OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Saints of Down

  • Saint Colman of Cammus Comghaill, October 30

    October 30 presents us with the feast of yet another Saint Colmán and thus with yet another mystery as to his precise identity, location and feast day. The Martyrology of Donegal records:

    30. B. TERTIO KAL. NOVEMBRIS. 30.


    COLMAN, Abbot, of Cammus Comghaill, on the brink of the Bann; or of Lann Mocholmog: and he was maternal brother to Mocholmog of the Lann.

    Bishop Reeves’ mid-nineteenth century account of the northern dioceses of Down, Connor and Dromore, identified ‘the Lann’ as the parish of Magheralin, County Down:

    Lan.—Now the parish of Magheralin. The church was founded by St. Colman or Mocholmoc, whose death Tigernach records at the year 700: “Colman Linduacaill obit”. “Colman of Lin-duacall died”. Or, as the Four Masters, a year earlier: “Colman Linne Uachaille decc. an XXX Marta”. “Colman of Linn-uachaill died on the 30th of March”. Hence it is sometimes called Lann-Da-Cholmoc, or Lann-Mocholmoc, which both signify ‘ the church of Colman’; for the syllables Da or Do, in the sense ‘your’, and Mo, in the sense ‘my’, were prefixed to saints’ names, as Colgan observes, “honoris et singularis observantiae causa”.

    Rev. W. Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore (Dublin, 1847), 110.

    This identification was challenged, however, by another Anglican cleric who placed the location of Saint Colmán’s foundation at Annagassan, County Louth:

    Monastery or Linn Duachaill.—It is in the townland of Linns, close to the village of Annagassan, that we find the first trace of an ecclesiastical establishment in the Parish of Gernonstown. St. Colman MacLuachan is said to have founded a church or monastery here in the seventh century. It was known by the name of Linn Duachaill (i.e.. Duachaill’s pool), or Linn Uachaill from a demon named Duachaill, who is said to have infested the place and terrified the neighbourhood until destroyed by St. Colman. Duachaill’s pool is still pointed out at the junction of the Clyde and Dee before they enter the sea at Annagassan. Dr. O’ Donovan once thought that Linn Duachaill was Magheralin. Co. Down, and at first Bishop Reeves seems to have had the same opinion. But both those antiquaries found it necessary to correct their opinion on becoming acquainted with the topography and traditions of Annagassan. For Linn Duachaill was on the banks of the river called Casan Linne (Martyr. Doneg., Mar. 30, p. 91, cp Colgan Acta SS., pp. 792-703), and this river is mentioned in the “Circuit of Ireland ” as lying between the Vale of Newry, or Glen Righe, and Ath Gabhla on the Boyne. The name ” Casan”=”paths” survives in Annagassan. According to Joyce (Names of Places, p. 373) “Casan ” was originally joined with “Linne Duachaill” and became shortened to ” Casan linne,” which is preserved in Annagassan=Ath-na-gcasan, “the ford of the paths.” Dr. Todd, who has an important note on the subject in ” Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gall,” p. lxii., says, Annagassan=Aonach g Casain, i.e., the ” Fair of Casan.” Joyce’s interpretation is, I think, to be preferred, as the people still speak of the “Pass of Linns ” and this pass, as pointed out, lay further up the River Glyde, about a quarter of a mile from Duachaill’s pool, and near the spot where the monastery founded by St. Colman is believed to have stood.

    Colgan has collected all the traces of this Saint Colman Mac Luachan (in his Acta SS., p. 792-3). From Colgan we learn that his mother’s name was Lessara, and that he and another Colman were uterine brothers and living at the same time, but his father was of the Hi Gualla or Gaillfine, an Ulster race, while the father of the other Colman was of the royal family of Meath. It appears that he had two or three churches — Camus-juxta-Bann, Lann Mocholmoc, or Linn Duachaill, and perhaps Lann Abhaic and Lann Ronain in Down and Dromore. In his churches he was commemorated on March 30 and October 30, and he is held eminent for his sanctity. The other Colman was commemorated on June 17. There is in the Annals some confusion between these Colmans; but St. Colman of Linn Duachaill, called also Mocholmoc, died on March 30, 699.

