OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Female Saints

  • Saint Brigid of Fiesole, August 20

    Following on from yesterday’s feast of Saint Solon, we can now examine another of the feasts noted by the Scottish hagiologist Thomas Dempster. In his Menologium Scotorum at August 20 he notes:

    In montibus Faesulanis Brigidae virginis, quae ad fratrem suum Archidiaconum S. Andream e Scotia venit, & magna Christianae vitae continentia hic obiit.

    As I explained yesterday when dealing with another of Dempster’s calendar entries, the Irish were rather upset by this Scottish writer’s tendency to ignore the historical reality that in the early medieval period the Latin term Scotia was applied to Ireland and he claimed Irish saints and religious foundations on the continent for his own country. The virgin Brigid who came from Scotia with her brother the Archdeacon Andrew and was commemorated in the mountains of Fiesole on this day was an Irishwoman. I have been interested for some time now in the story of this Saint Brigid and her brother the Archdeacon Andrew who had come to Italy with fellow-Irishman Donatus, later appointed Bishop of Fiesole. As the story has come down to us, Andrew and his sister had been very close and she was heartbroken when he left Ireland to accompany Donatus on pilgrimage. Years later, as Andrew lay dying he wished for nothing more than to see his beloved sister again and she was miraculously transported from her home in Ireland to be with him. I have reproduced Margaret Stokes’ lovely version of the story here. After her brother’s death Brigid stayed on in the locality of Fiesole and lived the hermit life within a cave in the mountains.  It is a very beautiful and touching story, but I have always wondered if this Italian Brigid was not a separate individual living in the 9th century, as the hagiography portrays, but rather a manifestation of the cult of Saint Brigid of Kildare as brought to Italy and enthusiastically promoted by Bishop Donatus? One clue might be that although Dempster has recorded August 20 as the feastday of the Italian Brigid, he also records that she is commemorated on February 1, the feastday of the patroness of Ireland. Although Canon O’Hanlon seems content to accept that there were two separate Saints Brigid, he nevertheless finds their sharing of the same feastday a coincidence too far. The Italian writer on the Irish saints in Italy, Fra Anselmo Tommasini, puts forward some other reasons why he believes Brigid of Italy is really just the cultus of Brigid of Kildare and so I will return to this subject in a future post. For now, I will bring Canon O’Hanlon’s account of this feastday from the August volume of the Lives of the Irish Saints:

    Reputed Feast of St. Brigid, at Fesula, Italy.
    [Ninth Century.]

    The present St. Brigid is to be distinguished from the holy Patroness of Ireland, so named, and from another St. Brigid, venerated at the 14th of March. In Dempster’s “Menologium Scotorum,” at the 20th of August, there is a feast set down for St. Brigid, a noble Scottish virgin, who came to her brother St. Andrew, an Archdeacon, in a miraculous manner. He lived in the mountains at Fesula in Italy, with St. Donatus. We have already treated about the holy virgin St. Brigid, who lived in a hermitage near the source of the little river Sieci, where during her old age, she sought in a thick forest, among the higher Apennines, a place where she might lead a solitary life. There she desired to live, in penitence and prayer. She found a cave, at a lonely place called Opacum, near Lobaco, high among the mountains. There she passed a term of years, and died, during the latter half of the ninth century. The inhabitants of that country, venerating her as a saint, buried her remains, and built a church in her name, on the site of her hermitage. This was called S. Brigida. Her Natalis was celebrated there in after years with great solemnity. The Pieve or parochial district of Lobaco owns two filial parishes, St. Brigid at Lobaco, and St. Minatus at Pagnoli. Again, there is an ancient Church of San Martino, of Tours, beneath the shelter of the walls of Castel Lobaco; and here, also, the memory of our Irish St. Brigid was held in especial reverence. In his “Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum,” Dempster asserts, that her festival was observed on the 1st of February, that she was renowned for sanctity in 802, that she was miraculously brought to Italy, that her writings have perished, and that he is unable to find when she died. It seems very probable, however, that our Irish St. Brigid’s festival abroad may have been confounded with that of the great St. Brigid, Patroness of Ireland; otherwise it is difficult to conceive how such a coincidence could have occurred, as to cause both their feasts to fall on the same day.

