OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Irish Saints

  • Saint Ninnidh of Inismacsaint, January 18

    There is some confusion surrounding the exact feastday of Saint Ninnidh of Inismacsaint, a small island on Lough Erne, County Fermanagh. Canon O’Hanlon first mentions him on 16th January:
    ‘On this day, the Martyrology of Tallagh registers the name of Ninnidh,Leth derc, as having been venerated. Marianus O’Gorman’s Calendar enters his festival on the 16th of January. However, the festival and acts of this saint seem more appropriately referable to the 18th of this month, where they may be seen.’
    On the 18th January, O’Hanlon summarizes the evidence for this date as the feastday:
    ‘Although we do not find any allusion to St. Nennidh, in the Feilire of St. Oengus, at the 18th of January, yet, at this date, both in the published and in the unpublished copies of the Tallagh Martyrology, he is duly commemorated. However, Marianus O’Gorman and Cathal Maguire place the festival of St. Nennius or Nennidh of Inis-mhuighe-samh, at the 16th of October. Other writers of saints’ lives also adopt this arrangement. In the Martyrology of Donegal, on this day, occurs the feast of Ninnidh, Bishop of Inis-Muighe Samh, in Loch Eirne. The calendarist adds, that he was Ninnidh Laebhruise, or Laobruise, who belonged to the race of Enda, son to Niall. Usually he was called Ninnidh Laimhiodhan, as O’Clery states. The book of hymns says, also, that Ninnidh, son of Eochaidh, was Ninnidh Laimhiodhan. His acts are given at some length, by Colgan, in his great collection of Irish saints but on the mistaken supposition, that the Bishop and Abbot of Inismacsaint, sometimes denominated Laobh-dearc, was the same as Ninnidh, the priest who acted as chaplain to the holy St. Brigid, first Abbess of Kildare, and who is sometimes called Ninnidh Lamhghlan, and sometimes Ninnidh Laoimhiodan.
    Under the head of Inis-Muighe-Samh, Duald Mac Firbis enters Ninnidh, bishop, at January 18th. This holy man would seem to have been the son of Ethach, and he was distinguished likewise by the denomination of Laobh-dhearc. It is incorrect to state, that he flourished so early as the fifth century, when possibly he was not then born.’
    Here is the entry in full from the Martyrology of Donegal for 18th January:
    18. D. QUINTO DECIMO KAL. FEBRUARII. 18.
    NINNIDH, Bishop, of Inis-Muighe-Samh, in Loch Eirne ; and he was Ninnidh Saebhruisc, who was of the race of Enda, son of Niall. It was he who was usually called Ninnidh Laimhiodhan, to my knowledge. See the Life of Brigid, chap. 41 . The Book of Hymns states that Ninnidh, son of Eochaidh, was Ninnidh Laimhiodhan.
    So it would seem that some confusion exists around both the exact identity of Saint Ninnidh and his feastday, due to the association of Saint Ninnidh of Inismacsaint with Saint Ninnidh of the Pure Hand who attended Saint Brigid on her deathbed.
    Saint Ninnidh of Inismacsaint, however has a distinct identity as one of the disciples of St Finnian at the great monastic school of Clonard, and as one of the 12 Apostles of Ireland. His memory is still preserved in Fermanagh, and below is a short account of the saint’s life from a local history publication:

    St. Ninnidh, who was a grandson of the High King Laoire, was born in Donegal, and from an early age it was seen that he was interested in religious matters. He was therefore sent to Clonard to be educated under St. Finnian. His fellow students at this establishment were said to be St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise St. Molaise of Devenish and St. Aidan of Ferns. St. Ninnidh was one of the twelve students supported on the milk of St. Ciaran’s Dun Cow. St. Ninnidh, St. Aidan and St. Molaise were all close friends and St. Ciaran, their colleague, visited Inishmacsaint in 534.

    St. Ninnidh preached along the south shore of Lough Erne making the island of Inishmacsaint (Island of the Plain of Sorrel) his headquarters around 532 A.D. He likely journeyed up and down the southern portion of Lower Lough Erne in a hollowed-out boat, coming ashore at intervals and making his way inland, in order to meet the people and spread the Gospel, no doubt having the odd heated discussion with the local druid. He probably established a little church or residence at Glenwinney (Ninnidh’s Glen), visited Ninnidh’s Hill above Roscor to meditate and pray and quenching his thirst at nearby Ninnidh’s Well. A route led from Inishmacsaint Island to Maherahar and Inishway; thence to Glenwinney where there was a small church; through Urros and Beagh along what was later to become the old coach road from Dublin to Ballyshannon through Magho. The route then turned to Ninnidh’s Hill above Roscor where a small church was established and then through Killybig to another little church at Kilcoo. This route was probably used by St. Ninnidh and the early Christians of the area during rough weather when it was dangerous to go by Lough Erne. 

    He is said to have fasted during Lent on Knockninny, which still bears his name, no doubt making his way there by boat from Inishmacsaint. The saint was bishop over an area stretching from the oustskirts of Derrygonnelly to Bundoran and the saint’s feast day is celebrated on the 18th January, which is the date he died, but the exact year is unknown. St. Ninnidh’s Bell, which was cast and presented to him by St. Senach of Derrybrusk, was still in existence on the island in the middle of the seventeenth century, probably until the dissolution of the monasteries of 1630. Later the Bell was in the Castle Caldwell Museum, and is now in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Archdall, writing in the early 19th century stated “The Saint’s Bell is yet preserved here as a precious relique and is holden in so great a veneration that it is often judicially tendered them to swear on”. It is not known who succeeded St. Ninnidh on his death but the next parson mentioned is Fiannamail, descendant of Boghaine, who was slain in 718. 

    W.K.Parke, The Parish of Inismacsaint, (1973).

