OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Female Saints

  • The Three Daughters of Ailill, August 9

    The Martyrology of Tallaght, one of the earliest of the Irish calendars, lists at August 9 the feast of Tri ingena Ailella – the three daughters of Ailill. Such groupings of saintly siblings are a feature of the Irish calendars, indeed these holy ladies share their day with Cethri meic Ercain – the four sons of Ercan and Ceithre meic Dimmain – the four sons of Dioman. We are unable to learn any more about the identities of the individuals who comprise the group of Ailill’s daughters, nor when or where they flourished. In Volume VIII of his Lives of the Irish Saints Canon O’Hanlon gives this brief account, noting that the Tallaght calendar is the sole source for the feast of Ailell’s daughters as they are not listed on the Martyrology of Donegal, compiled by Michael O’Clery and his associates in the seventeenth century: 

    Article III. Tri h. Inghena Ailalla. 

    Written in this manner, we have a festival entered in the Martyrology of Tallagh, as edited by the Rev. Dr. Kelly; although we find no corresponding entry, at this day, in the Martyrology of Donegal, edited by Drs. Todd and Reeves.

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  • Beatha Mhairghréad- An Irish Life of Saint Margaret

     

    Although this site is dedicated to the saints of Ireland, I also enjoy seeing how devotion to saints of the universal Church manifests in an Irish context. July 20 is the feast of Saint Margaret of Antioch, one of the Great Martyrs of the east who, although she enjoyed a widespread cult in the west during the Middle Ages, is now largely forgotten. In the western setting she was one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of saints whose intercession was sought to aid in the difficult and dangerous realities of medieval life. The account of Margaret’s martyrdom included an episode where she was swallowed by a dragon but managed to irritate the creature’s insides by making the sign of the cross and was expelled from its body. Thus she came to be viewed as a saint to whom women in childbirth, an extremely hazardous time for the medieval female, could turn. Lives of Margaret survive not only in Latin but also in many medieval European languages, and in Irish alone there are reputed to be at least ninety manuscripts containing accounts of her [1].  These Irish accounts remain largely unpublished but one interesting later manuscript, taken to America by an emigrant family, has been described by the late Dr Kenneth Nilsen [2]. He was invited to view the Irish Collection of the Boston College Library and was intrigued to find a small book with a leather and cardboard cover with the title “Margaret O’Brien’s Book, Dated November 23rd 1822”. It comprised a manuscript of one hundred and four pages, eighty-seven of which had a Beaha Mairgréad and the rest a Himin Phadruig, a prayer to Saint Patrick. The name of the scribe, Soan Breanach, appears on page 88, along with the date 1819.  At the end of the Saint Patrick prayer he dedicated the work with a prayer for divine protection for Murcha Ó Briain, his wife, Margaret McCarthy and their children. 

    What is fascinating to me about this early nineteenth-century manuscript is how it carried on the traditions of medieval hagiography into the modern era. The book measures only 3 inches by 4 inches and Dr Nilsen concludes that it was probably designed as a portable type of talisman, carried or possibly even worn as protection. This is borne out by the last words of Saint Margaret, a petition to God which she was allowed to make immediately before her execution and which may account for the continuing popularity of The Life of Saint Margaret.  Here is a flavour of the protective powers the saint claims attend the hearing or reading of the account of her Passion:

    “…Any house in which my Passion or Life is read may no defective, deaf, blind, dumb, lame or maimed child be born there. And any house in which it is chanted, may it be free from all diseases and from the power of fire, water and enemies. If it is read to a man before he goes to battle, he will return safely and victoriously with pure faith.

    Then there is another petition which affirms Saint Margaret’s role as the protectress of women in labour:

    “If it is recited to a woman in the throes of childbirth, she will come through that difficulty unharmed and with faith and hope in the One True God and in the aid to the angelic court to pray to God to ask Him to show her a sign.

    There are also others for travellers, which presumably had a direct application to an Irish family crossing the Atlantic: 

    “Whoever listens to it as he travels overseas will return safely to the same country if his intention is pure.

    “If it is read to someone going on board ship, he will return safe from that journey with proper faith and hope in the one true God….”

    Having repeated her petitions in verse, Saint Margaret is beheaded and her persecutor himself falls down dead beside her. Hosts of angels then descend and lead Margaret’s soul into heaven.

    This manuscript Life of Saint Margaret, copied by a trained scribe in the second decade of the nineteenth century, is thus a fascinating survival of the medieval hagiographic tradition which along with the enduring power of talismanic prayer continued to find an outlet in Irish popular religious expression.

