OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

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  • Saint Coemhan of Anatrim, November 3

    November 3 is the day on which the Irish calendars commemorate Saint Coemhan, who is associated with a monastic foundation at Anatrim, County Laois. Father Edward Carrigan describes the circumstances in which Saint Coemhan came to succeed as abbot of the monastery and of its subsequent history:

    St. Mochaemhog (Latine, Pulcherius), abbot and patron of Leamakevoge, now Leigh, in the parish of Two Mile-Borris, Co. Tipperary, laid the first foundations of a religious establishment at Anatrim, during the second half of the 6th century. We read in his Life:

    “St. Pulcherius, with his monks, came to a place by name Enachtruim, which is in the Slieve Bloom, in the territory of the Leixians, and began to build a church there. But a certain wordly-given man came to him saying: ‘Do not labour here in vain, because this place will not be yours.’ St. Pulcherius answered him saying: ‘Now I will remain here till some one taking hold of my hand shall seize me and expel me by force.’ Then the other took hold of the holy man’s hand with the intention of forcing him away. As he did so, St. Pulcherius said to him: ‘By what name are you called, O man?” He answered: ‘My name is Bronach‘ (which, in Latin. is equivalent to tristis). The holy man replied: ‘You have an appropriate name, for you shall be sad here and hereafter. Now you and your generation, by the will of God, will be expelled hence by the chief of this district, but I shall be in this place until a man of God, by name Coemhan, will come to me; to him I will leave this place, he shall be surnamed from it, and here shall be his resurrection.’ The man hearing this prophecy, and conscious of his guiltiness towards his chief, withdrew in anger, and without contrition for the insult he had offered [the saint], and forthwith everything fell out with him as the holy man had predicted. And when St. Coemhan came thither to St. Pulcherius, the latter left the place to him, and he remained here in great sanctity till his death: but St. Pulcherius proceeded to the district of Munster.”
    AA. SS. Hib. p. 586, March 13.

    St. Coemhan or “Kavan,” to whom Anatrim was thus committed, was probably a native of the County Wicklow, and was certainly a member of what may, with reason, be called a family of Saints. He was brother or step-brother of (1) the great St. Caoimhghin or Kevin of Glendalough, who died in 618, aged, it is said, 120 years; (2) St. Nathchoemhi or Mo-Chuemhin, Abbot of Terryglass, in Lower Ormond; (3) St. Coemola or Melda, mother of St. Abban the younger, which latter was born about 520; and of (4) St. Coeltighearna, mother of (a) St. Dagan of Ennereilly, Co. Wicklow; (b) St. Molibba, Abbot and Bishop of Glendalough; (c) St. Menocus or Enanus of Glenealy, Co. Wicklow, and (d) St. Mobhai. In early life, St. Coemhan, with his brother, St. Nathchoemhi, and St. Fintan of Clonenagh, received his religious training in St. Columba’s Monastery of Terryglass. The date of his death must be somewhere about the year 600. The Martyrology of Donegal thus commemorates him on his feast day, Nov 3rd:

    “Caemhan of Eanach-truim, in Laoighis, in the west of Leinster. He was of the race of Labhraidh Lorc, monarch of Erin, and brother of Caoimhghin of Gleann-da-locha.

    The Calendar of Aengus, on the same day, has:
    “The day of Coemhan of Eanach.”

    On which passage the scholiast of Aengus comments

    “That is, Coemhan of Eanach truim in Laighis in Leinster, the brother of Coemgin of Glendalough Coemlog was their father’s name and Coemgel their mother’s, and Natcaim of Tir-da-glass [was] their brother as is aforesaid.”

    The annals of Anatrim monastery, from the time of St. Coemhan, are a perfect blank. The monks probably held on here till the 12th century, when they either became extinct or were set aside, and their chapel was handed over to the secular clergy.

    Rev. E. Carrigan, “The History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory” Vol. 2 (1905).

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  • Saint Comán of Lismore, October 31

    We close the month of October with the commemoration of an abbot of Lismore, County Waterford, a successor to the founder, Saint Carthage or Mochuda. The Martyrology of Donegal lists two abbots of Lismore at 31 October – Comán and Colman – but, as the following extract from a diocesan history suggests, we may be dealing with a single individual:

    31 C. PRIDIE KAL. NOVEMBRIS. 31.

    COMÁN, Ua Ciarain, Abbot of Lis-mor.
    COLMAN, Abbot of Lis-mor. The age of Christ when he resigned his spirit was 702.

