OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Irish Saints

  • Saint Killian, Confessor, April 19

     

    Remains of Round Tower at Maghera

    April 19 is the commemoration of a Saint Killian, whom Canon O’Hanlon seeks to place in the area of Maghera, County Down. The saint’s name and feastday are recorded in various sources, but there is perhaps no definitive evidence offered to clinch the theory that he is to be identified with a Saint Cillen of Rathscillen, brother to Donard the Hermit. The ‘very competent archaeologist and ecclesiologist’ to whom O’Hanlon refers in his account below is Father James O’Laverty, author of a five-volume diocesan history of Down and Connor, a work available through the Internet Archive. St Cillen and his locality are discussed by Father O’Laverty in Volume 1, beginning at page 51.

    ST. KILLIAN, CONFESSOR.

    WE are told, by Colgan, that the festival of a St. Killian, confessor, was kept on this day. We have no further account, regarding him, than this simple record, in our earliest authorities. His name, without further distinctive particulars, occurs, in the Tallagh Martyrology, and in that of Marianus O’Gorman, as the Bollandists notice, when recording Killenus, in their great work, at the 19th of April. There was a Cillen, the son of his mother Derinilla, who had children by four different husbands. He is said to have belonged to Achadhcail, in the territory of Lecale, at the bank of Dundrum estuary. A very competent archaeologist and ecclesiologist seems to identify his place with Rathscillan, near Maghera, County Down. He tells us, that Rathscillan signifies “the Rath of Cillan,” and that St. Donard had a brother, named Cillen, whose church was somewhere in the neighbourhood.

    Among the possessions of the See of Down, at the end of the twelfth century, and recited in a patent roll, belonging to the Tower of London, are Rathmurval, along with Rathsillan. The former was the old name for Maghera. There is a difficulty, however, in identifying Rathscillan, as there is no place in that neighbourhood, now known by the name. Yet, as is evident, by the grouping of names, Rathsillan must have been near Maghera. In a field, at Wateresk, are the remains of an ancient cemetery, which once was enclosed in a rath. This site exactly corresponds with that of the church of St. Cillen, as described by St. Aengus the Culdee. It was in the territory of Lecale, and it lay close to the estuary of Dundrum. It must have been in early times, like Maghera, a scene for the piety and labours of some eminent ecclesiastic. On this day, Cillen is mentioned in the Martyrology of Donegal, as having been venerated. The name of St. Killein occurs, also, in thee Martyrology, now preserved in the Royal Irish Academy; but, it does not seem possible, to recognise his place or period.

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  • Saint Tetgaill of Lann-Ela, April 16

     

    A 6th/7th-century abbot of Lann-Ela, Tetgaill (Tetghal), is commemorated on April 16. The monastery of Lann-Ela was founded by the poet saint Colman who had died roughly a century before Abbot Tetgaill, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:
    ST. TETGAILL OR TETGHAL, SON OF COLBRAIN, BISHOP OF LYNALLY, KING’S COUNTY.
    [SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES.]

    We find, entered in the Martyrology of Tallagh, the name of Tetgaill Mac Colbrain, at the 16th day of April. The patronymic, given with his own proper name, does not reveal more than the name of his father: of his family line, we are ignorant. Tedgalius is the Latinized form of this holy man’s name. He was born, as we may suppose, in the seventh century; but, where his education had been received does not appear. He was Abbot of Lann-Ela. This place is thought to have derived its origin from St. Colman Elo, who died in 610, and who first erected here his Lann or Church. In pagan times, the locality was called Fiodh-Elo, or Elo-wood, which is said to lie in Feara Ceall, in the country of the southern Hy- Lynally. It contains the ruins of a church; but, decidedly, these are not old, yet that wall, which encloses the graveyard, appears to be very ancient. To the south of Lynally Church stands a moat, said to contain vaults built of lime and stone. Lann-Ela has been identified with the village of Lynnally, in the barony of Ballycowan, King’s County. The Four Masters make St. Tethghal Bishop of this place. There can hardly remain a doubt, that the Tethgaill here noted should not be identified with that bishop of Lynally, who is mentioned, in our Annals. He appears to have died, on the 16th of April, A.D. 709. The same date has been assigned for his death, by the local ecclesiastical historian. The festival, in honour of Tetghal, was celebrated, on this day, as we read in the Martyrology of Donegal. At the xvi. of the May Kalends, which corresponds with the 16th day of April, the Irish Calendar, now preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, has a peculiar notice of his festival and period.

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  • Saint Ruadhán of Lothra, April 15

     

    April 15 is the feast of Saint Ruadhán of Lothra, one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. Ruadhán is a saint about whom many stories are recorded, hagiography credits him with the cursing of the pagan stronghold of Tara and with many miracles. There is a scholarly paper on ‘The Life of Saint Ruadán and the Cursing of Tara’ which examines these traditions here.  Canon O’Hanlon has a long and densely-packed account of the saint and his miracles, but for the moment I will introduce him through a more concise entry, taken from a scholar of Irish folklore:

    Ruadhán Saint who died c.584 AD, founder of the monastery of Lothra (Lorrha, in north Co Tipperary). His name means ‘red-haired man’ and in modern form is rendered Ruán.

    The several accounts given of him in Latin and Irish all derived from a lost biography, which was compiled in the 10th or 11th century. We read that he was son of one Fearghus Bearn on the royal Eoghanacht sept of Munster, and that he was educated by St Finnian of Cluain Ard (Clonard, Co Meath). When he went to Lorrha to found his monastery there, a fierce wild boar which had its lair in the hollow of a tree quitted the place so that he could have possession of it. He performed many miracles in different parts of Ireland, including finding their treasure for the people of Ros Éinne (in the Oriors area of south Armagh) who had forgotten where they had hidden it during a pestilence; healing the queen of Cualu (north Wicklow) who was afflicted by a dangerous blood-clot; and rescuing a ship caught in a whirlpool near Limerick. He had a wondrous tree at Lorrha, the sap of which provided full sustenance for all who tasted of it. The other saints of Ireland grew jealous of Ruadhán on account of this tree and of his holiness generally, but he reconciled them to him by entertaining them with a fine feast in Lorrha.

    The most celebrated story of him concerned his conflict with the high-king Diarmaid mac Cearrbheoil, who seized a hostage from out of Ruadhán’s sanctuary and was elaborately cursed by the saint as a result. The two were eventually reconciled, and Diarmaid returned the hostage to Ruadhán in return for thirty beautiful dark-grey horses. These had come to the saint from a river, and they defeated the king’s own horses at racing. Soon after the king had acquired them, however, they raced away into the sea. Another legend has Ruadhán giving his own two chariot-horses as alms to lepers, and two stags coming from a wood to draw his chariot in their place. Several of the other miracles attributed to him involve healing the sick and raising from the dead people who were recently deceased.

    The feastday of Ruadhán is April 15.

    Dáithí Ó hÓgain , Myth, Legend and Romance: An Encyclopaedia of the Irish Folk Tradition (Ryan, 1990), 377-378.

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