    Notes:

    [1] Salvador Ryan, ‘“I, too, am a Christian”: early martyrs and their
    lives in the late medieval and early modern Irish manuscript
    tradition’, in Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon (eds), Saints and Sanctity:
    Studies in Church History 47. Abingdon: Boydell Press,     (2011), footnote 34, p. 204.

    [2]  Kenneth E. Nilsen,  An Irish Life of St. Margaret, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, Vol. 4 (1984), pp. 82-104.

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  • Saint Buryan, May 29

    May 29 is the feast of the County Offally female Saint Brunsecha of Killyon, whose story is interwoven with that of Saint Ciarán of Saighir and his mother, Saint Liadhain. Today we are going to reprise Saint Brunsecha’s story but this time in connection with a Cornish saint, Buryan (Burian, Buriana, Buriena) who seems to have assimilated aspects of our Irish holy woman’s identity, including her feast day. As we shall see though, May 29 is only one of a number of different feast days ascribed to the Cornish saint in the sources. In general I am sceptical about the Irish origins claimed for saints such as Buryan, since Ireland in the Middle Ages was regarded as the insula sanctorum there was a certain cachet associated with claiming an Irish saint as a monastic or church founder. That is not to deny of course that there are Irish saints whose well-documented careers in Britain are beyond question, but the vague claims surrounding ‘Irish princesses’ such as Buryan cannot readily be substantiated. But let us start by looking at what these claims were. Canon O’Hanlon’s Lives of the Irish Saints has an entry for Saint Buriena on this day, but our guide below is the prolific Anglican writer Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924), who relies on the hagiography of Saint Ciarán to explain why both he and Brunsecha leave Ireland for Cornwall where he becomes Saint Piran and she Saint Buriena:

    S. BURIENA, Virgin Abbess.

    S. Buriena was one of the Irish Colony that came over about 520. Leland in his Itinerary (iii, 18,) says, “S. Buriana, an Holy Woman of Ireland, sumtyme dwellid in this place and there made an oratory. King Ethelstane going hence, as it is said, unto Sylley and returning, made ex voto a College where the oratorio was.” She has been identified by Mr. Adams with ‘Bruinech the Slender’ of the Martyrology of Donegal, “who” says the scholiast on the martyrology, “is venerated in a town bearing her name, in England, on the 29th May.” But this is inaccurate, the feast of S. Buryan being the nearest Sunday to May 12.

    Leland calls her Bruinet, and says she was a king’s daughter, who came into Cornwall with S. Piran. The forms Bruinet and Bruinech are mere variations in spelling, that occur repeatedly as Gobnat and Gobnach, Rignat and Eignach, Dervet and Dervech. The ech, or at, or et, is a diminutive for female names, like the oc for male names. So Brig becomes Bridget.

    Bruinech was of illustrious birth. She was the daughter of Crimthan a chieftain in Munster, grandson of that Oengus MacNadfraich who had been baptized by S. Patrick. She was a kinswoman of S. Kieran.

    The story of Buriena is found in the life of S. Kieran (Piran), of Saighir. It has been paraphrased by Mr. Adams, from Colgan (Journal R. Inst, of Cornwall, vol. iv. p. 141). But it will be preferable to give it from the original text in the Salamanca Codex: — She was, as already stated, daughter of a chieftain in Munster, and she embraced the religious life under Liadhain the mother of S. Kieran, one of the first abbesses in Ireland. Liadhain had a religious house at Killyon in King’s County. The damsel was slim in form, and so went by the name of Bruinech or Brunsech Caol, the “Slender;” she was also very beautiful.

    Dimma, of the Hy Fiachai District in West Meath, fell in love with her and carried her off against her will, with the assistance of his clansmen.

    The wrath of S. Kieran was kindled, and he sped after the ravisher, to demand her back again. Dimma refused to restore her to liberty, “Never!” — said he — ” till I hear the cuckoo call at day-dawn and arouse me from sleep.”

    It was winter time, and a deep snow lay on the ground and crested the castle walls. As the gates were shut, Kieran and his companions had to spend the night in the snow outside. They passed it in prayer. Lo! next morning a cuckoo * was perched on every turret of the chieftain’s castle, uttering its plaintive call. Surprised and alarmed at this marvel, Dimma released the maiden. [* Mr. Adams says “a Swan,” the word is “Duculus,” but according to another version the bird was a heron.]

