OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

ALL THE SAINTS OF IRELAND

  • Saint Cassán of Cluain-Ratha, June 20

    There seems to be some confusion over the date of the feast of Saint Cassán of Cluain-Ratha with a disagreement between earlier and later calendars. The earlier Martyrology of Tallaght records his feast at June 19, whereas the Martyrology of Donegal, compiled in the seventeenth century, records it at June 20. The feast also appears at June 20 in the twelfth-century Martyrology of Gorman, it does not appear at all in the Martyrology of Oengus at either date. Pádraig Ó Riain’s Dictionary of Irish Saints lists several holy men of the name Casán, but none of them are linked to a June feast day. Canon O’Hanlon has no further details to bring us, so I do not know when or where this saint flourished:

    St. Cassan, of Cluain-ratha.

    At the 20th of June, we find the name Cassan, of Cluain-ratha, entered in the Martyrology of Donegal. The Martyrology of Tallagh gives this commemoration, at the previous day.

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  • Saint Columba and the Woman Escorted by the Angels to Paradise

    June 9 is the feastday of Saint Colum Cille [Columba] of Iona.  As I have previously noted on the blog, Iona’s founder shares his feastday with his immediate successor and kinsman, Baithin. Canon O’Hanlon, however, has another feast to record for this day, one which comes directly from Book III of Adamnán’s Life of Saint Columba:

    Feast of a Holy Woman whose Name is unknown, and who was borne into Heaven by Angels. [Sixth Century.]

    At this date, we find introduced into a Calendar the festival of a beatified woman, whose name is not known, but whose soul St. Columkille beheld ascending into Heaven. After a great struggle with demons, the Angels came to receive her into the mansions of everlasting bliss. This festival is noted by the Bollandists, among the pretermitted saints. 

    The calendar to which Canon O’Hanlon refers is named in the footnotes as the ‘Gynaeceo Arturi’. I was unable to find out any further information on this source. Below is the text from the Life of Saint Columba from which this feast is drawn. It is interesting to note that the witness to this miracle was a Saxon monastic who worked as a baker at the monastery of Iona:

    [III 10] Of a vision, in which St. Columba beheld angels bearing to heaven the soul of a virtuous woman

    Likewise, on another occasion, when St Columba was dwelling in Iona, one day he suddenly looked up towards heaven and said:

    ‘Happy woman, happy and virtuous, whose soul the angels of God now take to paradise!’

    One of the brothers was a devout man called Genereus the Englishman, who was the baker. He was at work in the bakery where he heard St Columba say this. A year later, on the same day, the saint again spoke to Genereus the Englishman, saying:

    ‘I see a marvellous thing. The woman of whom I spoke in your presence a year ago today – look!- she is now meeting in the air the soul of a devout layman, her husband, and is fighting for him together with holy angels against the power of the Enemy. With their help and because the man himself was always righteous, his soul is rescued from the devils’ assaults and is brought to the place of eternal refreshment.’

    Richard Sharpe, ed. and trans., Life of Saint Columba, (Penguin Classics, 1991), 213.

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  • Teach me, O Trinity

    E. Hull Poem, Book of the Gael (1913)

    To mark Trinity Sunday, below is a poem taken from a 1913 collection of texts and translations by the Anglican writer Eleanor Hull (1860-1935). She is perhaps best known for her English versification of the hymn ‘Be Thou My Vision’. Miss Hull contributed translations from Old Irish to many of the scholarly journals of her day and published various books on early Irish history and mythology. The poem below, by the 12th/13th-century writer Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh, is a beautiful plea to the Holy Trinity:

    TEACH ME, O TRINITY

    By Murdoch O’Daly, called Murdoch “the Scotchman” (Muredach Albanach), on account of his affection for that country; born in Connaught towards the close of the twelfth century.

    TEACH me, O Trinity,

    All men sing praise to Thee, 
    Let me not backward be, 
    Teach me, O Trinity. 
    Come Thou and dwell with me, 
    Lord of the holy race; 
    Make here thy resting-place, 
    Hear me, O Trinity. 
    That I Thy love may prove. 
    Teach Thou my heart and hand. 
    Ever at Thy command 
    Swiftly to move. 
    Like to a rotting tree 
    Is this vile heart of me; 
    Let me Thy healing see, 
    Help me, O Trinity. 
    Sinful, beholding Thee; 
    Yet clean from theft and blood My hands; 
    O Son of God, 
    For Mary’s love, answer me. 
    In my adversity 
    No great man stooped to me, 
    No good man pitied me, 
    God ope’d His heart to me. 
    Lied I, as others lie. 
    They deceived, so have I, 
    On others’ lie I built my lie — Will my God pass this by? 
    Truth art Thou, truth I crave, 
    If on a lie I rest, I’m lost ; 
    My vow demands my uttermost; 
    Save, Trinity, O save!
    Eleanor Hull, ed. Poem Book of the Gael,  Translations from Irish Gaelic Poetry into English Prose and Verse, (London 1912), 156-157.

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