OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

ALL THE SAINTS OF IRELAND

  • Saint Cillene of Fahan, January 3

    Bell of Saint Mura (UJA, 1853)

    January 3 is the commemoration of a seventh/eighth-century Abbot of Fahan in County Donegal, Cillene Ua Colla. The monastery of Fahan was founded by Saint Mura and various of his successors, including our saint, had the dates of their deaths noted in the Irish Annals. Canon O’Hanlon has this account of Abbot Cillene:

    St. Cillin, or Cillene Ua Colla, Abbot of Fathan-Mura, now Fahan, County of Donegal. 

    [Seventh and Eighth Centuries.]—We find a festival, Cillini Mac h Colla, at the 3rd of January, in the “Martyrology of Tallagh.” In addition to this notice the “Martyrology of Donegal” mentions Cillin Ua Colla, abbot of Fathan-Mura, as having been venerated on this day. The name of this place is sometimes found written Athain and Othain in ancient records. A church was founded here so early as the sixth century by the great St. Columkille. St. Cilline, the descendant of Colla, was born most probably about the middle of the seventh century. The modern designation of his locality is Fahan, within the peninsula of Inishowen, in the county of Donegal. At present, it is said, the old church of Fahan Mura lies close to the eastern shore of Lough Swilly, in the barony of Inishowen, county of Donegal, and in an exceedingly picturesque situation within the ornamental glebe grounds.  In the Annals of Ireland we have on record the death of Ceallach, son of Saran, abbot of Othan-mor or Fahan, A.D. 657. It seems likely the present saint did not succeed him as abbot for many years afterwards, as the death of St. Cillene Ua Colla is set down in the “Annals of the Four Masters,” at A.D. 720, on the 3rd of January. The “Annals of Ulster” place his death at A.D. 724, and the Martyrologists of Donegal seem to adopt this latter computation.

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  • A Legend of Saint Scothine

    January 2 is the feast of Saint Scothin, an account of whose life can be found here. Below is a retelling of the most famous of the legends associated with him, by the Irish Anglican writer Maud Joynt:

    LEGEND OF SAINT SCOTHINE

    SCOTHINE, who dwelt at Tech Scothine, in Leinster, was a saint of great piety and of wondrous power;  for he could make the journey from Ireland to Rome in one day and return the next; moreover, he could walk dryshod on the sea. One day while he was walking on the sea he met Saint Barre of Cork, who was in a boat.

    ” How comes it that thou art walking on the sea?” asked Barre .

    ” ‘Tis no sea, but a plain covered with clover,” said Scothine, and, with that, he plucked a clover blossom and threw it to Saint Barre in the boat.

    “But thou, how comes it that thy boat floats on a plain?”

    Thereupon Barre dipped his hand into the water, drew out a salmon and threw it to Scothine; and that was all the answer he made.

    Maud Joynt, The Golden Legends of the Gael, (Dublin, n.d.), Part II, 80.

  • Saints Lochan and Enda of Kilnamanagh, December 31

    The Irish Calendars for December 31 agree in commemorating two saints, Lochan and Enda of Kilnamanagh. The Martyrology of Oengus reads:

    31. Lochan and Endae.
    Silvester, noble desire!
    from their feast – no very feeble leap
    let us strive to step to the calends (of January).

    The scholiast notes:

    31. Lochan and Enda, in Cell na manach in Hui Dunchada are those two, and in Cell maic Cathail in Hui Bairrchi, i.e. in Belach Giabrain.

     The later Martyrology of Donegal concurs:

    31. A. PRIDIE KAL. JANUARII. 31.

    ENDA and LOCHAN, of Cill-na-manach, in Ui-Dunchadha, or of Cill-mac-Cathail, in Ui-Bairche; and of Bealach Gabhrain. Lochan was of the race of Dathi, son of Fiachra.

    I haven’t been able to discover a great deal about these two saints but they are mentioned in a nineteenth-century paper by Father J.F. Shearman. He produced a most interesting series of articles looking at places associated with Saint Patrick under the title Loca Patriciana and attached an appendix on the Monastery of Kilnamanagh to part ten. He writes:

    Lochan, son of Cathal, the grandson of Oilill, K.I., 463-483, son of Dathi, K.I., 405-428, and Enda were connected with Acadh Finnech (December 13th, “Martyrology of Donegal”). Lochan was also connected with a church in the diocese of Leithglin, now Kilmacahil (Cill Mic Cathail), in the county Kilkenny. The Abbot Garbhan, the friend of St. Kevin, was of this monastery. 

    Rev. J. F. Shearman, Loca Patriciana – Part X, Journal of the Royal Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland, 4th series, Vol. 4, (1876-8) 88-9. 

    I think the writer has accidentally transposed the date from the Martyrology of Donegal to read December 13 instead of 31.

    However, more recent scholarship has established that Saints Enda and Lochán are associated with the tribal grouping of the Dál Messin Corb, the people of Saint Kevin of Glendalough and thus with  Kilnamanagh near Tallaght, County Dublin. Indeed, they comprise two of the ‘three holy seniors’ to whom St Kevin went as a boy “that he might be brought up to Christ in their cell.” Scholar A. P. Smyth comments: 

    The names of Kevin’s earliest monastic tutors – Éogan, Lochán and Énna – identify their base as being at Cell na Manach (Kilnamanagh, near Tallaght, Co. Dublin) rather than at Kilnamanagh near Glenealy in Co. Wicklow. Significantly, we find from the earliest Rawlinson genealogies, that Kevin’s tutors, like their pupil, were all from the Uí Náir, a sept of the Dál Messin Corb. 

    Alfred P. Smyth, ‘Kings, Saints and Sagas’ in K.Hannigan and W. Nolan eds., Wicklow: History and Society – Interdisciplinary Essays on the History of an Irish County (Dublin, 1994), p. 49.

    Note: This post, first published in 2015 was revised in 2024 to correct the identification of these saints with Kilkenny and to establish them at Kilnamanagh near Tallaght as the earliest tutors of Saint Kevin of Glendalough.

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