therefore lists: Nov. 1 Finntina Ogh o Cluain Guithbinn and the index identifies Cluain Guitbinn with Cloongefin, County Roscommon.  I can find out no further information on this holy lady but it pleases me to be able to record her name on the day when we celebrate the memories of all the saints. Saint Finntina, intercede for us!

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  • Saint Faolán of Fosses, October 31

    The month of October ends with the commemoration of an Irish saint still remembered in Belgium – Faolán (Foillan, Feuillen, Pholien), who founded a monastery at Fosses and was a brother of the noted Irish missionary saint and visionary, Fursa. Like Saint Donatus of Fiesole who is also commemorated this month, Faolán too was a promoter of the cult of Saint Brigid of Kildare in his adopted homeland. Dom Louis Gougaud gives the following short account of him:

    In the footsteps of St. Fursa (+ c. 650) and of his two brothers Foillan and Ultan, whom the Belgians call Feuillen and Ultain, one treads on more solid ground. The official cult of Fursa goes back to Merovingian times. He is the patron of Peronne, where his tomb is preserved, and of seven other parishes of the diocese of Amiens. Several chapels and wells also keep alive his memory in Picardy.

    The tomb of St. Fursa was a spot beloved by Irish piety. Foillan and Ultan were among the first to cross the sea to visit it as pilgrims. Foillan did not stay long in the monastery of Peronne; soon he went to dwell at Nivelles, another place where the Scotti were personae gratae.

    Foillan received as a gift from Itta, wife of Pipin II, Mayor of the Palace, and mother of St. Gertrude of Nivelles, the land of Fosses on which he founded a monastery. He perished, murdered by brigands, in the forest of Seneffe.

    The town of Fosses still holds his memory in high veneration. Every seventh year it celebrates, amid a great concourse of pilgrims and much ceremony, the procession or march of St. Foillan. The neighbouring places send as their delegates armed “compagnies.” It takes nearly the whole day to bear the bust of the saint over the traditional course. At each station -of which there are seven- the “compagnies” fire a salute.

    Liege, which has a church dedicated to St. Brigid, has another under the invocation of St. Foillan, as have also Omezee and other Belgian towns and villages. Devotion to St. Foillan has even reached Aix-la-Chapelle where a parish church and a guild, both very old, are placed under his patronage.

    Dom Louis Gougaud, O.S.B., Gaelic Pioneers of Christianity – The Work and Influence of Irish Monks in Continental Europe (VIth – XIIth cent.) (Dublin, 1923, 128-30.

    A more recent examination of the work of Irish saints in Europe by scholar Roísín Ní Mheara, found that apart from the septennial celebratory march in honour of the saint mentioned by Dom Louis, there are many other traces remaining of Saint Foillan:

    Faolán was returning to Fosses after visiting his brother Ultán for the feast of St Quentin when he fell into the hands of marauders in a wood near Le Roeulx. Tradition affirms that after a search of two months it was St Gertrud [of Nivelles] herself who discovered Faolán’s incorrupt body. With a great display of pomp and mourning the bier was carried by the nobles back to Nivelles. Gertrud had a church built in Le Roeulx with a priory for Irish monks. This was later taken over by Fathers of the Augustinian Premonstratensian Order, who were thrown out in the course of the French Revolution. All we find in Le Roeulx today is a parish church with a side-altar dedicated to St Faolán. It also posseses a relic of the Irish martyr.

    Faolán had founded the royal abbey of Fosses in 635 and in 1083 his martyred relics were translated there. Roísín Ní Mheara describes some of the other features of the church at Fosses:

    In Fosses itself there are many items to arrest one’s attention in what is now the parish church of Saint-Feuillen. A tableau at the altar of St Ultán depicts the legend of the bloodstained dove bringing news of Faolán’s murder to his brother in Saint-Quentin (a reminder of the visionary gift Ultán shared with his brother Fursa). All three brothers are shown in one of the tableaux in the choir, being christened in Ireland by St Brendan.

    Roísín Ní Mheara, Early Irish Saints in Europe – Their Sites and their Stories (Seanchas Ard Mhacha, 2001), 67-69.

    Saint Faolán is commemorated on the earliest surviving Irish calendar, the Martyrology of Oengus, on October 31:

    C. Pridie cal. Novembris.

    31. Quintinus fair, crucified;
    Faelán, with many bands,
    they declare, with a host
    of fathers, the lofty end of
    October.

    to which the notes add:

    Faelán. i.e. Fursu’s frater, i.e. an abbot in Gaul, i.e. Fursa’s brother, and he was a martyr.

