OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

ALL THE SAINTS OF IRELAND

  • Saint Beoán of Feighcullen, August 8

    August 8 is the feast of Saint Beoán of Feighcullen, County Kildare. His feast is found on all of the Irish calendars and his name also preserved in genealogical sources. There he is described as one of the seven sons of Neasán from the Uí Fhaoláin branch of the important north Leinster tribe of the Uí Dhúnlainge. Three of his brothers have their own feast on the Irish calendars at March 15. Fiodh Cuilinn, the locality associated with Beoán, is modern Feighcullen, and some of the sources record that Saint Beoán was bishop there. Canon O’Hanlon brings this account of him in Volume VIII of his Lives of the Irish Saints:

    Article III. St. Beoan, son of Nessan, of Feigh Cullen, County of Kildare. 

    According to the Martyrology of Tallagh, veneration was given at the 8th of August to Beoan mic Nessan, in Fidh Cullend. St. Beoan, the son of Nessan, is commemorated, on this day, likewise, in the “Feilire” of St. Aengus. There is a scholion annexed, stating that he was of Fid Cuillinn in Ui-Foelain. It is now called Feighcullen, a parish, partly in the Barony of East Ophaly, but chiefly in that of Connell, County of Kildare. It contains a large tract of bog. The O’Clerys state, that he was the son of Neassan, and that he sprung from the race of Cathaoir Mor, of Leinster. Near the Hill of Allen, in the County of Kildare, Feigh-Cullen was the site of an ancient church, the ruins of which existed within the memory of some still living. The rude Baptismal trough, used at this church in primitive Christian times, is now preserved at Allen. In a field adjoining the church, the foundation of an extensive building can be traced, regarding which, however, history and tradition are silent. A Beoan is set down as a disciple of St. Patrick, but his place was Kill-fiacle in Tipperary; so that he to appears have been distinct from the present saint. The Martyrology of Donegal records him at the 8th of August as Beoan, Bishop of Fidh Chuilinn, in Ui Failge. In the Calendar of Drummond, he is entered at the same date. In conjunction with two other saints bearing the same name, we find a peculiar arrangement, in the table postfixed to this Martyrology [see picture above].

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2022. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Aedhán, son of Meallán, August 7

    August 7 is the feast of one of the many Irish saints called Aedhán (Aodhán, Aiden). Today’s saint is distinguished by the use of a patronymic, for he is described on the calendars as the son of Meallán. Unfortunately this does not help us to identify any other information about him, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:  

    Article IV. St. Aedhan, Son of Meallan. 
     
    The Martyrology of Donegal records a festival to honour Aedhan, son of Meallan, at the 7th of August. His patronymic only enables us to distinguish him from the various other Irish saints bearing a like name; but, his period and locality seem to be unknown.

    Although Canon O’Hanlon has referenced only the seventeenth-century Martyrology of Donegal, the name of Aedhán, son of Meallán is also found on the twelfth-century Martyrology of Gorman. There he is  referred to as ‘slender Aedán’. His name, however, is not found on the two earliest surviving calendars, the Martyrology of Oengus and the Martyrology of Tallaght.

     

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2020. All rights reserved.

  • The Feast of the Transfiguration in the Martyrology of Oengus

    August 6 is the day on which the Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated throughout the Universal Church. However, it was not always so, as a German ecclesiastical historian explains:

    From quite an early date, this festival had been celebrated in divers churches, both East and West, on different days. The date now observed, the 6th August, was appointed for the festival by Calixtus III. in 1457, in memory of the victory over the Turks, gained by John Capistran and George Hunyadi, at Belgrade. In the choice of a day, he seems to have been influenced by the Greek calendar, where the festival had already been kept on this day.

    K.A. Heinrich Kellner, Heortology: A History Of The Christian Festivals From Their Origin To The Present Day (London, 1908), 105.

    One of those different days is found on the early ninth-century Irish calendar, The Martyrology of Oengus. Here the Feast of the Transfiguration is commemorated on July 26, as Canon O’Hanlon noted in his entries for this day in Volume VII of the Lives of the Irish Saints:

    Article IV. Festival of Christ’s Transfiguration on Mount Tabor.

    According to the “Feilire” of St. Aengus, at the 26th of July, the Feast of the Transfiguration of our Divine Lord on Mount Tabor was commemorated in the ancient Irish Church. To this a comment is found affixed. In the Bruxelles copy of Usuard this Feast is also set down, and while the Bollandists give the text, they express ignorance of the source whence it had been drawn, but they refer to the 6th of August as the chief Festival held in the Universal Church.

    26. At the passion of Jovianus
    with his fair train of pure gold
    was the Transfiguration, at daybreak,
    of  Jesus on Mount Tabor.

    The accompanying note reads:

    26. on Mount Tabor, i.e. in the tribe of Nephthalim, on a mountain of Galilee. Transfiguration of Christ etc.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2022. All rights reserved.