OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Female Saints

  • Saints Feidhealm and Mughain, daughters of Oilill, December 9

    The Martyrology of Oengus devotes its entire entry for December 9 to the praise of two daughters of Oilill (Ailill) whom it describes rather beautifully as ‘the two suns of the east of Liffey’:

    9. Comely are the two daughters of Ailill,

    who is not to be concealed: 
    fair is the host of their day – 
    the two suns of the east of Liffey.
    The scholiast notes add:

    9. the two maidens, i.e. Mugain and Feidlimid: in Cell ingen n-Ailella (* the church of Ailill’s daughters’) in the west of Liffey they are, beside Liamain.

    of Ailill, i.e. son of Dunlang, king of Leinster, was their father, and in Cell Ailella in the east of Mag Lifi sunt simul Mugain and Liamain.
    In Cell ingen Ailella in Mag Laigen they are.

    The later Martyrology of Gorman reproduces the details of their church and patrimony, describing these saintly Leinster princesses as ‘the mild ones’. They are also listed in the Martyrology of Donegal.
    Interestingly, Pádraig Ó Riain’s Dictionary of Irish Saints notes that the name of a third sister, Eithne, is present in the genealogical sources but absent from the martyrologies. That immediately called to mind the sisters Ethnea and Fidelmia, daughters of King Laoighaire, who are commemorated on January 11, (at least according to the seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan). These saintly siblings are the subject of a touching episode from Patrician hagiography which I have posted here. The overlap between the stories does not end there, for the daughters of Oilill are also received into the Church by Saint Patrick, along with their father and uncle:

    Thereafter Patrick went to Naas. The site of his tent
    is in the green of the fort, to the east of the road, and
    to the north of the fort is his well wherein he baptized
    Dunling’s two sons (namely) Ailill and Illann, and
    wherein he baptised Ailill’s two daughters, Mogain and
    Fedelm; and their father offered to God and to Patrick
    their consecrated virginity. And Patrick blessed the
    veil on their heads.

    W. Stokes, ed.and trans., The Tripartite Life of Patrick, Part 1 (London, 1887), 185.

    It seems from Ó Riain’s  research that Mughain was the more important of the pair as her name occurs in other sources and she was also remembered on December 15, the octave of this feast, at Cluain Boireann, which may now possibly be identified with Cloonburren in Roscommon.

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  • Saint Lasair of Killesher and Aghavea, November 13

    On November 13 we celebrate the feast day of the last of the handful of Irish female saints who has an extant written Life. The Life of Saint Lasair, however, is the least known and also the latest written, dating as it does to the 17th century. Our saint shares her name with over a dozen others, most of whom are completely obscure. A list of them can be found on the page dealing with homonymous saints here. To introduce our holy lady, below is an account from a diocesan history which refers to the sources. As you will see, Saint Lasair is associated with more than one locality in the lakeland county of Fermanagh, she is also associated with a County Roscommon site, Kilronan, named after the man identified as her father in the sources:

    On the south-eastern shore of Lough Mac Nean, and in County Fermanagh, is the ruined church of Killesher, which has given its name to the parish. Its Gaelic form is Cill Laisir, which has given its name to the parish. Its Gaelic form is Cill Laisir, i.e. the church of St. Laisir who is patroness of the parish. In the Martyrologies we find the entries of no fewer than fourteen saints of the same name, and it is not quite easy now to determine with certainty which of them is here intended. Lassar of Achadh Fada appears in the Martyrology of Donegal on January 6th. O’Donovan, who visited Killesher in 1834, records that there is a Tobar Laistreach beside the ruined church; also the cell of St. Laisir is pointed out in the same town land. But he did not establish the particular saint to whom the church and well were dedicated. 

    In Brother Michael O’Clery’s work on the Genealogies of the Kings and Saints of Ireland – Genealogiae Regum et Sanctorum Hiberniae – in the Franciscan Library, there is a reference to St. Lasair which, however, establishes her identity. The entry concerning her genealogy is as follows: 

    Lasair ingen Ronain m Ninnedha m Aodha m Feargosa m Nélline m Muircertoigh m Muireadhoigh m Eogain m Nell [i.e., Niall] Naoighiallaigh. 

    O Achadh Beither agus o Cill Lasair for bhrú Loca mic nEn, 13 Nou. 

    This identifies St. Lasair, or Laisir, of Cill Lasair beside Loch Mac Nean, with the daughter (ingen) of Ronan, son (m) of Ninnedh, etc., descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, monarch of Ireland, who died A.D. 405. Her festival is entered on Novemebr 13. It may be accepted without further question that the Cill Lasair for bhrú Loca mic nEn is identical with the present Killesher. Achadh Beither, of which place she is also mentioned as patroness, is also in Co. Fermanagh; it is now Aghavea. 

    Even a century ago, when O’Donovan visited Killesher, the traditions concerning St. Lasair do not appear to have been well remembered. Further local enquiry may ascertain whether there may exist any collateral evidence, such as the date of the annual pattern, which would verify from traditional sources, the festival date of St. Laisir.

    Philip O’Connell, The Diocese of Kilmore – Its History and Antiquities, (Dublin, 1937), 122-123.

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  • Saint Finntina of Cluain Guithbhinn, November 1

    The Irish calendars record the name of yet another of our obscure female saints on November 1. Alas, the earliest of these, the Martyrology of Tallaght, has a hiatus in the surviving manuscripts and the entire month of November plus the first sixteen days of December are missing. The name of Saint Fintinna, Virgin, of Cluain Guithbhinn, is however recorded in the later calendars of Marianus O’Gorman and of the O’Clery’s. The 1857 edition of The Martyrology of Tallaght produced by Father Matthew Kelly supplements the missing entries with those from the Martyrology of Donegal. It therefore lists: Nov. 1 Finntina Ogh o Cluain Guithbinn and the index identifies Cluain Guitbinn with Cloongefin, County Roscommon.  I can find out no further information on this holy lady but it pleases me to be able to record her name on the day when we celebrate the memories of all the saints. Saint Finntina, intercede for us!

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