OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Saints of Louth

  • Saint Molocca of Tullyallen, August 7

    Among the saints commemorated on the Irish calendars at August 7 is one whom Canon O’Hanlon feels is associated with a locality in County Louth. All he can tell us of Saint Molocca is the recording of his name at this date:

    St. Molocca or Molacca, of Tulach-h-Olainn, or Tullyallen, County of Louth.

    The name Molocca or Molacca, of Tulach-h-Olainn, is set down in the Martyrologies of Tallagh, and of Donegal, at this date. In the former of these Calendars, his place is less correctly spelled Thilaigh olaind. The place is now Tullyallen, in the County of Louth .

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  • Saint Ronan of Dromiskin, November 18

    November 18 is the feast of a seventh-century County Louth abbot, Ronan of Dromiskin, a victim of the dreaded Buidhe Chonaill plague of the 660s. When I first began to look into the details of the saint’s life I was confused by references to a Ronan of Drumshallon, who may have been the same person. In the extract below however, from a 19th-century antiquarian paper on the monastic history of County Louth, this confusion is put down to the great 17th-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, having been somewhat imprecise in his terminology regarding the location of Dromiskin:

    THE earliest mention of Dromiskin, or, as it would be more correctly spelt now, Drumiskin, is the establishment there of a church, or monastery, by St. Patrick

    “Extruxit etiam ecclesiam, postea celebrem, quae Druim-Inisclainn, appellatur, in regione de Delbna; in qua etiam duo ex ejus discipulis, nempe DaLuanus de Croebheach et Lugadius Aenghusio, Natfraichi filio, Mumoniae Rege, natus.”

    to which Colgan appends this note:

    “Nobile Monasteriutu de Druim inis clinn (Canonicorum, ut puto, Regularium) est in ea Comitatus Luthensis parte quae hic Delbna appellatur, et est juxta civitatem Pontanam”

    a remark which, evidently, misled Archdall, Lanigan, and others, as to its position, which they assigned to Drumshallon, within four miles of the municipal bounds of Drogheda.

    The neighbouring abbey of Louth maintained its ecclesiastical position much longer than did that of Dromiskin. It may appear improbable that two churches, each intended to be a centre of missionary work in a country only dimly illuminated by a glimmer of Christianity, should have been established and built about the same time, at Dromiskin and at Louth, within six miles of each other, but it is really not so. The fertile plain of Muirtheimhne was a granary for the marsh and forest country on its west, which grew comparatively little corn, and for the mountainous districts to the north, which mostly reared cattle. The beauty of its gently undulating surface attracted the notice of the apostle as he travelled northwards from Munster, after his seven years’ sojourn there.

    Dromiskin lay close to the high road leading to Ulster, along the shore of Dundalk bay. It seems evident that the founding of a church at Dromiskin must be assigned to this time, for the first presiding bishop or abbot of the establishment was Lugaidh, son of Aenghus, King of Munster, who had been baptized by St. Patrick, at Cashel, while he was in the South of Ireland. Colgan mentions another disciple of the saint as being at Dromiskin at the same time, Dala, or Molua of Creevah, but of him we know nothing further here. Lugaidh is numbered among the saints of Ireland. He died A.D. 515 or 516, and his festival is November 2nd…

    The next abbot at Dromiskin, of whom we have any account, though he was not the next in succession, was Ronan, son of Berach. Berach was a disciple of St. Dagoeus, bishop of Inis Chaoin (Iniskeen), about the middle of the sixth century. A miracle, performed by him, similar to Elisha’s, in 2 Kings iv. 42-44, as we are told, caused his master to say he was unworthy of such a pupil; and on his leaving, Dagoeus gave him a short staff (Bacull gearr), and a bell, which, under the name of Clogberaigh, was preserved, as a relic, at Cluan da lochia. However this may be, after leaving Iniskeen, he entered into the monastic state at Glendalough, and died Abbot of Cluain-Cairpthe, in Roscommon.

    St. Ronan was a more remarkable character than his predecessor, St. Lugaidh, of whom we have but little more than his name and royal pedigree. His name occurs in history; he was venerated for a long time after his death, and is still remembered by a holy well at Dromiskin bearing his name. He is said to have suffered an indignity at the hands of Suibhne, son of Colman Guar, prince of Dalaradia, whom he denounced; in consequence of which Suibhne went mad after the battle of Magh Rath (Moira). If, according to Tighernach, this battle was fought in A.D. 637, St. Ronan must have been abbot before that year, and the period of his rule must have been a long one.

    In the year 664 a pestilence, which broke out first in England, made its appearance in Ireland. Irish writers call it Buidhe Chonail, or the Yellow Jaundice. Among its numerous victims, St. Ronan’s name is recorded. He died, November 18th. His relics, which we may presume had been carefully preserved at Dromiskin, were, one hundred and thirty-two years afterwards, placed in a shrine of gold and silver. But the Danes were even then coming into Ireland; forty-three years after that they had begun plundering in Louth, and it must have fallen into their hands soon after……

    F. W. Stubbs, ‘Early Monastic History of Dromiskin, in the County of Louth’ in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Fifth Series, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Jun. 30, 1897), pp. 101-113.

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  • 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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