OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Irish Saints

  • Saint Nem of Aran, June 14

     

    At June 14 the Martyrology of Oengus has an interesting gloss on its entry for the day for a Saint Nem, who appears to share his feastday with the commemoration of a translation of the relics of Saint Benedict:

    14. Both of them meet on the same festival,
    a hostful sea!
    Nem the vigorous descendant of Bern,
    with Benedict the victorious.
    14. Nem, i.e. a pope who is in Aran, and he is a successor of Enda of Aran, and of the Dal Birn of Ossory he is, and a brother of Ciaran of Saiger. Nem great-grandson of Bern. He was called by three names, to wit, Nem and Pupu and Cailbe. Nem primum nomen etc. Whence Senan of Inis Cathaig sang Abbas almus amabilis etc. A successor of Peter and Paul, Cailbe came from the east from Rome, Nem, great-grandson of Bern, a bright brother, whose name is Pupu of Aran.
     I was grateful to be able to turn to the latest reference work, Pádraig Ó Riain’s A Dictionary of Irish Saints, to make sense of this multi-named saint. There I learnt that several chapters of the Life of Saint Enda of Aran, dealing with a sojourn in Rome, feature Pupa (Pupu), a name said to derive from Papa, ‘Pope’ which was also used to describe Irish hermits in Iceland. Another source says that Nem/Pupa had abandoned the papacy to retire to Inishmore, which is a charming notion. As we have seen above, the scholiast on the Martyrology of Oengus portrays Nem/Pupa as the successor to the great Saint Enda and claims that he was a brother to Saint Ciarán of Saighir. The three names mentioned in the Martyrology are thus 
     
    1. Nem – the saint’s original birth name.
     
    2. Pupa – because of his quest for the chair of Peter. 
     
    3. Cailbe – derived from caol-bheo, ‘slender-alive’,  because of his ‘thinness’ during his life. 
     
    Nem/Pupa also features in the Life of Saint Brendan, where he appears, along with Saint Enda, as one of the well-wishers seeing off the Navigator of Clonfert at the start of his famous voyage. As the Martyrology also mentions, Saint Senan is made to declaim a Latin quatrain beginning Abbas almus amabilis, in praise of Saint Nem. Thus is this ‘Pope of Aran’ honoured within the Irish sources, although he seems to be an obscure figure today. 


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  • Saint Mac Nissi of Clonmacnoise, June 13

     

    June 13 is the commemoration of Saint Mac Nissi, a sixth-century abbot of Clonmacnoise.  He shares his name with the episcopal patron of the northern diocese of Connor whose feast is celebrated on September 3. Today’s saint is noted in the Martyrology of Oengus in the following quatrain, translated by Whitley Stokes:
    With Bartholomew the active
    thou art weak if thou hear not
    from us to the Kings (of heaven)
    went Mac Nissi the chaste of Cluain.
    Canon O’Hanlon brings this account of the saintly abbot of Clonmacnoise in volume VI of his Lives of the Irish Saints:
     
    St. Mac Nissi, Abbot of Clonmacnoise, King’s County [Sixth Century.]
    This holy man is mentioned, by St. Aengus the Culdee, as deserving of religious veneration from an early date. Among the Burgundian Library Manuscripts, at Bruxelles, there is a Latin Life of Moenissus. Whether he was the present saint, or the Mac Nissi, Bishop of Connor, venerated at the 3rd of September, the short account given by Mr. S. Bindon does not enable us to determine. In the Feilire of Aengus, Mac Nissi the chaste of Cluain is commemorated, on the 13th of June. We also find the name of Mac Nesi, Abbot of Cluana mic nois, occurring in the Martyrology of Tallagh, and in that of Marianus O’Gorman, as having had a festival, at the 13th of June. Nearly contemporaneously with the death of St. Ita, of Killeedy, the predecessor of Mac Nissi, and who is called the abbot Aeneas, departed this life. St. Macnessius immediately succeeded him, in the government of Clonmacnoise, at a time when this sanctuary of holiness; on the banks of the Shannon, was in the zenith of its splendour, as a house and home of retreat. He ruled from about A.D. 574, for a period of sixteen years, according to a gloss on Marianus O’Gorman. The account of his being abbot, during the lifetime of Eneas, must be taken to signify, either that he was elected at this abbot’s express wish, when on his death-bed, according to a custom of the time; or that the term abbot, said to have been applied to him by St. Ita, was rather an expression used by the author of her Life, and referable to Macnessius, at a future period. The O’Clerys place this saint’s death, at A.D. 590. The Martyrology of Donegal records him as Mac Nessi, Abbot of Cluain-mic-nois.
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  • Saint Riagail of Bangor, June 11

     

    The 11th of June sees the commemoration of a ninth-century Abbot of the famous monastery of Bangor, County Down. Although not much seems to be known of the specifics of Saint Riagail’s life, the annals record his death at 881, at a time when Bangor was struggling to recover from the effects of Viking raids. The Annals of Ulster at the year 821 make the rather terse entry ‘The heathens invaded Bennchor the Great’ and this proved to be the first of a number of assaults on Saint Comgall’s foundation. Indeed, when the raiders returned the following year, the Annals of the Four Masters depict the sacrilege perpetrated on the relics of Saint Comgall as the fulfillment of a prophecy the saint himself had made:

    “The plundering of Beannchair by the foreigners; the oratory was broken, and the relics of Comhghall were shaken from the shrine in which they were, as Comhghall himself had foretold, when he said:

    It will be true, true, by the will of the supreme King of kings,
    My bones shall be brought, without defect, from the beloved Beannchair to Eantrobh.”

    Saint Riagail, as Comgall’s successor, was thus faced with exercising his abbacy under conditions very different to those of the monastery’s golden age. Canon O’Hanlon gives this short summary of the evidence from the Annals and Martyrologies:

    St. Reghuil, Abbot of Bangor, County of Down.
    [Ninth Century.]

    At the 11th of June, the Martyrology of Tallagh records a festival, in honour of Riagail, Bennchair. He flourished in the ninth century, and at a time when Bangor had been wasted by the Northmen. It appears to have recovered somewhat, during the period of his rule over it. In the Annals of the Four Masters, the death of this saint, called Ragallach, Abbot of Beannchair, is entered at the year 881. The Martyrology of Donegal, at this day, moreover, enters Reghuil, of Bennchor. The feast of St. Regail, of Bangor, is found also in Rev. Dr. Reeves’ Calendar, at the same day.

     

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