OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

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  • Saint Camelacus of Rahan, November 3

    November 3 is the feast day of Saint Camelacus (Camulacus, Caomhlach, Cáemlach) of Rahan, County Offaly. He appears to have been the original founder of the church at Rahan, but was later overshadowed by Saint Mochuda (Mochutu) or Carthage, the saint more readily associated with the monastery at this site. An original founder saint being eclipsed subsequently by another isn’t unknown. Speaking of the seventh century, Richard Sharpe, the translator of The Life of Saint Columba for the Penguin Classics series, makes this point:

    They were years that witnessed immense changes in Irish society and in the Irish church. In particular, some early saints disappear from view as their churches were eclipsed by those of other saints. For example, a letter written in the 630s to Ségéne, fifth abbot of Iona, mentions a group of leading church founders; the list includes St Nessan, who fades from view before anything was recorded of him. Rahan, Co.Offaly, was regarded as the church of St Camelacus in the early seventh century, but a hundred years later his place had been reassigned to St Mochutu.

    Richard Sharpe, ed. and trans. Adomnán of Iona, Life of St Columba (Penguin Books, 1995), p.4

    But fortunately, unlike Saint Nessan, Saint Camelacus did not vanish completely for he is recorded in a number of early medieval sources. One of Saint Patrick’s earliest hagiographers, Tirechán, writing in the closing decade of the seventh century, recorded the names of bishops appointed to establish churches by the Irish patron. He tells us:

    He sent Camelacus of the Comienses to Mag Cumi and with his finger pointed out to him the place from the hill of Granard, that is the church of Raithen.

    What ‘of the Comienses’ means has never been determined. Some scholars feel that the saint’s own name raises questions too. Aidan Breen writes in the online Dictionary of Irish Biography:

    The name Came(u)lacus is unusual. It could be Gaulish, and the epithet ‘of the Comienses’ might therefore refer to some Gaulish tribal group. If that is the case, Camelacus would have been one of the Gaulish bishops who assisted Patrick, along with Auxilius, Iserninus and Secundinus.

    However, he goes on to acknowledge that the name Camelacus could be a Latinization of the Irish Cáemlach and Commienses of a tribal grouping in Offaly.

    The Martyrology of Gorman records the saint under the name ‘Caemlach’ on November 3 with a scholiast note adding ‘from Rathen’. The Martyrology of Donegal records ‘CAEMHLACH, of Raithin’ at the same date.

    But it is as the Latin Camelacus that one of the most intriguing sources testifies to our saint. For a Hymnus Sancti Camelaci is among the twelve hymns found in the late seventh-century Antiphonary of Bangor. The hymn, Audite bonum exemplum (Hear the good example), bears a number of similarities to the better-known and much longer Audite omnes amantes (Listen, all who love God) in honour of Saint Patrick, traditionally ascribed to the authorship of Saint Secundinus, which the Antiphonary also preserves. Father Michael Curran MSC, in his 1984 study The Antiphonary of Bangor and the Early Irish Monastic Liturgy, pointed out some similarities between the two hymns. Both are alphabetical hymns, both begin with Audite and both contain some other textual similarities. Furthermore:

    Audite bonum also speaks of Camelacus, who was a fifth-century contemporary of Patrick, as if he were still alive, except in the final two stanzas where he is spoken of as being in his eternal home.

    All of these similarities may indicate either that Audite bonus is an imitation of Audite omnes or that both were written by the same author. The shorter hymn draws a warm and attractive picture of Camelacus, who is characterized above all by humility, gentleness and joyful fidelity in the service of God. Mention is made more than once of his poverty.

    Michael Curran MSC, The Antiphonary of Bangor and the Early Irish Monastic Liturgy (Dublin, 1984), 46-47.

    One of the most interesting references in the Hymn to Saint Camelacus is found in the final stanza which says that Christ will place our saint in the company of the patriarch Abraham and he will reign in paradise with the holy Lazarus. This is clearly a reference to the parable of Dives and Lazarus found in the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of Saint Luke. In his 1887 collection The Tripartite Life of Patrick with Other Documents relating to that Saint, Whitley Stokes included the curious Tale of Patrick and his Leper, where the leper is named Comlach. Father Curran suggests that the association of Saint Camelacus with Lazarus in the hymn anticipates this later tradition. The link with lepers is further strengthened by the founding of a leper colony at Rahan by Saint Carthage, directed there, according to hagiography, by Saint Colmán of Lann Elo. A growing number of modern scholars believe that Colmán of Lann Elo is the true author of the hymn of Secundinus in honour of Saint Patrick, Audite omnes amantes and thus Father Curran wonders if Saint Colmán had a personal devotion to Saint Camelacus and might also be the author of the hymn in his honour.  He speculates that:

    It is possible that the new monastery and its leper-colony was a memorial and tribute to Camelacus, the first bishop of Raithin, who was remembered for his evangelical poverty and possibly for his care for lepers, if not already regarded as a leper himself.(p.47)

    Yet it remains equally possible that the Audite bonum exemplum, the Hymn to Camelacus, is a shorter and less sophisticated composition written in the style of the Audite omnes amantes.  Whatever the truth, it is fascinating to see Camelacus, this otherwise obscure holy man, being one of only three saints, along with our national apostle and Saint Comgall, Bangor’s founder, to merit a hymn in his honour in The Bangor Antiphonary:

    [15.] Hymnus Sancti Camelaci.

    i. Audite bonum exemplum
    Benedicti pauperis
    Camelaci Cumiensis
    Dei justi famuli.

    ii. Exemplum praebet in toto
    Fidelis in opere,
    Gratias Deo agens,
    Hilaris in omnibus,

    iii. Jejunus et mansuetus
    Kastus hic servit Deo,
    Laetatur in paupertate,
    Mitis est in omnibus,

    iv. Noctibus atque diebus
    Orat Dominum suum ;
    Prudens, justus, ac fideiis,
    Quem cognati diligunt.

    v. Regem Dominum aspexit
    Salvatoremque suum :
    Tribuit huic aeternam
    Vitam cum fidelibus.

    vi. Xps [i.e. Christus] illum insinuavit
    Patriarchae Abrahae,
    Yn Paradiso regnavit
    Cum sancto Lazaro.

    (text from F.E.Warren and W. Griggs, The Antiphonary of Bangor: an early Irish manuscript in the Ambrosian Library at Milan 2 vols, (London 1893–1895).

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2024. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Feber of Boho, November 6

    November 6 is the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland but is also the day on which we commemorate a little-known female saint of County Fermanagh, Saint Feber (Feadhbhair, Feadhbar, Fedbair, Febor, Faber) of Boho. Since we have only four surviving written Lives of Irish women saints, stories of Saint Feber have mostly survived in popular tradition preserved in the place where she once flourished. Her name is recorded though in Irish genealogical sources and also on the calendars of the saints. The Martyrology of Gorman records the name ‘Fedbair’ at November 6 with an accompanying scholiast note describing her as ‘a virgin from Botha Eich Raichnig’. The Martyrology of Donegal replicates this with its entry for ‘Fedbair, Virgin of Botha-eich Uaichnich, in Tir-Rátha’. Pádraig Ó Riain in his Dictionary of Irish Saints tells us that the genealogies describe Feber as a daughter of Dallbhrónach, mother of a number of saints. Her family tree also makes Saint Feber an aunt to Saint Brigid of Kildare. and Ó Riain notes that Feber was ‘said to have been subject to Brighid at her church in the townland of Toneel, parish of Boho, which she shared with her sister Sanct Bhróg.’ However, it is to popular tradition that we must turn for further details of the establishment of a church by Saint Feber. Here we find some classic hagiographical tropes: the assistance of a wild animal and the righteous anger of the saint leading to the cursing of a river and its subsequent flowing against the hill.

    In a letter dated November 6, 1834, John O’Donovan of the Ordnance Survey wrote:

    The village of Monea is called in Irish Muine Fhiadh, i.e. Hill of the Deer. The name is accounted for by a story similar to those told to account for the names of old churches in Derry. The virgin St. Feber first attempted to build her church at Kildrum at the place where the holy well now called Tobar Feber is to be seen, but what had been built in the course of the day was destroyed in the night by some invisible being. At last a deer, blessed beast, was pleased to point out a site where Feber might erect her church without interruption. He carried Feber’s books on his horns to Monea, and there the holy virgin finished the erection of her church without annoyance. But when the deer was crossing the Sillees River (Abhainn na Sailíse) he slipped on its slippery banks and the books fell off his horns and it was sometime before he could fix them on again. This was effected by the genius or sheaver (shaver) who presided over the Sillees, who did all in his power to prevent the establishment of the Christian Religion in that neighbourhood. As soon as Feber had understood that the demon of the river thus annoyed the good beast, she was filled with holy indignation -she became much wroth – and with (in?) sanctified fury and heavenly anger, she cursed the River, praying that the Silleece might be cursed with sterility of fish and fertility in the destruction of human life, and that it might run against the hill. 

