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  • Saint Samthann of Clonbroney, December 19

    December 19 is the feastday of one of my favourite Irish saints – Samthann of Clonbroney, County Longford. The Martyrology of Oengus devotes its entire entry for this day to her:
    C. xiv. cal. Ianuarii. 
    19. Blithe unto my soul,
    with the vastness of her host,
    be the fair pure manna of elemental God,
    Samthann of Clúain Brónaig !
    The later Martyrology of Donegal reads:
    19. C. QUARTO DECIMO KAL. JANUARII. 19. 
    SAMHTHANN, Virgin, of Cluain-Bronaigh, in Cairbre in Tethbha, near Granard. She was of the race of Fiatach Finn, monarch of Erin. The age of Christ when she went to heaven was 734.
    We are blessed in having a surviving Life of Saint Samthann which records how, having forsaken her aristocratic husband on their wedding night to follow the religious life, she came to the monastery of Clonbroney and was put in charge by its founder, Saint Fuinech. The following excerpts from the Vita Sanctae Samthannae Virginis have been taken from Dorothy Africa’s translation:
    5. At that time the foundress of Clonbroney, the blessed virgin Fuinech, dreamt that sparks of fire in the likeness of Saint Samthann came and consumed the whole monastery, and then rose up in a great flame. She told her dream to the sisters and gave this interpretation: “Burning with the fire of the Holy Spirit, Samthann will make this place shimmer by virtue of her merits and in the splendour of miracles”. For that reason, Fuinech sent for Samthann and gave her the community.
    Like Saint Brigid of Kildare, with whom she has much in common, many of Saint Samthann’s miracles concern food and in the one recorded below, she also emerges as a saint with a sense of humour:
    6. After she had taken charge, first she wanted to construct an oratory of trimmed timber, and so she sent for carpenters and other workmen to bring in timber from forests nearby. One of the carpenters, observing the paucity of the provisions and the number of workers, thought to himself “Oh, if only we could have forty wheaten loaves with butter and cheese and milk, for such a quantity of bread suffice us.” Man is not frustrated in his desire for something his soul has desired. For through the merits of holy Samthann, all he had thought he saw placed before him. The intimate of Christ, giggling, said “The thought of your heart is fulfilled is it not?” And he said to her “Indeed so Mistress, there is neither something in addition, or anything missing.” Then all gave thanks to God and ate their fill.
    But, as an Irish saint, it doesn’t do to cross her, even at a distance:
    16. Once the holy servant of Christ desired to build a large hall for the work of the sisters, and sent Nathea the prioress with the craftsmen into the forest of Connacht for pine timber. When they had searched for three whole days without finding the wood, the weary group decided on the fourth day to return home. While they slept that night, the blessed Samthann suddenly appeared in a dream to her disciple Nathea, saying “Tomorrow morning cut down bog willows at the root, and you will find enough pine lying there.” At daybreak, they did just so as she instructed, and found the pine they desired. But the owner of the woods, seeing such a heap of pine, said, “unless you buy them, you will not get these trees.” Nathea said to him “we will buy them willingly”. The following night Samthann appeared in a vision to that man. She spoke in a threatening voice, saying “What tempts you fellow, to withold these things offered to God?” Then she struck his side with a staff, saying “wretch, unless you do penance, know that you will die very soon.” Next morning, that man, stung by penance, gave them the lumber outright. When word got out, the inhabitants of the region praised God as manifest in the holy Samthann. They provided sixty yokes of oxen and conveyed all that wood back to the monastery.
    But, of course, the Life balances such accounts of the saint’s displeasure with accounts of her mercy. Below is my very favourite instance of her clemency, where Saint Samthann deals leniently with a young whippersnapper who fails to show her the proper respect:
    23. Once the community of brothers on the isle of Iona sent some of their members to the holy Samthann with a boatload of wool. While they were clearing the level surface (of the sea), the calm of the air changed suddenly. The waves, raised by the heightening of the winds, menaced them angrily with death. A lad among them spoke up foolishly, saying, “Let’s throw the granny’s wool overboard lest we sink”. The navigator of the ship refused to allow this, and said, “Certainly not, with the old lady’s wool we shall either live or die”. With this remark, such serenity of the sea ensued that the wind disappeared altogether and they resorted to rowing. Then the same boy piped up again, “Why can’t the granny provide us any wind now?” The navigator responded, “we believe that God will assist us for the sake of her merits”. At once the wind filled their sails and they capitalized on this gift for three whole days and nights until they reached the harbour at Colptha. When they had arrived at the monastery of the blessed virgin, they saluted her as they entered and kissed her hand. When the aforesaid lad approached her, the virgin said “Now what was that you were saying about me at sea when the storm threatened you with death?” The boy was confounded into silence with shame. She said to him “Never doubt this, if ever dangers corner you, call upon me boldly”.
    The Life ends with a beautiful image of Saint Samthann’s journey to heaven at the end of her earthly life:
    26. On the very night in which her spirit returned to heaven, the holy abbot Lasran, of whom we spoke earlier, awoke and saw two moons, one of which dipped towards him. He was mindful of his own request, for he had asked her that when she passed to the celestial realm she would bend toward him. Recognizing her in the guise of a star, he said, “Well done, Samthann, faithful servant of God, for now you are ushered into the rejoicing of the Lord, your spouse.” In this fashion she faded away, climbing into the sky, where eternal life is enjoyed for ever and ever, Amen.
    Dorothy Africa, trans., Life of the Holy Virgin Samthann, in T. Head, ed., Medieval Hagiography – An Anthology (Routledge, 2001), 97-110.
    Amen indeed!

