OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Irish saints in Europe

  • Translation of the Relics of Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy

    Ireland witnessed a special occasion on September 12 1897 with the translation from Ivrea in Italy to Cork of the relics of the fifteenth-century Bishop, Blessed  Thaddeus (Tadhg) McCarthy (1455-92). This humble and saintly man had been appointed Bishop of Ross but was illegally deprived of his See and died in Italy before he could return, vindicated, to Ireland. An Australian newspaper report gave its Irish expatriate community a flavour of the excitement of the day on which he finally came home four centuries later:

    IRELAND.

    Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy.
    The
    Catholics of Cork celebrated with great pomp and ceremony
    the translation of the remains of the Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy, a former
    Bishop of the diocese of Cork, who flourished in the latter part of the
    fifteenth century, and was beatified by the Church twelve months ago.
    The remains have been resting for four centuries in the Cathedral of
    Ivrea in Italy, but now they are deposited beneath the altar of St.
    Mary’s Cathedral, Cork. A procession consisting of the clergy
    representing the the various dioceses, with their Bishops in full
    canonical vestments accompanied the remains, which were enshrined in a
    golden sarcophagus, and borne on the shoulders of four canons through
    the streets to the cathedral. The route was lined by members of the
    various religious confraternities and was decorated with triumphal
    arches and banners. High Mass was celebrated, and in the evening there
    was a display of fireworks from the Cathedral Tower, while illuminations
    were displayed on a large scale throughout the city.

     W.A. Record (Perth, WA: 1888 – 1922), Saturday 30 October 1897, page 6

     Here at home the occasion was commemorated by a poem from Alice Esmonde in The Irish Monthly. Alice Esmonde was the pseudonym of Tipperary woman Margaret Mary Ryan, a regular contributor of verse to this magazine. Here she contrasts the sad circumstances under which Blessed Thaddeus left his homeland centuries earlier with the warm welcome which greeted his return:

    BLESSED THADDEUS MAC CARTHY * 

    From the sunshine and the rain
    Of the exiled centuries,
    From the blue Italian seas,
    You have come to us again:
    Home to us and dear old Ireland,
    To the Land of Saints, your sireland,
    And to-morrow and to-morrow,
    By the Lee that saw your sorrow
    And your pain,
    You will rest with sheaf and crown,
    Home amongst us evermore,
    Fair you found the Irish shore,
    When September fields were brown —
    You had anguish ere you left us,
    For dissensions tore and reft us;
    Now the city runs to meet you,
    And your kith and kin to greet you
    With renown.
    You have won the victor’s goal,
    Kept your heart from earthly taint,
    my Father, my Saint!—
    Spotless, stainless, kept your soul.
    How the bells ring out your glory
    How the people tell the story,
    As your ashes home they’re bringing,
    While the music and the singing
    Proudly roll!
    To God’s Heaven when we pray,
    You are there of our own kin;
    Every Irish heart within,
    There’s a place for you alway.
    How the people’s hearts are swelling,
    As with tears of love they’re telling
    Of your life so sad and holy.
    Of the patience sweet and lowly
    Of your day. 

    Oh, the honours God pours down

    On His victor in the strife!
    Oh, the beauty of your life,
    Oh, the glory of your crown!
    Far away in glen and valley,
    By the hill-side and the alley,
    Tears of joy for you are stealing,
    In the cabins where they’re kneeling,
    And the town.
    Since you went in grief away,
    Slow and slow the ages flow,
    Full four hundred years ago —
    Looking back seems yesterday —
    Since on lonely deathbed lying
    Far from home and Ireland dying,
    In the still October even,
    Angels bore your soul to Heaven,
    Now we pray,
    One dear hour to see your face.
    Our sweet exile, our own Saint!
    You whose lips made no complaint.
    High of blood and brave of race.
    Welcome, welcome home to Ireland,
    To the Land of Saints, your sireland,
    And we thank the Lord who crowned you,
    For the glories that surround you.
    For His grace.
    Alice Esmonde
    * Blessed Thaddeus, Bishop of Cork and
    Cloyne, died at Ivrea in Piedmont in 1492. His relics, which were kept there
    ever since with great reverence and with that fame of miracles, were deposited with
    joyful solemnity in the Cathedral of Cork,
    September 12th, 1897.
    The Irish Monthly, Volume 25 (1897), 596-7.

    The memory of this wonderful man, who so richly deserves to complete the path to official recognition of his sanctity, is cherished and upheld by the Blessed Thaddeus MacCarthy’s Catholic Heritage Association. At their blog you can see pictures of the beautiful reliquary of Blessed Thaddeus in the Cathedral where he now rests.