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  • Saint Liadhain of Killyon, August 11

    We have an unusually large number of female saints commemorated on the Irish calendars at August 11. Among them are Saint Attracta and Saint Lelia and now we can meet another holy lady whose feast occurs on this day, Liadhain of Killyon. We have already been introduced to Saint Liadhain on the blog when discussing the feast of Saint Brunsecha. Tradition says that Liadhain was the mother of the man known as the ‘firstborn of the saints of Ireland’, Ciarán of Saighir, and that she was also a monastic foundress in her own right. Canon O’Hanlon tell us what else is known of this mother of saints and of the efforts of the 19th-century scholar John O’Donovan to identify the locality where she flourished:

    St. Liadhain, Abbess, of Killyon, King’s County.

    [Fifth or Sixth Century.]

    This holy woman, according to received traditions, must have flourished during the very infancy of Christianity in Ireland. According to the Martyrology of Donegal, a festival was celebrated, at the 11th of August, to honour Liadhain, daughter of Eochaidh. She descended from the race of Laighaire, the son of Niall. We are told, she was mother to Ciaran of Saigher, and the first Abbess among the virgins—i.e., female—saints of Ireland. There was a religious establishment at a place called Killiadhuin, supposed to have been founded by the present saint, and named after her. It is now identified with Killyon, near Seir-Kieran. Two acres of land are said to have been under the old buildings; but, only a small portion of the walls are now be seen. Already allusion is made to this place, on the banks of the small stream, called the Camcor River. At one time, John O’Donovan thought the parish of Killyon, in the barony of Upper Moyfenrath, in the County of Meath, had been that specially dedicated to St. Lidania. This parish of Killyon is bounded on the north by the parish of Killaconnican; on the east by the parishes of Castlerickard and Clonard; oh the south by the latter parish, and on the west by the County of Westmeath. There were detached portions of this parish within that of Clonard. However, this opinion of Mr. O’Donovan was afterwards retracted, although, as he supposes, and with a great possibility of conjecture, that the parish of Killian, in the County of Meath, had also been dedicated to the present saint. The remains of an ancient church are in a cemetery. There was a holy well in the churchyard, at the gable of the old church. This was said to have been dedicated to the Virgin Mary; but, as the traditions were just extinct in the district, when he visited that locality [in the 1830s], Mr. O’Donovan could place little reliance on them. Under the rule of St. Liadhain or Liadania, lived St. Brunsecha, a holy virgin. Both are supposed to have flourished in the fifth or sixth century.

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  • Saint Curcach of Cloonlogher, August 8

    One of our enigmatic female saints, Curcach of Cluain-Lothair, is commemorated on the earliest of the surviving Irish calendars, the Martyrology of Tallaght, on August 8. Canon O’Hanlon identifies the locality associated with her as the modern Cloonlogher in County Leitrim:

    St. Curcach, Virgin, of Cluain-lothair, now Cloonlogher, County of Leitrim.

    At the 8th of August, the published Martyrology of Tallagh, records the simple entry, Curcach, Cluana Lothair.  This place must be Cloonlogher, in a parish of the same name, barony of  Dromahaire, and County of Leitrim.  It is a vicarage in the Diocese of Kilmore, consisting chiefly of mountain land.  Her name appears, also, in  the Martyrology of Donegal,  at this same date, as Curcach, of Cluainlothair, Virgin. There is a Curcach, daughter to Dael, son of Maisine, and belonging to the race of Colla Menn, adds the calendarist. There is a Cluain Lothaire in Breifne O’Ruairc, and Curcach is patron there, follows the foregoing announcement.
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