OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Female Saints

  • Saint Gaibhthene, July 11

    July 11 sees the commemoration of an obscure Irish holy woman, Saint Gaibhthene, latinised as Gabtina. As ever, all we have is the recording of her name, first on the earliest of the calendars, the Martyrology of Tallaght and subsequently on the Martyrology of Donegal. Canon O’Hanlon adds the detail that the seventeenth-century Irish Franciscan hagiologist, Father Thomas Sheerin, brought her to the attention of the Bollandists:

    St. Gabtina or Gaibhthene, Virgin.

    According to the Martyrology of Tallagh, St. Gabtina, virgin, had a feast on this day. Father O’Sheerin furnished the Bollandists  a like record for this date. In the Martyrology of Donegal, a festival was celebrated, it is stated, at the 11th of July, in honour of Gaibhthene, virgin. Nothing more seems to be known about her.

     

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  • Saint Crone of Templecrone, July 7

     

    Another of our Irish holy women, Saint Crone of Templecrone, County Donegal, is commemorated on July 7. The brief account below comes from an article on the locality which bears her name:

    Templecrone takes its name from St. Crone, a contemporary of St. Columbkille, who built a monastery in the sixth century some three miles south-west of the present town of Dungloe, the metropolis of the Rosses. Her feast occurs on the 7th July, and the fair of Dungloe, held on the 4th July, is known as “Aonach na Féile Cróine”, from association with the Saint. Michael O’Clery has the following entry in his “Martyrology of Donegal” concerning the Saint: “Little Cróine, Virgin, from Teampall Cróine in Tir Chonaill; she was of the race of Conall Gulban, son of Niall”.
    Eoin Ó Searcaigh, ‘Templecrone – An Interesting Donegal Parish’, in The Irish Monthly, Volume 58, no. 683 (May, 1930), 258.

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  • The Daughters of Cathbadh, July 2

    July 2 brings a group commemoration of holy women – the Daughters of Cathbadh. Canon O’Hanlon gives this brief account, noting that in the Martyrology of Donegal  the siblings are reduced to a single daughter:

     

    The Daughter or Daughters of Cathbath, or Cathbadh, of Airedh Fotha.

    A festival to honour the Daughters of Cathbadh, of Airiud, is entered in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 2nd of July. Marianus O’Gorman has a notice concerning the chaste Daughters of Cathbad of Airida Foda, on the same day. In the Acts of St. Patrick, there is a Fothadh—probably identical—mentioned as having been a hill in Tyrconnell. We find this place also written Airedh fotha, in the published Martyrology of Donegal, at this same date, when there is only mention made of the Daughter of Cathbath, without giving her proper name; while the Bollandists, quoting the same authority, have the Daughters of Cathbad in Airiudh, yet they want a fuller and more distinct account in reference to the foregoing insertions.

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