    Rev. M. O’Flanagan, Letters Containing Information Relative to the Antiquities of the County of Fermanagh: Collected During the Progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1834-5 (1928), 54-5.

    A more recent commentator suggests that O’Donovan’s version of the Saint Feber, the stag and the river story was not the only one. Henry Glassie points out:

    In O’Donovan’s telling, Saint Febor’s opponent was supernatural, more often her opponent is human – a local chief – but her three curses end most tellings.

    He then goes on to give us the version from the autobiography of William K. Parke, a native of Derrygonnelly, County Fermanagh. Derrygonnelly is a town on the Sillees River, whose flowing against the hill Parke explains by telling the story of 

    “a lady saint known as Saint Faber”, who roamed the area with her pet deer, “endeavouring to convert the locals to Christianity”.  Her main objective was the local chief, O’Phelan, who “wanted nothing to do with this new fangled religion”. He ordered his servants to release the dogs on her. She fled, attempted to leap the Sillees, failed, her holy books were destroyed, and she cursed the river. The curses were that the river was to be dangerous for bathers, bad for fishing and to flow for ever against the hill.

    Glassie also cited another version of the tale from the same author. The quote above was taken from Parke’s 1988 autobiography Fermanagh Childhood , but in Glimpses of Old Derrygonnelly, published a decade earlier, Parke quoted from an old article from the local newspaper, The Impartial Reporter: 

    “St Faber fleeing from her enemies raised her staff cursing the water to be turned back so that she could save her deer carrying the Holy Books. The river ran on as far as Lisgoole Abbey where the monks met it and turned it into Lough Erne”.

    Henry Glassie, The Stars of Ballymenone, new edition, (Indiana University Press, 2016), footnote, p.483.

    The three curses of Saint Feber are part of a tradition of saintly malediction found in medieval hagiography in general, but a feature of the Lives of Irish saints in particular. I spoke about the context in which our saints utter curses on Episode 30 of the radio programme All the Saints of Ireland, which you can find at the podcast library of Radio Maria Ireland here. As I explained, cursing usually arises as a response to the dignity of the saint being disrespected. That is clearly the case here, where the chieftain aggressively attempts to thwart the saint’s missionary work and she invokes the judgement of God, not against the man, but against the river which endangered her animal companion and the holy books he carried. As I remarked on the radio broadcast, the cursing of things, food-producing sources such as rivers or trees, may owe something to the cursing of the fig tree by Christ on his way to Jerusalem. There is thus nothing unusual in this episode of Saint Feber and the Sillees, we see instances in other saints Lives of the cursing of rivers so that fish will not be caught.  It’s also true that unusual natural features in the environment are often attributed to the actions of saints, in this case the flowing of the Sillees against the hill. It is worth noting, however, that cursing is predominantly a male preserve in the Lives of the Irish saints but Saint Feber seems every bit as capable as any male saint. In the newspaper account the raising of her staff, the symbol of her authority, to pronounce the curse is also in keeping and reflects the ritualistic aspect of uttering maledictions. 

    A final observation is that the saint’s memory continues to be reflected in the landscape around Boho, In addition to the Tobar Feber there is a bullaun associated with the saint preserved at Killydrum townland. She is the patron of the Sacred Heart Church at Boho, one of the very few historic church sites still in Catholic hands. The parish website here adds some other details to Saint Feber’s story, claiming that she was the daughter of a local druid who was converted to Christianity by Saint Molaise of Devenish. It says too that the holy well of Saint Feber has a particular reputation for curing warts. There is a second well at Monea and Saint Feber is also the patron of the Catholic parish church there.

    So, although not much historical information has survived about this female saint of Fermanagh, her memory is still very much alive in the place where she once flourished.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2024. All rights reserved.

  • 'That Large Army, Known and Unknown': The Feast of All the Saints of Ireland

    November 6 is the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland and, since it is the date on which I started Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae in 2012, is also this blog’s patronal feast. To mark the occasion this year I reprint a sermon delivered by an Australian Dominican, Father R. J. Roche, on November 6 in 1931. This was ten years after the feast was instituted, along with an authorized Litany of the Irish Saints, the text of which you can read at the blog here. In his sermon Father Roche presents the realities of the Irish saints, yes, we have many whose names are known throughout the world but we have many more who are now obscure. It has always been part of my work to try and recover the names and memories of these lesser-known saints, all those who found a place on our historic calendars and were regarded as saints by popular acclamation. Wishing everyone the blessings of the Feast and thank you to all who support my work here at Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae and on All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria. Beannachtaí na Féile oraibh go Léir! Orate pro nobis omnes Sancti Hiberniae!

