OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

ALL THE SAINTS OF IRELAND

  • The Protecting Corselet of Mary

    The prayer below was originally published by the great 19th-century scholar, Eugene O’Curry, who had learnt it from his father. When reprinted in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, some additional verses were included from another source. The supplementary verses are mainly concerned with promises of protection to anyone who recites the prayer, this may strike the modern reader as smacking of superstition or sympathetic magic. Yet I have seen many examples of similar promises attached to some of our most famous hymns from the Irish Liber Hymnorum. One has to be careful, of course, of accepting that prayers which have reputedly come down from early times through a long oral tradition have done so intact. Whilst some of the imagery in this prayer is indeed reminiscent of that found in earlier Irish texts, other verses suggest a later origin. In verse 15, for example, there is a plea for the ‘distressed nobles of Erin’, this might be a reference to the ‘Flight of the Earls’ and the passing of the Gaelic order in the seventeenth century. Verse 17 certainly suggests that we are dealing with the Counter-Reformation rather than the ‘Celtic Church’! The introduction claims that the prayer is ‘some seven hundred or more years old’, this would take it back to the 12th century, as the prayer was published in the 1860s. Overall, however, I suspect this is a later work, there is a later medieval feel about it as a whole.
    THE PROTECTING CORSELET OF MARY.
    The late Professor O’Curry, in the last Lecture which he delivered in the Catholic University a few days before his lamented death in July, 1862, when speaking of the music of ancient Erin, referred to ” a beautiful ancient hymn to the Blessed Virgin, some seven hundred or more years’ old.” He added, with that simplicity which cast such a charm over all his words : “My father sang this hymn, and well too, almost every night, so that the words and the air have been impressed on my memory from the earliest dawn of life. This sweet poem consists of twelve stanzas of four lines each, beginning:’ Direct me how to praise thee.’
    The air of this hymn is not popular ; I never heard it sung but by my own father. I know it myself very well, and I know several old poems that will sing to it, such as the poems ascribed to Oisin, the son of Find Mac Cumhaill, and the great religious poem called ‘ The Festology of Oengus Ceile De written in the year 798.”
    Mr. Brian O’Looney, who with such untiring energy continues in the Catholic University the researches of the lamented O’Curry, has discovered a much larger number of stanzas than the twelve mentioned by the late Professor. To Mr. O’Looney we are indebted for the following translation in full of this most interesting monument of the piety of our ancestors, and of their devotion to the Immaculate Mother of God.
    1. Direct me how to praise thee
    Though I am not a master of poetry,
    O thou of the angelic countenance, without fault,
    Thou hast given the milk of thy breast to save me.
    2. I offer myself under thy protection,
    O loving Mother of the only Son,
    And under thy protecting shield I place my body,
    My heart, my will and my understanding.
    3. I am a sinner, full of faults,
    I beseech of thee and pray thee do it,
    O Woman Physician of the miserable diseases,
    Behold the many ulcers of my soul.
    4. O Temple of the Three Persons,
    Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
    I invoke thee to come to visit me
    At the hour of my judgment and my death.
    5. O Queen to whom it has been granted by the King,
    The Eternal Father, out of the abundance of His love,
    An inheritance to be the Mother,
    I implore thy assistance to save me.
    6. O vessel who carried the Lamp
    More luminous than the sun,
    Draw me under thy shelter into the harbour
    Out of the transitory ship of the world.
    7. O Flower of beauty, O Mother of Christ,
    O Lover of peace and mildness,
    I pray thee to hear me; may it ne’er occur to me
    In any trial to forsake thee.
    8. O Queen who refusest not any person,
    Who is pure in his deeds, morals, actions,
    I beseech Thee Christ to put me
    (From the wily demons) amidst the saints.
    9. O Queen of the Saints, of the virgins, of the angels,
    O honeycomb of eternal life,
    All surpassing power, presumptuous valour
    Go not far without thee.
    10. I am under thy shelter amidst the brave
    O protecting shield, without being injured by their blows,
    O Holy Mary, if thou wilt hear thy supplicant,
    I put myself under the shelter of thy shield.
    11. When falling in the slippery path
    Thou art my smooth supporting hand staff;
    O Virgin from the Southern clime,
    May I go to Heaven to visit thee.
    12. There is no hound in fleetness or in chase,
    North wind or rapid river,
    As quick as the Mother of Christ to the bed of death
    To those who are entitled to her kindly protection.
    13. O heart without sin, O bosom without guile,
    O Virgin Woman who hast chosen sanctity,
    In thee I place my hope of salvation
    From the eternal torture of the pain.
    14. O Mary, gentle, beautiful,
    O meekness mild and modest,
    I am not tired of invoking thee,
    Thou art my guarding staff in danger.
    15. Turn thine eyes, O Woman Friend,
    Upon the distressed nobles of Erin;
    To them restore the happiness of their lives
    And obtain from them from the Eternal Father:
    16. That every sinner of their numbers
    Who has fallen into sin and is in need of succour,
    Thou mayst redeem, O Virgin Lady,
    They are in misery until you do it.
    17. To the true Faith without dissimulation
    May the Kings of the world be obedient,
    Through the invocation of Mary, which is not weak,
    And may they renounce the false religion.
    18. To those who are in the pit of pain, in fire,
    Whose portion is suffering,
    Deign thy relief, O Mary,
    And Amen say, O cleric. [1]
    The following additional Stanzas follow here in Royal Irish Academy, MS. No. 23, c. 20,70.
    19. Every woman sick in childbirth,
    If she has this, or that it be read for her,
    She will get relief by the grace of God,
    And of Mary Mother of the only Son.
    20. Going to a sea voyage,
    Or going to a single-handed combat,
    Whosoever of the two hath justice on his side
    Shall return alive without danger.
    21. Every person who recites it from memory,
    And hears it with due reverence,
    And with sweet devotion to Mary,
    Shall get relief and protection.
    22. When you are rising in the morning,
    And when going into bed do it [recite it],
    And you shall have Mary as your friend
    To redress all your grievances [wants].
    23. A house is seldom burned
    Which is under protection of the shield
    Of the Virgin Mary,
    If appropriate reverence be given to her.
    24. Many are the countless virtues
    Of the protecting shield corselet of Mary,
    If we be in the state of grace,
    And pray to her at all times with devotion.
    [1] The following extract will serve to explain this stanza :
    “Mary and the virgin saints sit around the Lord God giving him praise and glory, and praying for the souls in trouble.” ” Saint Adamnan’s Vision.” Leabur na h-Uidre, p. 27 et seq. ; also, Scela lai Breta, Story of the Day of Judgment. Ibid. p. 31, col. I, et seq.
    The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 6, 1869, 320-322.