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  • Belgium Honours Saint Dymphna

    Today is the feast of Saint Dymphna, a saint who embodies all of the difficulties in trying to untangle the facts about the lives and identities of the Irish saints. The story that has come down to us is of a seventh-century Irish princess who fled the incestuous attentions of her deranged father and ended up dying a martyr’s death in Belgium. However, her name is not recorded in any of our early native calendars of the saints and the first mention we have of her story is in a thirteenth century Life written by a Flemish monk. Belgium has continued to cherish her memory and in the article below, taken from a syndicated piece published in the New Zealand press in 1925, we get a flavour of the celebrations held to honour the reputed 1325th anniversary of her arrival in that country. The writer also seeks to explain her patronage of those suffering from mental illness:

    BELGIANS HONOR SAINT DYMPHNA.

    A succession of feasts to commemorate the 1325th anniversary of the arrival on Belgian soil of the Irish Princess, Saint Dymphna are now taking place in the unique town of Gheel (says a Louvain message under date June 18). The celebrations are of truly royal splendor. In the jubilee procession held recently, bishops and prelates escorted the relics of the Saint. Her history was represented in floats and groups of which the Irish flag and harp, and oldtime Irish costumes were prominent features.

    Dymphna was a young and beautiful princess leading a Christian life at her pagan father’s court in Ireland. Solicited by him to contract a union against which nature rebelled, she fled from home with a retinue of attendants and the saintly old priest Gerebernus.

    They put to sea in a frail skiff and landed, after passing through a series of adventures, upon the Belgian coast, near Antwerp. Penetrating into the interior, they travelled until they reached a point in what is now the township of Gheel, where they pitched their tents and thought themselves safe.

    But the King, thwarted in his designs, set out in pursuit of his fugitive daughter reached Belgium also, and there traced her whereabouts by the coins with which her party had paid their way through the land.

    Having come upon her retreat, he again urged her marriage. Dymphna resisted as before. Exasperated into fury, the unnatural father imbrued his hands in his child’s blood, severing her head at one blow of his sword, whilst his companions put to death the holy priest who, by his counsel and example, had assisted the young Irish maiden  to keep unsullied her faith and her purity.

     It was not many years after the unfolding of this double tragedy that the people of the country witness to it began to pay a religious homage to the victims, but particularly to Dymphna. To her they had recourse to obtain the cure for themselves or a for others of various diseases, but especially of diseases of the mind. 

    Regarding the father’s passion as a manifestation of insanity and considering that the daughter triumphed over it in a manner most heroic and most pleasing to God, they reasoned that Dymphna in Heaven most assuredly would listen to prayers in favor of the unfortunate wretches whom insanity makes strangers to the calls of reason and humanity.

     Grateful for the blessings secured through her intercession, her humble devotees, poor peasants of the unfertile Campine, built a chapel upon the very spot where she had spent three months of her sojourn among them.

    Her relics and those of her companions were kept in this chapel until the completion in the XIV century of the magnificent temple erected at Gheel through the generosity of the ever-increasing number of pilgrims to St. Dymphna’s Shrine and the princely munificence of the still extant de Merode family.

    Catholic World,New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 33, 2 September 1925

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  • St. Cathaldus of Taranto, May 10

    May 10 is the feast of Saint Cathaldus (Cataldus, Cathal), an Irish saint who flourished in Italy. His life and career is still the subject of debate, an 1896 paper can be found here but below is a rather succinct summary from 1909, courtesy of The New Zealand Tablet:

    St. Cataldus, Bishop and Confessor.

    St. Cataldus,  the second apostle and patron saint of Taranto, was born in Ireland about the year 615, and whilst a youth was sent to study at the great monastic school of Lismore. Whilst returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, in which he was accompanied by some of his disciples, the vessel was wrecked in the Gulf of Taranto, not far from the city of that name. When the Irish Bishop saw this beautiful city given over to pleasure and vice his spirit was moved within him, and in burning language he implored the inhabitants to return to the service of God, Whom they had forgotten. It happened at this time that there was no bishop in the city, so the people besought Cataldus to remain with them, to which request he reluctantly acceded. The saint succeeded in bringing back the inhabitants to the service of God, and Taranto became a Christian city in reality, as well as in name. St. Cataldus died towards the close of the seventh century, and his remains were buried in a marble tomb, which up to this day is preserved in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Taranto.

    St. Cataldus, Bishop and Confessor.,New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 9, 4 March 1909

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