OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

ALL THE SAINTS OF IRELAND

  • Saint Colman of Drumlease, June 19

    At June 19 we commemorate one of the many Irish saints who bear the name of Colman but about whom nothing is known. This one is associated with Drumlease, County Leitrim, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

    ST. COLMAN, OF DRUIM LIAS, NOW DRUMLEASE, COUNTY OF LEITRIM.

    ON this day, veneration was given to Colman, of Dramlias, said to have been in Luighne, by Marianus O’Gorman. This we read, also, in the Martyrology of Donegal. In the Table appended, the Carthusian Martyrology is quoted, after the entry of this saint’s name and place. The latter is now known as Drumlease, and there is an old church now in ruins, near the eastern extremity of the beautiful Lough Gill. It is situated in the barony of Dromahaire, and in the county of Leitrim. The monastery at this place was burned, in the year 1360. It lay in West Breifne. There is also a village of Drumlish, in the parish of Killoe, in the barony and county of Longford. A Manuscript Calendar, which belonged to Professor Eugene O’Curry, enters a festival for St. Colman of Druim Lias, at the 19th of June.

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  • The Blessed Aidus Hua-Foirreth, June 18

    On June 18 Canon O’Hanlon brings a brief account of a tenth/eleventh century cleric of Armagh, Aidus Hua-Foirreth. He is distinguished from most of the other holy men who appear on this blog in that his name is not recorded on the calendars of the Irish saints but rather in the Irish Annals. The Annals of the Four Masters record:

    The Age of Christ, 1056. Aedh Ua Foirreidh, chief lector and distinguished Bishop of Ard-Macha, died on the 14th of the Calends of July, in the  seventy-fifth year of his age, as is said:

    Of brilliant fame while he lived was
    Aedh O’Foirreidh the aged sage ;
    On the fourteenth of the Calends of July,
    This mild bishop passed to heaven.

    Canon O’Hanlon cannot add much more detail except to acknowledge the role played by the great seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, in flagging up the memory of this learned bishop:

    The Blessed Aidus Hua-Foirreth. [Tenth and Eleventh Centuries]

    In his Appendix to the Acts of St. Patrick, Colgan has introduced the name of the Blessed Aidus Hua-Foirreth, chief scholastic, and bishop of Armagh, or rather suffragan, who died on this day. But that  writer adds little more, which might give a clue to his identity, except that he died A.D. 1056, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. The Bollandists, following Colgan’s statement, notice him, at the 18th of June.

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  • Saint Moling and the Two Suffering Men

    June 17 is the feast of Saint Moling Luachra and below is an account of one of his many miracles:

    Two men, affected with excessive pain of the emblena [belly], and in the whole body, caused by great dropsical swelling, were brought to St. Molyng, that in the name of Christ, he might cure them. At that time, the holy senior Molyng was out in the open air, and digging the earth in a field along with the brethren. Seeing their affliction, the venerable man said to them: “Chew some of the clay of this earth, I have just now dug”. Unwilling to taste it, one of them reproved the holy man, saying that for no good end could he bid men to eat earth. The other man, however, humbly chewed it, and he was healed from his infirmity. He arose strengthened, and he gave thanks to God. Then, he walked home to his own people. Unwilling to return, the proud man died and was there buried. In both, the words of the Sacred Scriptures were fulfilled. In the case of the humble man, those words, “Thy faith hath made thee whole”, and in the case of the proud man, “He who exalteth himself shall be humbled,”were verified. On account of this miracle, many were confirmed in Christ.

    Rev. John O’Hanlon, Lives of the Irish Saints, Volume VI (Dublin, n.d.), 715.

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