Monday 11 July 2016

Saint Lonan of Ard Cruinn, July 11

Another name to add to the ever-growing list of obscure Irish holy men - Saint Lonan of Ard Cruinn, commemorated on July 11. Canon O'Hanlon seeks to identify the locality of Ard Cruinn with Ardcroney in County Tipperary and tells us about an old church site there. No other details of the saint appear to be available:

St. Lonan, of Ard-Cruinn. 

Veneration was given, at the 11th of July, to Lonan, of Arda Crainn, as we find entered in the Martyrology of Tallagh. The Bollandists have recorded, at this same date, a feast for Lonanus of Ard-cruinn, as furnished by Father O'Sheerin. We may enquire, if Ard-cruinn can be identical with Ardcroney, a parish in the barony of Lower Ormond, and county of Tipperary. The left side of the direct road —as you advance from Borris-o-kane to Nenagh—affords the site for an ancient church, on a very elevated spot. Connected with this church appear the remains of an old castle; some of the side walls, chambers, winding stairs and window-places, are yet to be seen. The whole group of ruins is enclosed within a much frequented graveyard. The church walls are in tolerable preservation. In one end gable, a narrow cut-stone and pointed window remains entire. The opposite gable, near the old castle, appears rather to have been an interior cross-wall, under which a wide arch opens. The masonry in this group of buildings is very massiveand well cemented. The whole deserves an attentive study from the antiquary and archaeologist. In the Isle of Man—which is full of ancient Celtic ecclesiastical memorials—there is an old, and also a new one—the former giving name to a parish, known as Loman. Tradition states, that a St. Lonan, nephew of the Irish Apostle, is honoured there. The ruins of the ancient church stand in a lonely cemetery a mile and a-half off the main road from Douglas to Luney. In the Martyrology of Donegal,  the feast of this saint is also entered, at the 11th of July.


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