    The church and monastery of Lismore, which grew to be one of the renowned centres of ancient Irish learning and piety, owed its foundation to St. Mochuda of the 7th century. Mochuda, otherwise Carthage, was a native of Kerry, and he had been abbot of Rahan in Offaly. It is probable that there had been a Christian church at Lismore previous to the time of Mochuda, for in the Saint’s Life there is an implied reference to such a foundation. Be this as it may, Mochuda, driven out of Rahan, with his muintir, or religious household, migrated southward, and, having crossed the Blackwater at Affane, established himself at Lismore in 630. In deference to Mochuda’s place of birth the saint’s successor in Lismore was, for centuries, a Kerryman. Lismore grew in time to be a great religious city, and a school of sacred sciences, to which pilgrims from all over Ireland and scholars from beyond the seas resorted. The rulers of the great establishment were all, or most of them, bishops, though they are more generally styled abbots by the Annalists. Among the number are several who are listed as Saints by the Irish Martyrologies, scil:

    Comman, grandson of Ciaran, abbot of Lismore … … … Oct. 31.

    [His name is written Colman in Martyr. Donegal.]

    Patrick Power, Waterford & Lismore – A Compendious History of the United Dioceses (Cork, 1937), 5-6.

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  • Saint Ernach of Duneane, October 30

    There is a considerable amount of confusion surrounding the identity of the saint commemorated at the County Antrim locality of Duneane on October 30. For although the calendars record the name of a male saint Ernach at this date, they also record a female Hercnat or Ergnata on the same day. This female saint has a second feast at January 8. The diocesan historian, Father James O’Laverty, attempts to sort out the confusion, although he ends by introducing yet another saint into the mix: 

    Colgan (Acta. S.S. 8 Jan.) says, “St. Ergnata flourished
    about the year of Christ, 460, and our Hagiologists relate,
    that her festival was celebrated in the Church of Cluainda-en
    (the meadow of the two birds), in the district called
    Fiodhbhaidh (Feevagh), and in the Church of Tamhlact-bo,
    both on the 8th of January, and on the 31st (recte 30th), of
    October.” Colgan adds in a note that Cluain-da-en is a
    parochial church on the banks of Lough Neagh. Two
    transcripts of the Calendar of Aengus, read at the 30th of
    October, where it commemorates St. Ernach — “Ernach a
    virgin (uag) a high pillar,” but the oldest transcript which
    Whitley Stokes gives, reads, “Ernach, a youth (oc), a high
    pillar.” It is obvious that there were two saints, one a
    virgin, the daughter of the prince, who gave Armagh to St.
    Patrick; she was named Ergnata, or Eargnath, or Herenat,
    and was honoured on the 8th of January, with a festival in
    the Church of Tamlachtbo, in the parish of Eglish, Armagh. While there was another saint called by nearly
    the same name, though a man, who was honoured by a
    festival in the Church of Duneane, which was held on the
    30th of October. In process of time, the hagiologists confounded the two on account of the similarity of names.
    Thus the Calendar of Donegal has, at the 8th of January, “Eargnat, Virgin of Dun-da-en, in Dalaraidhe,” and
    again at the 30th of October, it has

    “Hercnat, Virgin of Dun-da-en, in Fiodhbhadh (Feevagh),
    of Dalaraidh.”

    The note on the Festology of Aengus, in the L. Breac,
    sets the matter at rest.

    Ernach-i-MacTairnd, &c., Ernach, i.e. son of Tairnd, is his
    name, but it fitted not the quatrain; and in Dun-da-en, in
    Fidbaid (Feevagh), of Dalaraidhe, is he”.  Dun-da-en, the old form of the name Duneane, signifies
    “the fort of the two birds,” in allusion to some old legend
    a version of which is given below. Feevagh is still the name of
    district adjoining Duneane. St. Ernach, whose festival was
    held on the 30th of October, in Duneane, seems to be the
    same St. Ernin, whose festival was held on the 31st of May, in Cranfield. 

    Rev. James O’Laverty, An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, Ancient and Modern, Vol. III (Dublin, 1884), 333-334.

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