OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Saints of Armagh

  • Saint Conchenna of Killevey, March 13

    Grave of St Moninne at Killevey (2013)

    On March 13 the Irish calendars commemorate the memory of Saint Conchenna, a holy woman of the monastery founded by Saint Moninne at Killevey, County Armagh. Her death is noted in The Annals of the Four Masters:

    The Age of Christ, 654, “Coincenn, of Cill-Sleibhe, died.”

    Not much more appears to be known of her life, but Canon O’Hanlon’s account notes that Conchenna was said to have been a sister to Saint Fintan Munna and the subject of one of his miracles. He also wonders if Saint Conchenna was abbess of the community or merely a member of it, but having raised this question he goes on to answer it by noting that the Annals usually only mark the passing of the superiors of religious houses:

    St. Conchenna, Conchend, or Coincheand, Virgin, of Kill-Slebhe, or Killevey, County of Armagh. [Seventh Century]

    Colgan endeavours to evolve some incidents regarding this holy virgin, at the 13th of March. The Bollandists have only a short notice of St. Conchenna. This saint was daughter to Tulchan, and her mother was Fethlemidia. She was a sister to St. Fintan Munnu, who is venerated at the 21st of October. Thus was she descended, from the noble Hy-Niall race of Ulster. This holy virgin embraced a religious life, in a nunnery, which had been founded by St. Monenna, at Kill-Slebhe, now Killevey, at the foot of Sliabh Cuilinn, or Slieve Gullion, in the southern part of the county of Armagh. Here she lived a very holy life, and illness which caused her death happened. But she was brought to life again, by her holy brother St Munnu, and at the request of their mother. There seems to be a doubt, as to whether she was abbess over the community, at Kill-Sleblie, or a simple member of it. She finally departed this life, A.D. 654; and, although the Four Masters give her no distinctive title, yet, Colgan remarks, they scarcely ever note the death of holy persons, not distinguished as presiding over religious houses. The Martyrologies of Tallagh and of Marianus O’Gorman register the name Conchend, at the 13th of March. Also, on this day, the festival of Coincheand was celebrated, as we read, in the Martyrology of Donegal.

    Note: This post first published in 2014 has been revised in 2022.

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  • The Seven Virgins of Armagh, October 8

    On October 8 the Irish calendars commemorate a group of holy women within the diocese of Armagh. The entry in the Martyrology of Oengus does not specify the number of these saints but the (rather unfortunate) translation by Whitley Stokes describes them as ‘a bevy of virginal girls’:
    A. viii. idus Octobris.
    Lécsit lúth co nani
    ar bithaittrib rígi
    trét ingen co nógi
    la paiss find Faustíni.
    8. They left power with splendour
    for eternal possession of the Kingdom,
    a bevy of virginal girls
    at the white passion of Faustinus.
    The scholiasts’ notes, however, introduce the idea of ‘septem filiae’, seven girls:
    8. a bevy of girls, i.e. in Cell na nóebingen ‘ the Church of the holy girls’ in the precinct of Armagh, i.e. septem filiae. Or maybe they are the holy virgins who are in Cell na n-ingen to the east of Armagh.
    The later Martyrology of Donegal refers on this day to:
    THE SEVEN HOLY VIRGINS, of the Termon of Ard-Macha.
    This is but one instance of saints occurring in sevens within the Martyrology, there are, for example, commemorations of the Seven Bishops of Cluaincua on October 3 and of the Seven Sons of Stiallan, on October 27.
    I assumed that the present seven virgins of Armagh are connected to the hagiography of Saint Patrick and wondered if they may be connected to this episode from the Tripartite Life:
    “Once on a time there came nine daughters of the King of the Lombards, and a daughter of the King of Britain on their pilgrimage to Patrick. They stayed at the east of Armagh in the place where Coll na n-Ingen (the Maidens’ Hazel) stands to-day. They sent to Patrick to ask if they might go to see him (to Armagh). Patrick said to the messengers, ‘Three of the virgins will go to heaven, and do ye bury them in the place where they are — namely, at Coll na n-Ingen. Let the rest of the virgins go to Druim Fendeda (or the Champion’s Ridge), and let one of them go as far as the hillock in the east.’ – and this thing was done.”
    The reference in the Martyrology of Oengus that they ‘left power with splendour for eternal possession of the Kingdom’ would certainly seem to tie in with the idea of princesses becoming nuns. Although the Tripartite Life talks of nine daughters of the King of the Lombards plus a daughter of the King of Britain, Saint Patrick prophecies that three will go to heaven which would reduce their number to seven. I will have to do some further research and see if recent scholarship can cast any more light on this enigmatic group.

