OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Irish Saints

  • Saint Fiachra and Kilfera by the Nore

    August 30 is the feast of Saint Fiachre of Brieul. In the 1904 poem below, Alice Esmonde suggests that even in his French exile Saint Fiachra never quite forgets another quiet hermitage – that of Kilfera by the Nore in Ireland. The poem is typical of the many which were published on native saints in popular Catholic magazines in Ireland at this time, it is not great literature just a sentimentally naive tribute to the holy man:

    Saint Fiacre

    On a slope beside the Norey
    St. Fiacre built his cell,
    Raised his Church and by the door
    Found and blessed his holy well.
    In the summer near the gloaming,
    Should your footsteps there go roaming,
    You would think that down he passes,
    While a hush comes, in the air,
    Yon could hear the tender grasses
    Rustling as he knelt in prayer,
    For he lived in days of yore
    At Kilfera by the Nore.

    Still the spot is calm and fair,
    Tho’ decayed is his sweet cell,
    And he’s half forgotten there,
    By the banks he loved so well.
    But the faithful river stealing,
    When the years brought men less feeling,
    By the Hermitage once holy,
    ‘Mid a silence most profound,
    Seems to sigh and whisper slowly.
    All around is sacred ground —
    For Fiacre years before
    Blessed Kilfera by the Nore.

    Did he hold the place so dear
    That the Lord who watched above
    Filled his heart with tender fear,
    Exiled him with jealous love?
    Solitude he sought more lasting,
    Calmer days for prayer and fasting,
    And across the parting ocean,
    At Breuil in alien land,
    He, with tears and deep emotion,
    Built a cell with his own hand:
    Still he loved as years before
    Lone Kilfera by the Nore.

    Sorrows came and centuries,
    But his Irish heart has rest
    At Breuil beside the trees,
    And the flowers he once loved best—
    Till the Angel’s trumpet calls him,
    While the joy of Heaven enthralls him,
    Where a thousand years go faster
    Than the moments of a day,
    In the Presence of the Master
    Who has wiped all tears away.
    Still we hope he watches o’er
    Calm Kilfera by the Nore.

    Alice Esmonde

    The Irish Monthly, Volume 32 (1904),662-3

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  • Saint Seighein, August 24

    Another saint known only from the recording of his name on the Irish calendars is Saint Seighein, whose feast is recorded on August 24, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

    St. Segin or Seighein.

    Scant justice has been meted to many of our holy men, in human records; although their careers were not unnoted by traits of a sublime and noble character, during their life-time. The Martyrologies of Tallaght and of Donegal register Segin or Seighein, as having been venerated at the 24th of August; but, without giving further information regarding him.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2016. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Sedrach, August 22

    Another obscure name is found on the Irish calendars at August 22 – Saint Sedrach. Canon O’Hanlon records that the Martyrology of Tallaght describes him as a bishop, but otherwise has no other information to offer:

    St. Sedrach, Bishop.

    The published Martyrologies of Tallagh and of Donegal register Sedrach, at the 22nd of August. The former Calendar designates him as a bishop, and this is found, likewise, in that copy of the Tallagh Martyrology, contained in the Book of Leinster, at this same date. The see over which he presided is not known, nor the date for his episcopacy.
    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2017. All rights reserved.