OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Resources

  • Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae now on Facebook

    Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae finally has its own Facebook page – hope to add regular updates.

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

  • Four Tipperary Saints – Forthcoming Title from Four Courts Press

    Four Tipperary Saints

    The lives of Colum of Terryglass, Cronán of Roscrea, Mochaomhóg of Leigh and Ruadhán of Lorrha

    Translated into English by Pádraig Ó Riain

    When St Patrick was leaving Munster via the Little Brosna river, close to Tipperary’s northern boundary, he is said to have given a blessing to the province’s people, its men, women and children. Much of this blessing must have lingered over north Tipperary, because no fewer than four of its saints were made the subjects of written Lives, Ruadhán and Colum from the neighbouring parishes of Lorrha and Terryglass, Crónán of Roscrea, and Mochaomhóg of Leigh in Twomileborris. The Lives written for these saints in Latin, translated here for the first time into English, contain much that is of interest, not only to Tipperary people, but to all who wish to know more about the history of early Irish Christianity. Written many centuries after the golden age of the saints, these texts tell us a great deal about the fortunes of their churches, and about the aims and associations of the communities devoted to them. Pádraig Ó Riain, in this new translation, gives access to these four Lives to a brand new audience.


    Pádraig Ó Riain is Professor Emeritus of Early and Medieval Irish at University College Cork, and the previous holder of Visiting Professorships at Bochum and Freiburg in Germany and at Aberystwyth in Wales. He is a former holder of the Parnell Fellowship at Magdalen College, Cambridge, and was the first Irish scholar to be awarded the Humboldt Prize. A former President of the Irish Texts Society and a former Member of Council of the Royal Irish Academy, Professor Ó Riain is the author of numerous publications on Irish hagiography, placenames, personal names, and textual transmission. He is the author of the best-selling A dictionary of Irish Saints (2011).

    Paperback
    160pp; ills. November 2014
    ISBN:
    978-1-84682-550-7
    Catalogue Price: €19.95
    Web Price: €17.95

  • Comprehending the Greatness of Christ's Love: an Irish Gloss

    There is a multi-disciplinary project entitled ‘Christ on the Cross’ at University College Cork whose website can be found here. I hope that the contributors may make more of their research findings accessible to the general reader as the work sounds fascinating. The site is worth a visit and I have added it to the useful resources links.
    One text which gives the understanding of a particular Irish scholar on the Crucifixion is to be found in the glosses on the 8th-century Manuscript of the Epistles of Saint Paul, preserved in Würzburg:
    ‘Imagery found in an Old-Irish gloss in the Würzburg manuscript, m.p.th.f.1, gives a spiritual dimension in the shape of the cross. The scribe comments on Ephesians 3, verses 18 and 19. The text runs: ‘With deep roots and firm foundations, may you be strong to comprehend with all God’s people, what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ, and to know it, though it is beyond knowledge’. The scribe notes that the four measurements are said to be in the secrets of the Godhead and also in the Cross of Christ, i.e. the four limbs of the cross. ‘Knowledge’ he says, refers to the divine nature of Christ. ‘With His right hand He saved the left of the world, i.e. the North; with His left hand He saved the right part of the world, i.e., the South; His head redeemed the East, and His feet the West.’
    Hilary Richardson, The Cross Triumphant: High Crosses in Ireland in M.Richter and J-M Picard (eds.), Ogma – Essays in Celtic Studies in honour of Próinséas Ní Chatháin (Dublin, 2002), 114.
    The quotes used by the author above have been taken from T. Olden (ed. and trans.), The Holy Scriptures in Ireland one thousand years ago: Selections from the Würzburg Glosses (Dublin, 1888), 90.
    Other online resources for the Würzburg Glosses include The Old-Irish glosses at Würzburg and Carlsruhe : Part I: the glosses and translation by Whitley Stokes and the manuscript pages digitized from the facsimile edition here.

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