OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

ALL THE SAINTS OF IRELAND

  • A Legend of Saint Molua

     

    August 4 is the feast of Saint Molua, an entry on whose life can be found here. Below, is a charming vignette from the Irish Celtic Revival scholar, Maud Joynt (1868-1940), which records the grief of a little bird at the saint’s passing:

    LEGEND OF SAINT MOLUA

    ONCE there lived in Ireland a saint called Molua son of Ocha, who loved
    all living creatures and was of all living creatures beloved. On the day
    of his death it chanced that a certain holy man, Maelanfair son
    of Anfadach, was walking in the woods and he saw a little bird perched
    on a bough and making great lamentation.

    “Oh, my God,” said he, “what can have happened? I will not taste food till it be revealed to me!”

     Then an angel appeared to him and said: “Be no longer troubled, O
    cleric. Molua the son of Ocha is dead and all living creatures bewail
    him; for he loved everything that lives and breathes, and throughout his
    life he never killed any creature, great or small; wherefore men mourn
    not more for him than do the beasts and the little bird thou seest
    yonder.”

    Maud Joynt, The Golden Legends of the Gael, (Dublin, n.d.), Part II, 81.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2021. All rights reserved.

  • A Hymn in Honour of Saint Moninne

    July 6 is the Feast of Saint Moninne of Killeevy, one of three women saints along with Brigid and Bronagh important to the people of the historic kingdom of Oriel in south-east Ulster. She is also one of the handful of Irish female saints with an extant written Life. There are many fascinating aspects to Saint Moninne. One was her reputation for asceticism, the Life of Monenna preserved in the Codex Salamanticensis calling her ‘the daughter of John the Baptist and the prophet Elias’. Whilst asceticism was certainly a feature of the Early Irish Church, it is unusual to see a female saint being described in this way. The other was her ‘manly spirit’ for her female body is no barrier to Moninne’s wholehearted pursuit of the eremetical way of life. There is thus a distinct flavour of the desert spirituality of Saint Anthony the Great to the life of this County Armagh abbess. In addition to the Salamanca Life there is also a Vita Sanctae Monennae compiled by a tenth or eleventh-century Irish monk called Conchubranus. He takes Moninne out of her Irish hermitage and portrays her as a pilgrim to Rome and founder of  churches in England and Scotland. The twelfth-century Abbot Geoffrey of Burton was convinced that Conchubranus was writing about his own abbey’s founder and expanded the Irish monk’s text into The Life and Miracles of Saint Modwenna. There has been a great deal of research into Saint Moninne and fresh translations of her various Lives in recent years. Mario Esposito (1887-1975) first published the text of the Life by Conchubranus in 1910 and included two abcderarian hymns in honour of the saint as an appendix. As a tribute to Saint Moninne on this her feast day I reproduce the opening verse from the first hymn and the closing verse of the second:

    Deum deorum dominum,
    Autorem vite omnium,
    Regem et sponsum uirginum
    Sempiternum infinitum,
    Invocemus perualidum
    Sancte Monenne meritum,
    Ut nos ducat post obitum
    In regni refrigerium.

    Let us invoke God, Lord of gods,
    Creator of the life of all,
    King and spouse of virgins,
    everlasting, infinite,
    and the very strong
    merit of holy Monenna
    that she may guide us after death
    to the refreshing of the kingdom.

    Sancta Monenna,
    lux huius mundi ascendit,
    in candilabro nitidum sponsum
    sicut sol in meridie.
    Qui regnas in secula seculorum. Amen.

    The holy Monenna,
    light of this world,
    ascended to her shining spouse
    in a candelabrum like the midday sun.
    Who reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

    Mario Esposito,  Ymnus Sancte Monenne Virginis in Appendix to “Conchubrani Vita Sanctae Monennae.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature 28 (1910), 202-51.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2021. All rights reserved.

  • An Irish Poem in Praise of the Blessed Sacrament

    This beautiful poem in praise of the Blessed Sacrament was written by a 12th-century poet who may also have been an abbot, Donnchadh Mór Ó Dálaigh, described in The Annals of Clonmacnoise as “Chief of Ireland for poetry.” The Annals of the Four Masters recorded his death in the year 1244 with this entry: “Donagh More O Daly, a poet who never was, and never will be surpassed, died, and was interred in the abbey of Boyle.”  The Irish text is followed by a translation below:

    Here is the literal translation [by Professor O’Looney] of the foregoing, which was written in the twelfth century by Donogh Mór O’Daly, Abbot of Boyle, in the county Roscommon, called for the sweetness of his verses, not for the nature of their themes, the Ovid of Ireland : —
    1. Not more numerous the angels in heaven under the hand of the king; not more numerous the blessed names which are upon the saints; not more numerous the things which God hath created on the face of the world, than the praises of each tongue upon the Sacrament.
    2. Not more numerous the drops which are in the great tidal sea; not more numerous the fishes that swim in the bosoms of all waters; not more numerous the grasses of the world or the sands of the strand, than the praises of the holy Body of the only Son of the Father of grace.
    3. Not more numerous the years in the eternal perpetuity of the King; not more numerous the divine gifts which Christ hath [in store]; not more numerous the lights which are in the King’s high Paradise, than the praises to God which are truly given in the Sacrament.
    4. Not more numerous the radiant stars which appear in the skies; not more numerous the words [of praise] which his clergy read for Christ; not more numerous the small streams which flow into the great sea, than the praises unceasing of the divine, blessed Body of Christ.
    5. Not more numerous the letters to be seen in the Book of the Law; not more numerous the leaves of all the woods by the King made to grow; not more numerous the melodious voices which shall be heard in his kingdom for ever, than the praise of the Son of Mary oft-repeated in the Sacrament.