OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

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  • 'A Lion of Strength': Saint Finbarr of Cork

    The following abstract of the character of this holy man [Saint Finbarr] is from the Irish and Latin lives:

    “His humility, his piety, his charity, his abstinence, his prayers by day and by night, won him great privileges: for he was godlike and pure of heart and mind like Abraham; mild and well-doing like Moses; a Psalmist like David; wise like Solomon; devoted to the truth like Paul the Apostle; and full of the Holy Spirit like John the Baptist. He was a lion of strength, and an orchard full of apples of pleasure. When the time of his death arrived, after erecting churches and monasteries to God, and appointing over them Bishops; Priests, and other degrees, and baptising and blessing districts and people, Barre went to Cill-na-cluana (Cloyne) and with him went Fiana, at the desire of Cormac and Baoithin, where they consecrated two churches. Then he said, it is time for me to quit this corporeal prison and to go to the heavenly King, who is now calling me to himself; and then Barra was confessed, and received the sacrament from the hand of Fiana, and his soul went to heaven, at the cross which is in the middle of the church of Cloyne. And there came Bishops, Priests, Monks, and Disciples, on his death being reported, and to honour him; and they took him to Cork the place of his resurrection, honouring him with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and the angels bore his soul with joy unspeakable to heaven, to the company of the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, and Disciples of Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Trinity, The Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost.” Amen.

     R. Caulfield, ed., The Life of Saint Fin Barre, First Bishop and Founder of the See of Cork (London, 1864),  

     

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  • The Holy Wells of Achill Island

     

    Holy wells played a large part in the preservation of the memories of the saints of Ireland, acting not only as sites where their intercession could be sought, particularly for healing, but as the focal point for the celebration of a saint’s ‘pattern’ or feast day. They are found throughout the country, including on Ireland’s off-shore islands. Below is a brief account of three of the holy wells of Achill Island, County Mayo, from a 1910 work by P.W. Joyce. The first seems to be connected to a Saint Damnet and attracted pilgrims on August 15. The second is linked to Saint Colman, who sought refuge in the west of Ireland at ‘Mayo of the Saxons’ following the adoption of the Roman date of Easter. Joyce records that this well too was still being visited by Achill’s older people in his day. The final one is equally interesting and illustrates many of the difficulties associated with the attribution of holy wells to specific saints in folk tradition.  It is known as Saint Finan’s well but Joyce is doubtful about this, I presume his remarks on the placing of a well-known prefix, in this case mo, ‘my’ to many saints’ names explains how the Minan cliffs have been interpreted as deriving from ‘Mo Finan’, which he feels may be ‘fanciful philology’. Instead he offers an intriguing alternative explanation concerning a former parish priest and his remarkable saddle horse! Interestingly, the Connaught Telegraph of August 8, 2022 carried a report that the holy wells of Mayo are to be surveyed by archaeologists so perhaps we can learn more of those on Achill Island in the near future:

    THE HOLY WELLS OF ACHILL ISLAND.

    We take the liberty of introducing the reader to the holy wells in Achill, which show that this storm-swept island was not untrodden by the saints of ancient Ireland.

    There is a holy well at Kildownett, hard by the graveyard, which a tradition, but a very faint one, connects with a St. Damnet. It is still visited by pilgrims on the 15th of August. There is also one of more note at Sliabh More, called after St. Colman, the patron of Dukinella church. Probably St. Colman may have crossed over from Inish Boffin to Achill Island, in search of a suitable site for a monastery, wherein to segregate the Saxon monks who followed him and his Irish disciples from Lindisfarne. The Celts and Saxons seemed to have found it more  difficult to practice the evangelical counsels, living under the same roof. Accordingly, their prudent founder, St. Colman, left the Celts in possession of Irish Boffin and went in search of a monastic site for the Saxon brethren. He at length succeeded in founding a monastery at Mayo, which was called Mayo of the Saxons. The old people still make pilgrimages to St. Colman’s well.

    The third and last, which we wish particularly to describe, is situated in a scene of solitude and beauty close by the Cathedral Rocks in the Keel strand. It was, indeed, a happy thought to make it holy. The wonders of nature around, mountain majesty and thundering sea, make fitting scene for the wonders of grace; for the voice of the mountains and the voice of the sea seem to have suggested to all  the sages thoughts of the “great beyond.” The sea here, especially, preaches a beautiful sermon to one who may choose to listen and: 

    “Wander by the pebbly beach,
    Marking the sunlight at the evening hour,
    And hearken to the thoughts the waters teach – 
    Eternity, eternity and power.”

    The well is situated under the shadow of the Minan cliffs, and is named St. Finan’s well. The tradition is that St. Finan gave his name, not only to the well, but to the mountain also, which should be properly called Finan’s cliff. Perhaps the practice of our fathers who placed a well-known prefix before the names of many of our saints, may explain the difficulty of deriving the modern name from Finan. This, however, is probably fanciful philology, and the usual explanation remembered by the very old people to have been parish priest of the island, and the possessor of a wonderful saddle horse, that braved every danger by night as well as by day. 

     P.W. Joyce, A Forgotten Part of Ireland, (Tuam, 1910),  58-62.
     

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  • The Feast of the Transfiguration in the Martyrology of Oengus

    August 6 is the day on which the Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated throughout the Universal Church. However, it was not always so, as a German ecclesiastical historian explains:

    From quite an early date, this festival had been celebrated in divers churches, both East and West, on different days. The date now observed, the 6th August, was appointed for the festival by Calixtus III. in 1457, in memory of the victory over the Turks, gained by John Capistran and George Hunyadi, at Belgrade. In the choice of a day, he seems to have been influenced by the Greek calendar, where the festival had already been kept on this day.

    K.A. Heinrich Kellner, Heortology: A History Of The Christian Festivals From Their Origin To The Present Day (London, 1908), 105.

    One of those different days is found on the early ninth-century Irish calendar, The Martyrology of Oengus. Here the Feast of the Transfiguration is commemorated on July 26, as Canon O’Hanlon noted in his entries for this day in Volume VII of the Lives of the Irish Saints:

    Article IV. Festival of Christ’s Transfiguration on Mount Tabor.

    According to the “Feilire” of St. Aengus, at the 26th of July, the Feast of the Transfiguration of our Divine Lord on Mount Tabor was commemorated in the ancient Irish Church. To this a comment is found affixed. In the Bruxelles copy of Usuard this Feast is also set down, and while the Bollandists give the text, they express ignorance of the source whence it had been drawn, but they refer to the 6th of August as the chief Festival held in the Universal Church.

    26. At the passion of Jovianus
    with his fair train of pure gold
    was the Transfiguration, at daybreak,
    of  Jesus on Mount Tabor.

    The accompanying note reads:

    26. on Mount Tabor, i.e. in the tribe of Nephthalim, on a mountain of Galilee. Transfiguration of Christ etc.

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