OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Poems

  • 'Gem of Our Church, Fair Ita'

    F. Anger, St Itha (1901)

    January 15 is the feast of Saint Ita, ‘the Brigid of Munster’ and patroness of the Diocese of Limerick. A post on her life can be found here, but below is the text of a late nineteenth century poem in honour of the saint. It was published in the periodical founded by Father Matthew Russell S.J., The Irish Monthly.  The poem is typically Victorian in its sentimental piety, but still worth reading on the feast of this great Irish woman saint. The illustration is a near-contemporary one taken from the work of the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, Virgin Saints and Martyrs, published in 1901.

    ST. ITA.
    Patroness of the Diocese of Limerick
    [Jan. 15]

    SING, sing ye a maiden holy,
    And pure as the driven snow,
    A saint of our sainted island
    Serving God long ago.
    Oh, she had riches and suitors
    Where royal Decies stood,
    But gave up all for a lover
    Who shed for her His Blood.

    Sing, sing ye a maiden holy,
    And pure as the driven snow,
    A saint of our sainted island
    Serving God long ago.

    “Depart”, cried a voice, “from kindred,
    And from thy father’s lands;
    Make haste to a distant region,
    Where dark-browed Loochar stands.
    Wild warriors there shall build thee
    A home by the mountain side;
    Hy-Connaill bloom as a garden,
    And bless thee far and wide. “

    Sing, sing ye a maiden holy,
    And pure as the driven snow,
    A saint of our sainted island
    Serving God long ago.

    And clansmen and maidens gathered
    Around that white-robed dove;
    And the land served God as a virgin,
    All, all of that virgin’s love.
    O, gem of our Church, fair Ita,
    Maid of our worship and love,
    Pray for our priests and people,
    Saint of the heavens above.

    Sing, sing ye a maiden holy,
    And pure as the driven snow,
    A saint of our sainted island
    Serving God long ago.


    R. O. K., St. Ita,  The Irish Monthly,  Vol. 23, No. 259 (Jan., 1895), p. 26.

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  • 'A Queen of the Race of David'- An Irish Poem on the Virgin Mary

    Pictorial Lives of the Saints (1878)

    November 21 is the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  The sources for this episode in the life of the Mother of God are found in the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James, which tells us that the parents of Our Blessed Lady presented her for service in the Temple when she was three years old. There she remained until puberty when her marriage was arranged. I was pleased to find an eighth-century Irish poem which reflects this tradition included with Professor James Carney’s translations of the poems of Blathmac and the Irish Gospel of Thomas. He says in his introduction:

    The poem to the Virgin Mary .. would appear to be of the same date as the Irish Gospel of Thomas, and is simply an effort to assure us that the Blessed Virgin was of noble lineage. The poet was familiar with the view that Mary before her marriage to Joseph was one of the virgins serving in the Temple at Jerusalem. This idea is as old as the Book of James or Protoevangelium which is assigned to the second century.
    It is interesting to see that these apocryphal sources were known to the Early Irish Church. I imagine that establishing the ancestral background of the Blessed Virgin would have struck a chord with the Irish writer, given that Ireland’s own tribal society took a keen interest in matters genealogical. The poem begins with a clear statement of the tradition that the Mother of God spent her childhood in service reading the Law and the Prophets as a preparation for her great role in salvation history.
    III. A Poem on the Virgin Mary
    1. Mary is the mother of the little boy who was born on Christmas night: she read the Prophets and the Law until she was experienced in service.
    2. The woman was not unstable, the holy maiden was sage; she conceived with steadfastness and glory the well of divine wisdom.
    3. Hail to you! whatever may come, O blessed amongst women. Hail! You will receive in your womb a being called Jesus.
    4. A being who has been born before worlds, who has given life to the dead; there is not apparent – though it is clear that it is not falsehood – in the Vetus or the Nouum a being like him.
    5. The mother who has borne the boy is without doubt ever-virgin; when the place from which she comes is known numerous are her kinsfolk.
    6. Of 1 the people who sacrificed the Lamb who were in the city of Zion , of the posterity of Noah and Shem: it is Jerusalem.
    7. A maiden of the seeds of the kings, a queen of the race of David; it was no low-class kin in addition to that; the maiden was of the tribe of Juda.
    8. The woman was a daughter of Israel, the maiden was of noble race. Mary is the name of the woman who conceived in Bethlehem of Juda.
    1= ‘She (Mary) is of…’
    James Carney, ed. and trans., The Poems of Blathmac Son of Cú Brettan – Together with the Irish Gospel of Thomas and a Poem on the Virgin Mary (Dublin, 1964), xviii; 108-111.

