Tag: Female Saints

  • Saint Mocheanna, January 29

    January 29 is the feast of the wonderful Saint Blath, cook to Saint Brigid of Kildare. It’s a day she shares with another Irish holy woman, this one rather more obscure, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

    St. Mocheanna, or Mac Conna, Virgin. 

    Watchful and untiring in their duty, holy virgins are as the Apostle desired, not children of darkness, but children of the light and of the day, sober and sleepless. We read of Mocheanna, a virgin, having a festival at this date, according to the Martyrology of Donegal. In the published Martyrology of Tallagh, as in the Franciscan copy, her name is simply entered as Mac Conna. Notwithstanding the apparently incorrect way of spelling the name in this latter record, I cannot doubt but it represents Mocheanna.

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  • Saint Coppa, January 18

    A female saint with possible Patrician associations is commemorated on January 18. Canon O’Hanlon records the speculation of the seventeenth-century hagiologist, Friar John Colgan, that Saint Coppa may have been associated with the church of Elphin and was one of those whom he listed as having received the veil from Saint Patrick:

    St. Coppa or Cobba, Virgin, Daughter of Baedan.

    [Possibly in the Fifth Century.] 

    The silence of history has obscured many a career, which if better known must command the respect of the good. A festival in honour of Cobba, daughter to Baetan, is recorded in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 18th of January. Nor do we find further notices of her in the later calendars. Coppa, virgin, and a daughter of Baedan, is entered in the Martyrology of Donegal, on this day of the month. In the acts of St. Patrick, it is said he left a Cipia, the mother of Bishop Bite, at the church of Elphin. Colgan seems to doubt whether this holy woman—whom he classed among those veiled by St. Patrick—was not identical with the present St. Coppa or Cobba.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2016. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Mica, January 17

    We have the name of another of our obscure Irish female saints recorded on the calendars at January 17. The name and feast day of Saint Mica are the only details known, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

    St. Mica or Micca, Virgin. 

    Added in a more recent hand, and traced in Roman characters, on the authority of the Martyrology and on that of Marianus O’Gorman, we find the name of a St. Mica or Micca, virgin, set down in the Martyrology of Donegal, on this day. A nearly similar entry occurs in the published Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 17th of January, as also in the unpublished one. More we cannot find regarding this holy virgin.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2016. All rights reserved.