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  • Saint Colman of Cammus Comghaill, October 30

    October 30 presents us with the feast of yet another Saint Colmán and thus with yet another mystery as to his precise identity, location and feast day. The Martyrology of Donegal records:

    30. B. TERTIO KAL. NOVEMBRIS. 30.


    COLMAN, Abbot, of Cammus Comghaill, on the brink of the Bann; or of Lann Mocholmog: and he was maternal brother to Mocholmog of the Lann.

    Bishop Reeves’ mid-nineteenth century account of the northern dioceses of Down, Connor and Dromore, identified ‘the Lann’ as the parish of Magheralin, County Down:

    Lan.—Now the parish of Magheralin. The church was founded by St. Colman or Mocholmoc, whose death Tigernach records at the year 700: “Colman Linduacaill obit”. “Colman of Lin-duacall died”. Or, as the Four Masters, a year earlier: “Colman Linne Uachaille decc. an XXX Marta”. “Colman of Linn-uachaill died on the 30th of March”. Hence it is sometimes called Lann-Da-Cholmoc, or Lann-Mocholmoc, which both signify ‘ the church of Colman’; for the syllables Da or Do, in the sense ‘your’, and Mo, in the sense ‘my’, were prefixed to saints’ names, as Colgan observes, “honoris et singularis observantiae causa”.

    Rev. W. Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore (Dublin, 1847), 110.

    This identification was challenged, however, by another Anglican cleric who placed the location of Saint Colmán’s foundation at Annagassan, County Louth:

    Monastery or Linn Duachaill.—It is in the townland of Linns, close to the village of Annagassan, that we find the first trace of an ecclesiastical establishment in the Parish of Gernonstown. St. Colman MacLuachan is said to have founded a church or monastery here in the seventh century. It was known by the name of Linn Duachaill (i.e.. Duachaill’s pool), or Linn Uachaill from a demon named Duachaill, who is said to have infested the place and terrified the neighbourhood until destroyed by St. Colman. Duachaill’s pool is still pointed out at the junction of the Clyde and Dee before they enter the sea at Annagassan. Dr. O’ Donovan once thought that Linn Duachaill was Magheralin. Co. Down, and at first Bishop Reeves seems to have had the same opinion. But both those antiquaries found it necessary to correct their opinion on becoming acquainted with the topography and traditions of Annagassan. For Linn Duachaill was on the banks of the river called Casan Linne (Martyr. Doneg., Mar. 30, p. 91, cp Colgan Acta SS., pp. 792-703), and this river is mentioned in the “Circuit of Ireland ” as lying between the Vale of Newry, or Glen Righe, and Ath Gabhla on the Boyne. The name ” Casan”=”paths” survives in Annagassan. According to Joyce (Names of Places, p. 373) “Casan ” was originally joined with “Linne Duachaill” and became shortened to ” Casan linne,” which is preserved in Annagassan=Ath-na-gcasan, “the ford of the paths.” Dr. Todd, who has an important note on the subject in ” Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gall,” p. lxii., says, Annagassan=Aonach g Casain, i.e., the ” Fair of Casan.” Joyce’s interpretation is, I think, to be preferred, as the people still speak of the “Pass of Linns ” and this pass, as pointed out, lay further up the River Glyde, about a quarter of a mile from Duachaill’s pool, and near the spot where the monastery founded by St. Colman is believed to have stood.

    Colgan has collected all the traces of this Saint Colman Mac Luachan (in his Acta SS., p. 792-3). From Colgan we learn that his mother’s name was Lessara, and that he and another Colman were uterine brothers and living at the same time, but his father was of the Hi Gualla or Gaillfine, an Ulster race, while the father of the other Colman was of the royal family of Meath. It appears that he had two or three churches — Camus-juxta-Bann, Lann Mocholmoc, or Linn Duachaill, and perhaps Lann Abhaic and Lann Ronain in Down and Dromore. In his churches he was commemorated on March 30 and October 30, and he is held eminent for his sanctity. The other Colman was commemorated on June 17. There is in the Annals some confusion between these Colmans; but St. Colman of Linn Duachaill, called also Mocholmoc, died on March 30, 699.

    Rev. J. B. Leslie, History of Kilsaran Union of Parishes in the County of Louth, (Dundalk, 1908), 89-91.

    Thus it seems, and not for the first time, that the problem of distinguishing homonymous saints named Colman has left us with a question mark over the relationship between the saint commemorated on October 30 and the saint commemorated on March 30.

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