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  • Saint Nuadu the Anchorite, October 3

     

     

     

     

     

     

    On October 3 the Irish calendars record a holy man with one of the most ancient of Irish names, Nuadu or Nuada the anchorite. The Martyrology of Tallaght, the earliest of the Irish calendars, records him simply as Nuadu anchorita, ‘Nuadu, the anchorite’. He does not feature among the saints listed at this day in the Martyrology of Oengus but the 12th-century monastic, Marianus O’Gorman, describes him as Nuadu, nuagel, ‘fresh-fair Nuadu’, in his calendar. A note adds anchoiri, ‘an anchorite’. The name is also recorded in the 17th-century Martyrology of Donegal in its more modern form of ‘Nuada, anchorite’. Although no further information is given on the calendars, I have recently been reading a paper on ‘The Officials of the Church of Armagh to A.D. 1200’ in which I encountered Nuadu, an early ninth-century bishop of Armagh who is also described as an anchorite. He is number 33 on the Ancient List of the Coarbs of Patrick compiled by H.G. Lawlor and R.I. Best, where two notices from the Annals of Ulster, the first recording a visit to Connaught and the second recording his repose, are reproduced beside his name on page 323:

    811. Nuadha abbas A. migrauit to Connaught cum lege Patricii et cum armario eius. AU.

    Nuadu, abbot of Ard Macha, went to Connacht with Patrick’s law and his casket.

    812. Nuadha of Loch Uamha episcopus et anchorita, abbas A. dormiuit. AU.

    Nuadu of Loch nUamac, bishop and anchorite, abbot of Armagh, fell asleep.

    Loch nUamac has been identified as Loch Nahoo, in the parish of Drumlease, County Leitrim, by scholar T. M. Charles-Edwards, who also notes ‘Drumlease was attached to the Patrician familia, as shown by two documents in the Book of Armagh…It belonged to the minor kingdom of Calraige in north-east Connaught. Nuadu’s interest in the province of Connaught is shown by 811.1.. (The Chronicle of Ireland (Liverpool, 2006), note 1, p.271.)

    I was hoping that the author of the paper on the officials at Armagh might be able to provide a definition of the term ‘anchorite’ in the context of early medieval Irish monasticism, but this is all he had to say:

    13. Anchorite (Old and Middle Irish anchara, ancair, Latin anchorita.) Thirteen mentions of holders of this title are recorded in the chronicles. It first appears in 725 as a designation for Eochaid, the last being Abel and Gilla Muiredag in 1159. This role could be linked with other functions: Nuadu is called bishop and anchorite, Forannán was comarba, bishop and anchorite, Ioseph was bishop, abbot, comarba and anchorite.

    Hérold Pettiau, ‘The Officials of the Church of Armagh to A.D. 1200’ in A. J. Hughes and W. Nolan, eds., Armagh History and Society: Interdisciplinary essays on the history of an Irish County (Dublin, 2001) 125.

    The later medieval idea of an anchorite was of someone who withdrew from the world entirely and who was differentiated from a hermit by his strict enclosure, as R. M. Clay, author of a study of English anchorites explains:

    THE anchorite differed from the hermit in that he lived in stricter seclusion, and was not free to wander at will. He was not merely, as the word αναχωρητης signifies, withdrawn from the world: he was inclusus, shut up in a strait prison, whether in church, chapel, convent, or castle… (‘Anchorites in Church and Cloister’ in Hermits and Anchorites of England (London: Methuen, 1914).

    This later notion of an anchorite, if it also applied in Ireland, would seem to preclude someone from carrying out the duties of a bishop as an inclusus would not be free to undertake a visitation of his ecclesiastical territory as our Bishop and anchorite Nuadu did of Connaught in the early ninth century. I’m thus still uncertain what the term anchorite meant in our context and will have to do some further research.

    I remarked at the beginning of this post that the saint Nuadu commemorated today bears one of the oldest of Irish names. This point was made by the author of a book on Irish saints in the 1960s:

    Nuada, an anchorite, whose name is found in one of the Three Tragedies of the Gael and one of the oldest legends in Ireland, the Children of Turenn. Nuada in that legend is Nuada of the Silver Hand, so called because he lost his arm at the First Battle of Moytura between the Tuatha de Danaan and the Fomorians, which is held by some authorities to have taken place anno mundi 3303, and was supplied with a silver one by his physician Dianecht instead. It is therefore a name, and a lovely one, of great antiquity.

    (Eoin Neeson, The Book of Irish Saints, (Cork, 1967) 176.

    Despite the pagan mythological origins of this name, our anchorite Bishop Nuadu is not alone in bearing it in ninth century Christian Ireland. Scholar Clare Downham has brought together the entries from the Irish annals relating to the Vikings and records this entry from the Annals of the Four Masters under the year 845:

    AFM 843.10

    Sloighedh la Gallaibh Atha Cliath a c-Cluanaibh Andobhair, 7 argain leiss Chille h-Achaidh, 7 martradh Nuadhat mic Seigeni leo.

    [A military outing by the foreigners of Áth Cliath to Cluain an Dobor, and the enclosure of Cell Achid was raided; and Nuadu son of Ségíne, was martyred by them.]

    There are also various other instances of this name to be found in the annals and calendars, the Martyrology of Donegal, for example, contains two other saints Nuada, one a bishop commemorated at February 2 and the other an abbot at December 2. Sadly, nothing more seems to be recorded of these individuals either. I cannot, of course, definitively identify the ninth-century bishop and anchorite Nuadu with the saint commemorated today, but find it of great interest that this very old name of Irish legend continued to be popular as a Christian name and was borne by men of various ecclesiastical ranks who feature in our native calendars of the saints.

     

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