    A further selection from the Life of Saint Samthann can be read here.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Rodaighe of Ghreallaigh Bhunna, December 16

    December 16 is the feast of a County Meath saint, Rodaighe of Ghreallaigh Bhunna. Diocesan historian Father Anthony Cogan remarks of this saint and his locality:

    The ancient name of this place was Ghreallaigh Bhunna, Grellech, and Anglicised Girley. The patron saint is St. Rodaighe, abbreviated Raed, whose festival was celebrated on the 16th of December. In the list of guarantees and sureties given in the Irish Charters in the Book of Kells, on the occasion of the purchase of land near Donaghmore, at Navan from O’Riaman by the priest of Kells and his kinsmen, occur, “and the Erenagh of Grellech (Girley), and the Sech-nabb (i.e. the viceabbot), and the crozier of Reodaidhe”. There was therefore in the early period a monastery at Girley of which St. Raed was abbot. Up to a few years ago his holy well was frequented, in the language of the peasantry, “nine clear days before Christmas”. See the Miscellany of the Irish Archaeological Society, vol. i., p. 135. Martyrology of Donegal at 16th of December.

    The Miscellany records in its notes:
    ” Grellech Now called in Irish Greille, and anglicised Girley by metathesis. It is the name of a parish lying a short distance to the south of Kells.
    Reodaidhe. — This saint is still vividly remembered in the parish of Girley, near Kells, of which he is still regarded as the patron, but his name is now shortened to Raed. In the Irish Calendar of the O’Clerys he is set down as St. Rodaighe of Greallach-buna, at 16th of December, thus:
    “Dec. 16. St. Rodaighe of Greallach-buna, the son of Failbhe, son of Ronan, of the race of Niall of the Nine Hostages.”
    The Editor could learn nothing of the crozier of this saint in the parish of Girley.
    The Miscellany of the Irish Archaeological Society. Vol. 1 (Dublin, 1846), 135.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Flann of Bangor, December 15

    December 15 is the feast of Saint Flann, a seventh/eighth century successor to Saint Comgall as abbot of Bangor. The Martyology of Oengus says that at this date we commemorate ‘the feast of Flann the modest ruler, the abiding successor at Bangor.’ His death in the eighth century is recorded in the Annals  which also link him to Antrim:

    A.D. 722. ” St. Flann, of Aentrebh (Antrim), Abbot of Beannchair, died.”
    One of the most glowing tributes to the monastic foundation over which Saint Flann ruled was written by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in his Life of Saint Malachy. The quotation below has been taken from the diocesan history of Down and Connor by Father O’Laverty:
    “There had existed in this place, under the founder Comgellus, a most noble institution, inhabited by many thousands of monks, the head of many monasteries, a place truly sanctified and so fruitful in saints, which brought forth fruit so abundantly to God, that one of the sons of that holy congregation, Luanus by name, had himself alone founded one hundred monasteries, which I mention for this reason, that the reader may from this single instance form a conception of the number to which the remainder of the community amounted. In short, so widely had its branches extended through Ireland and Scotland, that these times appear to have been expressly foreshadowed in the verses of David—’ Thou visited the earth, and hast plentifully watered it,’ &c. Nor was it only into the countries I have mentioned, but even into distant lands, that crowds of saints, like an inundation, poured, one of whom, St. Columbanus, penetrating into these our regions of Gaul, built the monastery of Luxieu, and there became a great multitude. So great do they say it was, that the solemnisation of the Divine offices was kept up by companies, who relieved each other in succession, so that not one moment, day or night, was there an intermission of their devotions.”