    Putting aside what is fabulous in this story, we see the venerable saint’s enthusiasm for the protection of innocence, and there is something very pathetic in the thought of his spending the winter night in the snow, outside the gate, rather than abandon his efforts to save the poor girl.

    What actually took place was that Piran or Kieran “fasted against” Dimma. This was a practice among the Irish. If a man wanted something very particular, and was refused it, he went to the door of the man of whom he made petition and remained there exposed to the inclemency of the weather, and refused all food, till he died. This was literally laying his death at the door of the other, and it entailed on the man who let him die all the consequences of a blood-feud. The practice is not unknown now in India.

    When, in the 12th century, the life of S. Kieran was re-written, the editor could not understand the practice, which had long ago been abandoned, so he invented the story of the cuckoo to give point to the incident, and account for the surrender of Dimma.

    As soon as Bruinech had been released, Kieran took her back to his mother at Killyon.

    After a few days the chieftain repented of having released her, his passion for the girl was not overcome, and he returned to the convent to again carry her off. In her fright, Bruinech fainted away, and Dimma was shewn her, lying unconscious. He stormed at Kieran, who he thought had killed her rather than give her back to him, and he threatened to drive him out of the country.

    Kieran replied, “Thou hast no power over me. Thy strength is but a vain shadow.”

    According to the legend, at this juncture news arrived that Dimma’s dun was on fire; that is to say, the wooden and wickerwork structures within the fort were blazing. At the tidings, the chief hastily left the convent, in hopes of rescuing some of his valuables from the flames.

    Dimma is by no means a fabulous personage, he was chief of the Cinel Fiachai; he was fourth or fifth in descent from Niall of the Nine Hostages, King of Ireland, who died 405, and was even uncle of a Saint, Aid Mac Bric, who died in 588.

    It was clearly undesirable for Kieran to remain in the place, and it is possible that it was at this time he removed to Cornwall, taking the damsel Bruinech with him. She is said to have lived many years afterwards.

    Kieran or Piran became Bishop about 538, and he is thought to have died about 550, but this is mere conjecture, as the Irish Annals do not give the date of his decease, and as this occurred out of Ireland we may put his migration to Cornwall at about 520. Buriena is identified with Bruinech by several martyrologists.

    Nothing is recorded of the acts of S. Buriena in Cornwall, but the general tradition is that she spent the rest of her days in good works. It is rather remarkable that her settlement should have been near the foundation of S. Senan, rather than near any of those of S. Kieran. Her settlement must have been of considerable importance, for it had a Sanctuary, which implies this. The Sanctuary, with its oratory, remains about a mile south-east of the parish church that bears her name, beside a rivulet, on the farm of Bosliven. There are traces of extensive foundations near the oratory. Probably popular veneration attached to this place, long after the transfer of the church, for it excited the rage of Shrubsall, one of Cromwell’s Officers, and he almost totally destroyed it.

    The day of S. Bruinech, in the Irish Calendars is on May 29, and this indeed is the day marked as that of S. Buriena in some English Calendars. But at Burian the feast is now held on the Sunday nearest to May 12, and in the Exeter Calendar her day is given as May 1. The Feast at Burian is on Old-Style May-Day, i.e. eleven days after May 1.

    In the second edition of the “Martyrologium Anglicanum” of Wilson, 1640, she is inserted on June 19, but in his first edition, on May 29.

    Her death probably occurred about 550.

    In art she would be represented as an Irish Nun, in white, with a cuckoo.

    Rev. S. Baring-Gould, ‘A Catalogue of Saints connected with Cornwall, and List of Churches and Chapels Dedicated to them’, Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, Volume XIII, (1895-98), 485-488.

    Modern scholar, Nicholas Orme, has a number of observations to make on Saint Buryan in his authoritative 2000 study The Saints of Cornwall. He traces the first mention of her in the historical record to a tenth-century list of saints, where she appears as ‘Berion’ and ‘in a charter attributed to King Athelstan (925-39) granting property to the clergy of the church of Sancta Beriana, meaning St Buryan (Cornwall)’. As for her supposed Irish origins, Orme concludes:

    The context of Cornish history, however makes Buryan more likely to have been a Brittonic saint from Brittany or Cornwall.

    Nicholas Orme, The Saints of Cornwall (Oxford University Press, 2000), p.78

    Yet, although I don’t accept Saint Burian as an Irish saint, it is nevertheless fascinating to see the process by which the cult of a saint from this country is transferred to another. Interestingly, on June 4 the Irish calendars mark the feast of the Cornish saint Petroc, so the traffic is not all one-way!

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