    SAINTS OF IRELAND.

    Father R. J. Roche’s Sermon on Feast Day.

    Commemoration of all the saints of Ireland — of that large army, known and unknown, of the spiritual sons of St. Patrick, who have attained eternal glory after lives of virtue and zeal for the spread of the Gospel! Such a comprehensive remembrance has been established by the Church’s institution of the feast of All the Saints of Ireland, to be observed in certain centres of the world on November 6. Preaching at the Dominican Convent, West Maitland, on the day of the feast, Rev. Father R. J. Roche, O.P., recalled many of the prominent names of Erin’s saints, and made a strong plea for an intensification of the spirit which kept Ireland true to the faith through the ages of oppression.

    Taking as his text, ‘For we are children of saints’ (Tobias), Father Roche said:

    To-day we keep the feast of all the saints of Ireland. It is a feast recently established for Ireland, and by privilege extended to some Australian dioceses, including that of Maitland. Of many of the Irish saints the names are familiar: Columbkille, Dove of the churches and contemplative of Iona: his namesake almost, Columbanus, who found rest in the spiritual fastness of Italy; Kilian, the martyr; Brendan, the mariner; Virgil, Colman, Fiacre, Declan, Lawrence O’Toole, Oliver Plunket, and others whose stories are interwoven with history. Some lived and died in their own land, some became exiles for Christ. Up the Rhine or down the Danube, by the banks of the Seine and the Loire, their names are preserved in the cities they founded, and their memory is enshrined in the hearts of the people to whom they brought the Cross. Amongst those we commemorate are many women saints: the most renowned of them is Brigid, the Mary of the Gael. Beneath an oak tree at Kildare her cell was built, and around her gathered the most illustrious of her countrywomen. She is the mother of all the holy nuns who have come out of Ireland, no matter in what country they lived or to what Order they belonged.

    Its Comprehensiveness. 

    I said that the names of many of them are familiar to us. It is also true that of many more the names have not been preserved. As the Church instituted a general feast of All Saints to commemorate the unknown saints of all the world, so does to-day’s feast include all the obscure heroes and heroines of holiness whose spiritual father is St. Patrick. The unknown saints of Ireland! Perhaps not all of them are completely unknown. There are saints in every generation. We surely may treasure the memory of a saintly parent or grandparent who, we have every reason to believe, is now with God; those dead of ours whose memories should be deathless. They lived simple, self-denying lives: their companions were hardships, duty, family affection and love of God. Not for them the modern softness and the evasion of all restraint. Their homes were modelled on that of Nazareth; their highest law was the acceptance of the Divine Will. When sorrow and loneliness, desolation and spoliation came into their lives, their lips offered a sincere welcome to the Will of God. They went their simple way unto the end, they left a fragrance upon earth, and we may well believe that in death they found the Rest Eternal promised to those who bear the yoke of Christ. And their feast day is to-day — the feast of All the Saints of Ireland. Some of those whose memory we are keeping may have been born in this sunny land, or they may have come hither in Australia’s morning, come with their stout hearts to make a new nation, and with their strong faith to plant the Cross as a symbol of that nation’s ultimate allegiance and sublimest hope.

    We are the spiritual children of the saints. They give us hope, they give us admonition. Behind us is more than a thousand years of tradition, tradition of the faith of our fathers! In mental vision we see the beautiful, unique picture of unbroken fidelity, generation after generation steadfast in the faith in spite of dungeon, fire and sword. A kingdom has been overthrown, a nation oppressed, but the Cross remains. Urban VIII. wrote to the Irish people: ‘Be mindful of your past: in your nation there have been many masters of virtue and athletes of the faith.’ As we praise their memory, we seek to emulate their virtues: their humility, their patience, their outstanding constancy. We ask that God may give us the grace to be faithful to our traditions, and to pass on undimmed the lamp of faith. It is true that the glories of ancient Erin are no more, and that the lamp of Kildare was put out by the spoiler; but the spiritual children of the Irish saints have still their place in the plans of God. May that place be always in the vanguard of those who seek to establish the Kingdom of God. We beg all the saints of Ireland, our own dear saintly dead, where’er they lie, we beg the martyrs of the penal days, we beg the sainted sons of Angus and the daughters of Brigid to be with us that we fail not in the conflict.

    “SAINTS OF IRELAND.” The Catholic Press (Sydney, NSW : 1895 – 1942) 3 December 1931: 37. Web. 6 Nov 2024 .

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2024. All rights reserved.