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  • A Celtic Weather Saint: Cewydd of the Rain

    The summer of 2012 was one of the wettest on record and so I enjoyed this nineteenth-century antiquarian account of a ‘Celtic’ challenger to the claim of the Saxon Saint Swithin to be chief of the ‘weather saints’. Scholars are unable to trace the exact origins of the legend that if it rains on the feast of Saint Swithin, celebrated on July 15, it will rain for forty days.  In the notes and queries section of the 1888 volume of the Welsh journal, Archaeologia Cambrensis, however, writer M. L. Dawson argued that Cewydd, an obscure saint of Anglesey, has a prior claim. I enjoyed the way in which the author starts by saying that it would be foolish to challenge Saint Swithin’s standing, yet obviously relishes the chance to demonstrate that the Saxon saint was just a johnny-come-lately compared with those of the natives. Saint Cewydd is furnished with a splendid pedigree which even includes the family of King Arthur, particularly interesting to me is that he also claims to be the brother of the Irish saint, Aidan (Maedoc) of Ferns, whose feast we will celebrate at the end of next month: 


    A Celtic Weather Saint. — Most countries possess their special weather saint, whose festival, according as it is dry or wet, decides the meteorological character of the following forty days. St. Swithin has now so long reigned supreme as the weather saint of Great Britain, that it would, perhaps, be vain to denounce him as the Saxon usurper of the rights of a Celtic weather saint, who presided over the rainfall of our country as far back as the time of King Arthur. Nevertheless, it seems probable that the honourable distinction of weather saint belongs rather to the Celtic “St. Cewydd of the Rain” than to the Saxon bishop of comparatively modern times.

    St. Cewydd was one of a remarkable family, being the son of Caw, lord of Cwm Cawlwyd or Cowllwg, who, according to Achau y Saint, was “deprived of his territories by the Gwyddyl Ffichti, or, as the general term may be interpreted, by the Picts and Scots; in consequence of which he and his numerous family retired to Wales. He settled at Twrcelyn, in Anglesey, where lands were bestowed upon him by Maelgwn Gwynedd; and it is also said that lands were granted to some of his children by Arthur in Siluria”. Most of them distinguished themselves in one way or another, and founded churches, of which they became the patron saints. St. Cewydd’s eldest brother, Hywel, was killed in a civil war by King Arthur; his brother Aneurin, otherwise known as Gildas, became the most celebrated scholar of the day; another brother, Aeddan, was first Bishop of Ferns; while his sister, Cwyllog, was married to King Arthur’s nephew, the traitor Modred. Unfortunately, we know but little of the history of St. Cewydd himself, beyond the fact that he founded churches at Diserth, Aberedwy, in Radnorshire, and at Llangewydd, in Glamorganshire. Local nomenclature, however, would lead us to suppose that he lived in the neighbourhood of Diserth, for a farm in Llanfihangel Bryn Pabuan is still called Cil gewydd, i.e., the Cell of Cewydd, while a mountain- track above Llandeilo Graban, once trodden by the feet of the saint, perhaps, as he journeyed over the hills to visit his brother Maelog at his monastery of Llowes, yet bears the name of Rhiw Gewydd, i.e., Cewydd’s Hill. But no tradition remains to tell us how the saint won his title of “Cewydd of the Rain”, as he is called in old Welsh writings, and we are indebted to Lewis Glyn Cothi for our knowledge of the popular superstition which connected the rainfall with the festiyal of the saint. In a poem, or rather an elegy, written by him on the death of Morgan, son of Sir David Gam, he compares the tears shed over the departed hero to the forty days’ rain which fell after St. Cewydd’s festival:

