OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

ALL THE SAINTS OF IRELAND

  • Saint Erc, the Bishop, October 2

    On October 2 the Irish calendars list a Saint Erc but without any further details as to when or where he flourished. His name is absent from the Martyrology of Oengus but the Martyrology of Tallaght records Herci episcopi at this date. The later twelfth-century Martyrology of Gorman records his name as does the seventeenth-century Martyrology of Donegal. There are a number of Irish saints named Erc (Earc, Erk, Ercus, Herc), the most well-known of whom is Saint Erc of Slane, an important figure in the hagiography of Saint Patrick. Another is Saint Erc of Alltraighe, who features in the hagiography of Saint Brendan of Clonfert and then there is the Erc recorded in the Life of Saint Seanán as one of three bishops left behind by Seanán on Scattery Island. In addition to these saints known from hagiogaphical sources, there is also Saint Erc of Donaghmore in County Kildare whose feast also falls in the month of October, on the 27th. Pádraig Ó Riain in his Dictionary of Irish Saints suggests that since the Donaghmore saint’s feast day is within the octave of the feast of the famous Erc of Slane on November 2, they may well be the same person. Is it significant too that Erc of Slane’s feast falls exactly one month to the day after that recorded for Erc the Bishop?  Dean Anthony Cogan on page 61 of the first volume of his diocesan history of Meath noted that 

    Colgan says that, in the old calendars, Ercus is treated of on 2nd of October and 2nd of November.

    Saint Erc, therefore, provides a very good illustration of the complexities involved in trying to disentangle the feast days and individual careers of Irish saints who share the same name!
     

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  • Translation of the Relics of Saint Virgilius, September 26

    As there are not many commemorations of Irish saints found on the calendars at September 26, Canon O’Hanlon is forced to look further afield to fill up the September volume of his Lives of the Irish Saints. He notes that various continental sources record the Translation of the Relics of Saint Virgilius of Saltzburg at this date. Beneath this Latin name is Fearghal, an eighth-century Irishman, who embodies the missionary and scholarly ideals of Ireland in the Golden Age of the Saints. A contemporary of the English Saint Boniface, with whom he clashed, Saint Virgil established a reputation as a leading European scholar before his death in 784. His feast day, as Canon O’Hanlon notes below, is on November 27 and a paper on the life and work of this great Irish saint in Europe can be read at the blog here. Below is the account of today’s feast from Canon O’Hanlon’s Lives of the Irish Saints, I regret that he does not bring more actual detail of the circumstances of the translation of the saint’s relics:

    Article IX. Translation of the Relics of St.Virgilius, Bishop of Saltzburg. 

    By Canisius and Ferrarius, the commemoration of a Translation of the Relics of St. Virgilius, Bishop of Saltzburg, in Bavaria, takes place on this day. His Acts are more properly deferred to the 27th of November, the date for his principal festival. The Bollandists notice the Translation of his Relics, at the 26th of September.

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  • 'A Lion of Strength': Saint Finbarr of Cork

    The following abstract of the character of this holy man [Saint Finbarr] is from the Irish and Latin lives:

    “His humility, his piety, his charity, his abstinence, his prayers by day and by night, won him great privileges: for he was godlike and pure of heart and mind like Abraham; mild and well-doing like Moses; a Psalmist like David; wise like Solomon; devoted to the truth like Paul the Apostle; and full of the Holy Spirit like John the Baptist. He was a lion of strength, and an orchard full of apples of pleasure. When the time of his death arrived, after erecting churches and monasteries to God, and appointing over them Bishops; Priests, and other degrees, and baptising and blessing districts and people, Barre went to Cill-na-cluana (Cloyne) and with him went Fiana, at the desire of Cormac and Baoithin, where they consecrated two churches. Then he said, it is time for me to quit this corporeal prison and to go to the heavenly King, who is now calling me to himself; and then Barra was confessed, and received the sacrament from the hand of Fiana, and his soul went to heaven, at the cross which is in the middle of the church of Cloyne. And there came Bishops, Priests, Monks, and Disciples, on his death being reported, and to honour him; and they took him to Cork the place of his resurrection, honouring him with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and the angels bore his soul with joy unspeakable to heaven, to the company of the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, and Disciples of Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Trinity, The Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost.” Amen.

     R. Caulfield, ed., The Life of Saint Fin Barre, First Bishop and Founder of the See of Cork (London, 1864),  

     

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