    Extracts are available online here
    The reference to the bell of St Ninnidh being used as something on which the local people would swear an oath is a motif often seen in accounts of the relics of  Irish saints. It testifies to a living link between the local people and their saint and an expression of, literally, a ‘hands-on’ devotion.

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  • Saint Clairnech of Druim Bidhg, January 17

    January 17 is the commemoration of an obscure saint, Clairnech of Druim Bidhg. His festival is first noted in the earliest of the surviving Irish calendars, the Martyrology of Tallaght, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

    A St. Clairnech of Druimbide is mentioned, on the 17th of January, in the Martyrology of Tallagh. There was a Druim-Beathaigh, extending across the plain of Maenmagh, near the town of Loughrea, in Galway county. Some similarity of sound can be traced in both denominations, yet the locality cannot be clearly ascertained. Clairenech, of Druim Bidhg, appears in the Martyrology of Donegal, on to-day. It is likely to have been that of this saint’s demise and first birth in real bliss.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin, January 16

    This saint is both a poet and a scholar, who died in 1086. I knew the name of Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin in connection with a hymn in Latin and Irish Deus meus, adiuva me which I am pleased to say still features in Irish hymnals today. I have posted a translation of it here. I did not know, however, that its author also featured on the Irish calendars of the saints, so I am delighted to bring a short essay on Saint Máel Ísu’s life and works from a latter-day daughter of the Ua Brolcháin clan, Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin:

    Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin (d.1086)

    Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin was a religious poet from Donegal who was a member of the Armagh community. His death in Lismore is mentioned in the Annals of Innisfallen in 1086. He is recognized as one of the primary poets of his age, and there is a full-page account of his life and family in the 16th-century Acta Sanctorum by Colgan. He was educated in the monastery of Both Chonais, Gleenely, beside the present-day Culdaff, Co. Donegal. His death is mentioned in all major annals, but the Annals of the Four Masters give a longer notice than others:

    The senior scholar of Ireland, learned in wisdom, in piety and in poetry of both languages. So great was his erudition and scholarship that he himself wrote books and compositions of wisdom and intellect. His spirit ascended into heaven on the 16th of January, as is said: On the sixteenth of January/on the night of fair Fursa’s feast,/Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin perished/Oh! Who lives to whom this was not a great distress.

    His Work

    The manuscript sources attribute eight poems to Máel Ísu. Scholars mention him as the possible author of four further compositions. Fr. F. Mac Donncha suggested that he may also be the author of the Passions and Homilies because he was well educated with a deep knowledge of the scriptures and of Latin and had access to an extensive library. The content of his poems reflect the concerns of his age, the secularization of the church and the budding reform. He composed devotional, personal prayers as well as didactic poems that reflect the beliefs and teaching of the Céilí Dé (Culdees) in preaching restraint, fasting, continence and study as a way of life. He prays directly to the Trinity, to St Michael, and to God himself, using his poetry as a vehicle for religious teaching and for personal prayer. Some of the poetry may be directed at his students. Dia hAine ní longu says: ‘You eat/as for me, I shall fast,/on account of fire which water does not extinguish/and cold which heat does not quench.’ He may have moved to Lismore in search of the reforming spirit that was absent in the secular world of Armagh.

    The lorica, A choim diu, nom chomet, seeks protection from the eight deadly sins for eight parts of the body: eyes, ears, tongue, heart, stomach, male organ, hands and feet. The sins associated with each are outlined, for example: ‘Protect my ears so that I do not listen to scandal, so that I do not listen to the foolishness of the evil world’ and he continues: ‘Do not allow me to fall into the principal sins of the eminent, reputed eight, Christ come to me, to hunt them, to defeat them.’ In this he follows the teachings of the Penitentials as he does in his longest poem Ocht n-eric na nDualach that treats the eight vices. Some five or six stanzas are given over to each vice and to its cure, for example: ‘Greed- what it does is/to force miserliness upon you:/ a craving for all things,/pillage, plunder and robbery,/The sole cure is contempt for the dark world,/being in continual poverty/without acquiring wealth.

    Muireann Ní Brolcháin, Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin (d.1086), in S.Duffy, ed., Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia (CRC Press, 2005), 307-308.
    Canon O’Hanlon also has an entry for this great poet-saint. He tells us of a County Donegal parish which claimed Ua Brolcháin as its patron:

    ‘The patron saint of the parish of Cloncha, in Inishowen, was always regarded as being the present Maelisa Ua Brolchain. In this parish, there stood an ancient monastery, known as Temple Moyle, or Tapal Moule. An old graveyard, surrounded by a stone wall, with an iron gate entrance, is found at this place. We find recorded in the Martyrologies of Marianus O’Gorman and of Donegal, at the 16th day of January, Maelisa Ua Brolchain. On the seventeenth of the calends of February, he resigned his spirit to heaven, as stated in this quatrain: 

    ” On the Seventeenth of the calends of February,
    The night of fair Fursa’s festival,
    Died Maelisa Ua Brolchain,
    But, however, not of a heavy severe fit.”

    This account seems to convey, that he ended life by a process of natural decline, and that he expired without much suffering. It is likely he attained an advanced age. The Annals of Clonmacnoise, at A.D. 1084, have recorded his death. The year 1086 was that of his decease, according to the Annals of Ulster and of the Four Masters. ‘

    I am left with a picture of a saint who was very much a representative of the old penitential traditions of the Irish church and of its love of learning and scholarship. Yet he lived at a time of change, the Great Schism between east and west occurred in his lifetime and the church reforms he sought would come a century after his death. But Saint Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin has not been forgotten. Apart from the survival of his hymn Deus Meus, adiuva me, now sung in modern Irish and Latin, a number of his poems have been translated by twentieth-century scholars and I will post a selection of these in the future.

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