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  • The Massacre of the Innocents in Irish Sources

    The Martyrology of Oengus devotes its entire entry for December 28 to the commemoration of The Massacre of the Innocents by King Herod:

    28. Famous is their eternal acclamation,
    beyond every loveable band,
    which the little children from Bethlehem
    sing above to their Father.

    to which the scholiast has added a commentary:

    28. Famous the lasting acclamation, i.e. famous and lasting is the shout of the children who were killed in Bethlehem by Herod pro Christo.
    a loveable band, i.e. they are a dear band propter innocentiam.
    who sing above to their Father, i.e. canunt laudes, etc.

    A hundred and forty – bright fulfilment – and two thousands of children
    were slain in Bethlehem with victory by the ruler, by Herod.
    Thirty plains famous, pleasant, all about Bethlehem ;
    in every plain were slain a hundred of the pleasant children of the nobles ;
    a hundred and forty – sad the doom ! – in Bethlehem alone.

    The Massacre of the Innocents is also commemorated in other Irish sources, appearing, for example, in the poems of the eighth-century monastic writer Blathmac. He records in the first of his poems, in the translation of James Carney:

    20. In seeking Christ (pitiful this!) the infants of Bethlehem were slain. It was by Herod (bloodier than any prince!) that they were put to the blue sword.

    21. Happy the good gentle infants! They have happiness in an eternal kingdom: Herod, miserable creature, has eternal sorrow and eternal Hell.

    James Carney, ed. and trans., The poems of Blathmac, son of Cú Brettan: Together with the Irish Gospel of Thomas and a poem on the Virgin Mary (Dublin, 1964), 9.

    Below is the text of another poem, found in the Leabhar Breac, which reflects the raw pain of the bereaved mothers and the sheer horror of the deed:

    The Mothers’ Lament at the Slaughter of the Innocents

    Then, as she plucked her son from her
    breast for the executioner, one of the
    women said:
    ‘Why do you tear from me my darling son,
    The fruit of my womb?
    It was I who bore him, he drank my breast.
    My womb carried him about, he sucked my vitals.
    He filled my heart:
    He was my life, ’tis death to have him taken from me.
    My strength has ebbed,
    My voice is stopped,
    My eyes are blinded.’
    Then another woman said:
    ‘It is my son you take from me.
    I did not do the evil,
    But kill me — me: don’t kill my son!
    My breasts are sapless, my eyes are wet,
    My hands shake,
    My poor body totters.
    My husband has no son,
    And I no strength;
    My life is worth — death.
    Oh, my one son, my God!
    His foster-father has lost his hire.
    My birthless sicknesses with no requital until Doom.
    My breasts are silent,
    My heart is wrung.’
    Then said another woman:
    ‘Ye are seeking to kill one; ye are killing many.
    Infants ye slay, fathers ye wound; you kill the mothers.
    Hell with your deed is full, heaven shut.
    Ye have spilt the blood of guiltless innocents.’
    And yet another woman said:
    ‘O Christ, come to me!
    With my son take my soul quickly:
    O Great Mary, Mother of the Son of God,
    What shall I do without my son?
    For Thy Son, my spirit and my sense are killed.
    I am become a crazy woman for my son.
    After the piteous slaughter
    My heart’s a clot of blood
    From this day
    Till Doom comes.’

    ‘Anecdota from Irish MSS’ (III), ed. Kuno Meyer, The Gaelic Journal 4, no. 38 (May 1891), 90.

     

    A powerful lament, indeed.

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