    “Gwlad Vrychan am Vorgan vydd
    Ail i gawod wyl Gewydd.
    Deugain niau davnau dwvr
    Ar ruddiau yw’r aweddwvr.
    Deugain mlynedd i heddyw
    Yr wyl y beirdd ar ol y byw.”

    The said festival took place on July 1, O.S.; therefore, allowing for the difference between Old and New Style, it now occurs on July 13, two days before St. Swithin’s. Until quite lately, a feast or wake was held in Aberedwy parish the second week in July in honour of Saint Cewydd. That the popular belief in St. Cewydd’s power over the weather was not confined to the Welsh portion of Great Britain is proved by an old English proverb, which, altogether ignoring St. Swithin’s claims, says:

    ” If the first of July be rainy weather,
    ‘T will rain more or less for a month together.”

    M. L. Dawson.

    Archaeologia Cambrensis, 5th series, Volume 5 (1888), 270-271.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.


  • Saint Nicholas: the Irish Connection

    December 6 is the commemoration of an eastern saint who is truly loved the world over – Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker of Myra. A Russian lady once told me that her people love Saint Nicholas so much that they are apt to forget he isn’t actually Russian himself. This set me wondering if there might be an Irish dimension to the veneration of the great bishop of Myra. I found that there is, but that it owes more to the Normans and the Crusades than to the earlier native church. In his 12th-century Martyrology, Marianus O’Gorman begins the list of saints commemorated today with ‘Nicolaus a holy man’. The Cathedral of Galway, constructed in 1320, was dedicated to Saint Nicholas in his capacity as a protector of seafarers. He was seen as an appropriate patron for a rising commercial city and indeed, the great bishop of Myra is the diocesan patron of Galway and is honoured as such in the Litany of Irish Saints. But Ireland makes an even more extraordinary claim in relation to Saint Nicholas – it claims to be the place where he is buried! Below is an article from an Irish newspaper which summarizes the story:


    CURIOSITIES: SANTA CLAUS may well be buried in a little country graveyard in south Kilkenny. Incredible as this might seem there is evidence to substantiate the possibility that Saint Nicholas of Myra, the original Santa Claus, is buried just west of Jerpoint Abbey, one of the finest Cistercian ruins in Ireland, in Co Kilkenny. The unmarked grave is in the ruined church at Newtown-Jerpoint (two kilometres outside Thomastown) once the site of a thriving Norman town that was abandoned in the 17th century probably due to plague, writes Gerry Moran.

    St Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra in Turkey, died in AD 342 and was buried there. How his remains, or a portion of them, arrived in south Kilkenny has much to do with the Norman crusaders.

    Jerpoint Abbey was founded around 1158 by Donnchadh Mac Giolla Phádraig, King of Ossory. In 1180, it was taken over by the Cistercian order. In 1200, William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, of Kilkenny Castle, decided to build a new town just across the river from Jerpoint Abbey. He called the town Nova Villa Juxta Geripons meaning “The New Town Across from Jerpoint”. That same year the Church of St Nicholas of Myra was built in the town and, according to the historian Canon Carrigan, the tomb was laid that same year also.

    When Strongbow invaded Ireland in 1169, his most trusted lieutenant was Sir Humphrey De Fraine. When the church of Newtown-Jerpoint was built and dedicated to St Nicholas of Myra in 1200, the most powerful Anglo-Norman baron in south Kilkenny was Nicholas De Fraine, son of Sir Humphrey.

    The story goes that the Norman Knights of Jerpoint, the crusading De Fraines (or De Freynes) when forced to evacuate the Holy Land exhumed the remains of St Nicholas of Myra and brought them to Normandy from where they eventually found their way to Jerpoint. The remains were laid to rest beneath a slab, now broken across the centre, depicting a monk in habit and cowl. The grave, whether it be that of the real Santa Claus or not, can still be seen to this day.
    [see photograph above]

    I am cynical about these old stories that supposedly go back into the mists of time, often the truth is that they cannot be traced back beyond the beginnings of the Victorian tourist era. I would be interested to know how far back this one about Saint Nicholas can really be charted in the historical record, if this is a genuine medieval tradition, one would expect to find some mention of it somewhere. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it cannot be traced back any further than the 19th century. I wouldn’t be surprised either if it receives a new lease of life in our own time when yarns about secret lore, knights, crusaders and relics have topped the bestseller lists.


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