OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

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  • 'The Conspicuous One out of Africa': The Feast of Saint Augustine on the Irish Calendars

    August 28 is the feast of the great Doctor of the Western Church, Saint Augustine. Not surprisingly, since he was himself a monastic of the Augustinian order, the twelfth-century Irish calendarist, Marianus O’Gorman, notes the feast on his Martyrology:

    28. b.
    Augustin ind eccna,epscop uasal amra. 

    Augustinus the wise,
    a noble, marvellous bishop.

    This Martyrology further records the octave day of the feast at September 4:

    4.b.
    D’ Augustin octauus, 

    The octave of Augustinus.

    The feast at August 28 is also recorded in the earlier Martyrology of Oengus:

    in t-airdirc a hAfraic. 

    (Augustine) the conspicuous one out of Africa.

    The scholiast notes comment:

    iin arrdraic a hAfraic .i. Augaistin .i. comad hé Augustin sapientissimus librorum sein.  L .i. Augustinus sapientissimus uir Affricorum. 

    the famous one out of Africa, i.e. Augustine, i.e. that may be Augustine sapientissimus librorum.- i.e. the wisest of the Africans.

    The Martyrology of Tallaght simply records 

    Augustini.
    episcopi. [in marg. magni.]

    In Irish popular devotion, Saint Augustine’s Day might be marked with a pattern day centred around a holy well, as for example at Kilshanny, County Clare. Augustinian monks founded a monastery here in 1189 and their patron seems to have displaced the native Irish saint to whom the well was originally dedicated.  There is a picture of the well here. Whilst, in this case, an earlier indigenous saint has been displaced, it needs to be remembered that in other cases the Augustinans were responsible for commissioning the Lives of the native holy men and women and for promoting their claims of association with religious foundations. 

  • 'The Lord's chaste apostle, Bartholomew to whom I pray'

    August 25 is the feast of Saint Barthlomew the Apostle, whom tradition says met a particularly gruesome death by being flayed alive. His feast appears on the Irish calendars with the Martyrology of Tallaght simply noting ‘Passio Bartholomei apostoli‘, at this date. The Martyrology of Oengus has a rather fuller entry:

    F. viii. cal. Septembris.
    Ro sreth scél a chesta cech leth co sál srúamach, iar mórchroich ro rígad in Bartholom búadach. 

    25. The story of his suffering has been declared on every side even to the streamy sea: after a great cross he has been crowned, the triumphant Bartholomew.

    The scholiast notes add:

    25. Bartolom. Bartholomeus in Indiam perrexit et in ea passus est sub Astrige rege eorum .i. gladio decollatus est, uel uiuus sepultus est, post pellem rasam suam de corpore toto ante, et sic uitam finiuit. 

    25. Bartholomew proceeded into India etc. i.e. he was beheaded with a sword, or he was buried alive, etc. 

    The twelfth-century Martyrology of Gorman also notes the feast at the beginning of its entries for the preceding day:

    24. E.

    Apstol cáid in Coimdedh
    Bartholom fris mbenaimm 

    The Lord’s chaste apostle, Bartholomew to whom I pray:,..

    Canon O’Hanlon also notes the feast in Volume 8 of his Lives of the Irish Saints:
    Festival of St. Bartholomew, Martyr. 

    The festival of St. Bartholomew, Martyr, was observed in the early Irish Church, on the 25th of August, as may be found in the “Feilire” of St. Aengus. There his name takes the Irish form Parrthalon. To this, the scholiast has added an explanatory note in Latin.  Wherefore it seems we are to regard him as St. Bartholomew, the Apostle, and whose Acts are fully set forth by the Bollandists, at this date. These Acts have a previous learned commentary by the editor, Father John Stilting, SJ.; and they are followed by a narratives of the posthumous honours, translations, relics and miracles of this celebrated Apostle of the Indies.

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  • Saint Eóin of Saint John's, August 17

    Today is the feast of a County Down saint whose church site I have visited a number of times, most recently in June whilst on a day tour of ecclesiastical sites with the Down County Museum. It is a site well worth visiting, the church ruins are situated on the coast and have the company of the nearby Saint John’s Point Lighthouse. I have previously posted on the elusive Saint John here and now bring the account from Volume 8 of Canon O’Hanlon’s Lives of the Irish Saints. In the absence of any substantial information on the man, O’Hanlon tells us instead of his church. He doesn’t mention the holy well and bullaun at the entrance to the site, but does say that the eighteenth-century writer, Walter Harris, claimed that the church was intact in his day. I am also interested by the fact that a church which appears to have started out as being associated with a local saint was later called the Chapel of Saint John of Jerusalem:

    St. Eoin of St. John’s, County of Down.

    It should be understood, that the proper name Eoin, in Irish, is equivalent to the English name John. The Martyrology of Tallagh records a festival at the 17th of August, to honour St. Eoani mic Carlain. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, his place seems to have been known as the Chapel of Styoun, now St. John’s Point. This is a detached townland in the parish of Rathmullan. At this same date, the name occurs in the Martyrology of Donegal, Eoin, son of Carlan, of Tigh-Eoin, in Uladh. This place has been identified with St. John’s, in the County of Down. In the year 1183, it would seem to have been designated Stechian, in the time of James I. Stion, and at the time of the Dissolution, it was called the Chapel of St. John of Jerusalem. This ancient chapel belonged to a very antique class of ecclesiastical buildings. It measured only 20 by 13 feet, in the clear. Better than a century ago, the walls were entire. But now, the east wall has been demolished to the foundation, and with it the east window, small and narrow, terminating in an acute angle, formed by two inclined flags. The doorway, in the west wall, is 5 feet, 6 inches, high; 2 feet, 1 inch wide, at the top, but gradually dilating to the threshold, where it is 3 feet in breadth. In the south wall, near the south-east angle, there is a window 2 feet, 5 and a half inches high; 1 foot, 4inches wide, at top, and 1 foot, 9 nine inches, at bottom. In both instances, the aperture is surmounted by a single flag, instead of an arch.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2017. All rights reserved.