    Rev. J. B. Leslie, History of Kilsaran Union of Parishes in the County of Louth, (Dundalk, 1908), 89-91.

    Thus it seems, and not for the first time, that the problem of distinguishing homonymous saints named Colman has left us with a question mark over the relationship between the saint commemorated on October 30 and the saint commemorated on March 30.

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  • Saints Nasad, Beoan and Meldan of Tamlach Mellan, October 26

    We are in County Down for the commemoration of an intriguing trio of saints, Nasad, Beoan and Meldan, on October 26. They flourished in a locality near Loch Bricenn, known today as Loughbrickland, which has a man-made island or crannóg dating back to prehistoric times. In the extract below from a paper of 1905, Canon Lett, a clergyman antiquary, summarizes what is known of them from the Irish calendars and gives an account of an ecclesiastical bell found there:

    As I am writing about the ancient and modern island in Loughbrickland, I would like to say something about the ancient church of this parish, the present name of which is Aghaderg, as I believe it was situated close to the lough…

    In the “Martyrology of Aengus,” at the 26th of October, the gloss on the names Nasad, Beoan, and Meldan is “three saints from Britain, and are [interred] in one church, i.e. Tamlacht Menand at Loch Bricrend, in Iveagh, in Ulidia.” And the ” Calendar of the Four Masters ” mentions but two names “Beoan Bishop and Mellan, of Tamlach Mellan, on Loch Bricrenn.” These authorities would lead one to understand that the ancient church was on the shore of the lough; and though there is no trace of a church or churchyard, there is the name of the townland Ballintaggart, i.e. ‘ the priests’ place.’ Bounding the lough on the west, and adjoining it on the south-east, is the townland of Shankill, i.e. ‘the old church.’ …

    …This interesting spot, which retains the name of Briclan, otherwise Bricrenn, has given the name of the chief, who resided here 2,000 years ago, to the lough and the modern village.

    …A small handbell, of the usual square pattern of ancient Celtic Ecclesiastical bells, was found about the year 1835 at the site of the monastery; it passed into the possession of Mr. Fivey, who resided at Union Lodge on Lough Shark, now called, but erroneously, Loughadian. Mr. Fivey parted with the bell to Mr. Bell, engineer and artist, of Dungannon, who made a collection of Irish objects of antiquity; and, at Mr. Bell’s death, it went, with the other curios, by purchase, to the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries in Edinburgh, where it, no doubt, is, though I have been unable to identify it. A man named Francis Mead, resident in Drumsallagh, who died fifteen years ago, and who had been present when the bell was discovered, described it to me as “an old, squared-shaped bell, of thin brass, one side being burned or broken out in part, and it had no tongue in it.” A pensioner of the Royal Artillery, named David Beatty, who lived near the monastery, and Dr. Mc Kean, who was the dispensary doctor of the district, told me they recollected the finding of the bell, and they likewise described it as above.

    Canon H. W. Lett, ‘The Island in Lough Briclan (Loughbrickland, County Down)’ in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Vol. 35 (1905), 253-254.

    The entry in the Martyrology of Oengus reads:

    26. Nassad, Beoan, Mellan,
    in every way I weave them together

    and I would be most interested to know more of the story behind these three British saints and of how their names came to be woven together in the history of County Down.

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  • Saint Laisren of Ard-mac-Nasca, October 25

    October 25 is the feast of a saint from my own part of the world – Laisren of Ard-mac-Nasca, on the shore of Lough Laoigh. Lough Laoigh, the ‘lake of the calf’, is the ancient name of Belfast Lough and Ard Mac Nasca, ‘the height of the son of Nasca’ is the village of Holywood, County Down. A nineteenth-century parish priest of Holywood, Father James O’Laverty, wrote a five-volume history of the northern diocese of Down and Connor, and naturally he has much to tell us of his own patron:

    The ruined church of Holywood occupies the site of a very early ecclesiastical structure, which was built by, or at least presided over by St. Laisren, whose festival was kept on the 25th of October. The Felire of Aengus the Culdee, who died A.D. 819, treating of the saints whose festivals occur on that day, says :—” Laisren the Great, son of Nasca, i.e., Laisren, son of Nasca of Ard-mac-nasca, on the shore of Lough Laig, in Ultonia.” Of St. Laisren little is known; Colgan supposes that he is the St. Laisren, son of Nasca, who with his brothers, St. Gobban and St. Graphan, were placed in a monastery, which St. Carthagh, of Lismore, erected in Inispict, now called Spike Island, Co. Cork. St. Carthagh studied under St, Comgall in Bangor; and it is likely, that the sons of Nasca, having formed his acquaintance in Bangor, accompanied him on his return to Munster. They studied under his spiritual care in the great monastery which he erected in Rathyne, Co. Westmeath; and they afterwards formed three of the twelve monks, whom he placed in the monastery erected by him on Spike Island about the year 620. Gobban seems to have been bishop of that monastery, and his festival was observed there on the 17th of March, We cannot ascertain the date of St. Laisren’s return to Ulster, or of his taking charge of the monastery of Holywood, but we find him mentioned as one of the Irish ecclesiastics, to whom the Roman clergy addressed a letter in the year 642. The primate and the chief clergy of the North of Ireland, addressed to Pope Severinus, in the year 640, a letter, in which they besought his decision regarding the proper mode of calculating Easter, about which there was then a great controversy raging throughout this part of Ireland.The Pope died before their letter reached Rome, but it was answered by the Roman clergy in a letter, which is preserved in Venerable Bede’s History of the Anglo-Saxon. Church. The reply of the Roman clergy makes known to us the names of those who solicited the decision of Rome. It is addressed—” To the most beloved and holy Thomian, Columban, Cronan, Dimma, and Baithan, bishops ; to Cronan, Ernian, Laistran, Scallan, and Segienus, priests; to Saran, and other Irish doctors and abbots.” Thomian was primate, he died in 660. Columban was bishop of Clonard, he died in 652. Cronan was bishop of Nendrum or Mahee Island, in Strangford Lough, and in all probability was bishop of the diocese of Down, he died in 642. Dimma was bishop of Connor, he died in 658. Cronan was abbot of Moville, near Newtownards, he died 650. Ernian was abbot of Torey Island, he flourished about 650, Laistran is intended for Laiseran of Ardmacnasca, or Holywood, the mistake is caused by the similarity of the letters T and E in ancient manuscripts. Scallan was abbot of Bangor, he died in 662. Segienus was abbot of lona from 623 to 652. Saran died in 661…

    …The ancient gloss on the text of Aengus — Laisren, son of Nasca, of Ard-mac-Rasca, on the banks of Lough Laigh, in Ultonia— describes very accurately the site of the ancient church of Holywood, the ruins of which stand in the vicinity of the large funereal mound, which is now in the pleasure grounds of Mr. Read, of Holywood. That mound was certainly the Ard – mac – Nasca—the height, or mound of the son of Nasca—and received its name from St. Laiseran, the son of Nasca. Our readers will readily understand that the sepulchral mound was named the Mound (Ard) of the son of Nasca, merely because it stood in the grounds adjacent to his church. It belongs, however, to a period long antecedent to the time of St. Laiseran, and was erected to cover the remains of some mighty chief, whose tomb, being the recognised place for the religious and deliberative assemblies of the neighbourhood, became the most important place in the district; and some spot adjacent would consequently be selected as site of the Christian church. It is on this account that we find churches near the great sepulchral mounds of Dundonald, Ballyrichard, Donaghadee, Holywood, Ballymaghan, the Knock, and every other great sepulchral mound in the diocese of Down.

    The church of Holywood stood, a few perches to the north of the mound, on the banks of Lough Laoigh exactly as described in the ancient gloss. We have no account of any of the successors of St. Laiseran, but the church must have been held in high estimation for its sanctity, since the adjoining townland, which was called Ballyderry (the town of the wood), was named as early as the period of the English Invasion,—Sanctus-Boscus or Holy Wood,—from its proximity to the church.

    Rev. James O’Laverty, An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, Vol. II, (Dublin, 1880), 190-193.

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