OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

ALL THE SAINTS OF IRELAND

  • Saint Scíre of Kilskyre, March 24

    On March 8 this year I posted a Litany of Irish Women Saints which seeks the intercession of twenty-eight of our medieval holy women. Among them is Saint Scíre whose feast is recorded on the Irish calendars on March 24 and whose name is preserved in the district of County Meath where she once flourished. The parish of Kilskyre (Kilskeer) was one of those surveyed by the Ordnance Survey project in 1836 when leader John O’Donovan (1806-1861) reported:

    Of the Parish of Kilskeer

    This is the most western parish in the barony of Kells. It is called by the Irish Cill Scéire who remember that St. Sciar is the patroness. Her well lies about 5 perches south of the old grave yard in the townland of Kilskeer. Her festival, according to tradition, was celebrated on the 28th of September, but this does not agree with the calendar of Cashel and other festilogies which place her festival on the 24th of March.

    In a note on the 7th chapter of the Life of St. Farannanus, Acta SS. p.337, Colgan says of this virgin and her parish:”The festival of this virgin is celebrated on the 24th of March in a church named from her and situated in a western region of Meath, according to St. Aengus, the Genealogy is thus given: “St. Schiria of Kell-Schire in Meath, the daughter of Eugenius, who was the son of Canamanys, who was the son of Alildus, who was the son of Fergusius who was the son of Eochodius Moimedonius” and the Genealogy of the saints and Festilogy of Aengus give her pedigree in a similar manner.

    In the Irish Calendar she is mentioned under the 24th of March as “Scire, virgin of Cill Scire in Meath”.

    There is another parish in Tyrone.. which has derived its name from her, viz Kilskeery, and if it were possible this name should be made to agree with it, but I fear that custom is too strongly opposed, as I find the Cill Scíre in Meath always called either Kilskyre or Kilskeer.

    In the charter present in the Book of Kells I find the Erenach of Cill Scíre and the crozier of St. Scíre set down among the witnesses and vouchers. [1]

    In his letter O’Donovan brings to light two anomalies. First, the fact that the local celebration of Saint Scíre’s feast day on September 28 differs from the date on which it is listed on the calendars. Secondly, that there is a parish in County Tyrone whose name seems remarkably similar to that of Kilskyre, County Meath. In the 1950s Father Bernard O’Daly attempted to sketch the history of Kilskeery, County Tyrone. He began by saying that ‘the parish appears to owe its name to a St.Scire, Virgin’ citing the genealogy and calendar entries for our saint but quickly admits ‘Whether or not she is to be identified with St. Scire of Kilskyre, Co. Meath we have no means of determining’. [2] Pádraig Ó Riain in his Dictionary of Irish Saints accepts the Tyrone location as a second church of the Meath saint, but can shed no further light on the differing feast days. [3]

    In his reference to the Erenach of Cill Scíre and the crozier of Saint Scíre, O’Donovan also points to a Columban connection for our saint and her church. Noting that ‘the later Lives of male saints mention holy women who had lived at small churches and been buried there’, modern scholar Christina Harrington writes:

    The Meath church of the virgin Scíre (Kilskeer) remains in the record, but now as part of the Columban federation; at some point, a late Life tells us, an important assembly
    was held there. [4]

    We find another mention of Saint Scíre’s church in the sixteenth-century Life of Colum Cille (Columba) by Manus O’Donnell when Columba’s disciple Baithín questions why his master is smiling and appears filled with joy:

    Colum Cille answered saying ‘Fifty persons will be born tonight in one place in the west, and they will be loyal to God’. They were the youths of Cell Scíre (Kilskyre, Co. Meath)… [5]

    A further Columban link is found in The Life of Saint Farannan which lists the name of Saint Scíre among the attendees at a meeting with Saint Columba at the ‘Synod of Easdara’, now modern Ballysadare, County Sligo:

    We may form some idea of the crowds in Ballysadare, on this occasion, from the following extract of Colgan’s Life of St. Farannan : — “Before the Saint (Columba) returned to Britain he founded one church in the district of Carbury, and proceeded from thence to a place called Easdara, where all the prelates of the neighbouring regions, and vast numbers of holy men and women had come to meet him; and, to say nothing of the rest of the multitude, which was almost beyond counting, a great many distinguished saints of the race of Cumne are recorded to have been present.” [6]

    Saint Scíre of Kilskyre was one of those saints from the race of Cumne whose attendance was recorded in The Life of Saint Farannan . The genealogies claim that Saint Scíre was one of two daughters of Cumne (Cuman), daughter of Dallbhrónach, thus linking her not only to Saint Columba but also to Saint Brigid. For Saint Brigid’s mother was also said to be a daughter of Dallbhrónach, thus making her a cousin of Saint Scíre.

    Whilst browsing the newspaper archives of the National Library of Australia I was surprised to find a 1904 article on Saint Scíre among the items of Irish interest published for the expatriate audience. It is accompanied by a poem in honour of Saint Scíre by the Irish nationalist writer and publisher Brian O’Higgins (Ó Huiginn), who was born in Kilskyre in 1882:

    A Child of the Noble and Great.

    SAINT SCIRE.

    There are many illustrious Irish saints, whose names even, are now unknown in countless Irish, not to say Irish-Australian homes. Amongst these we may mention St. Scire, Patroness of the Parish of Kilskyre, Co. Meath, Ireland. This holy Virgin founded a monastery at Kilskyre in the sixth century, the ruins of which still exist. The date of her death is unrecorded. Her feast occurs on the 28th of September. It is stated in the “Annals of the Four Masters” that the monastery of Kilskyre was twice plundered—first by the Danes in the year 944, and again by Dermod McMurrough and the foreigners in 1170. The following tribute to St. Scire is written by Brian Ua Huigin, and taken from “St. Anthony’s Annals”, a periodical published at 14, Temple Street, Dublin.

    Far back in the long vanished ages,
    a child of the noble and great
    Fled from the halls of rejoicing,
    and far from her queenly estate;
    And she came where a Meathian lowland,
    in a mantle of silence was dressed.
    She gazed on the beauties around her,
    then said, “In your midst will I rest.”

    And soon was upraised from the valley
    a cloister, a school, and a shrine;
    And pilgrims came there o’er the ocean,
    from the lands of the Seine and the Rhine;
    And Scire the good gave them blessings
    and welcomes a thousand times o’er,
    For they sought in the language of Erin,
    a share of her faith and her love.

    ‘Twas fair! till the Danish invader
    swept down with his fire and his sword,
    To loot and to burn was his glory,
    and greed was the God he adored;
    Laid low were the walls of Kilskyre,
    the weak ones were slain by the strong,
    But their loved one, their guardian, their mother,
    was spared to remember the wrong.

    Once more did the school and the cloister
    uprise from the ashes of years,
    Once more came a ruthless despoiler,
    unmindful of prayers and of tears.
    And the woundings of grim desolation
    were laid on that fair valley’s face;
    But out from it all flashed triumphant,
    the faith which no hand could erase.

    Oh Scire! our patron, our mother,
    remember thy children, and pray
    That the faith which no torture could weaken,
    may never bend low to decay;
    That its lustre may cheer us and guide us,
    that our toil in the future may be
    For the.honour of down-trodden Erin,
    for the glory of God and for thee.

    North Sydney, J.B. [7]

    Saint Scíre is one of many female saints who, despite being recorded in the sources and present in the Irish landscape, remains a shadowy figure about whom we can only wish we knew more.

    Notes and References

    [1] Transcribed from a letter dated July 15, 1836, in the online edition of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland Letters, pp.44-47 here:

    https://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/digital-book-collection/digital-books-by-subject/ordnance-survey-of-irelan

    [2] Rev. B. O’Daly, ‘Material for a History of the Parish of Kilskeery’, Clogher Record, Vol. 1, No 1 (1953), pp. 4-17.

    [3] P. Ó Riain, A Dictionary of Irish Saints (Dublin, 2011), 551.

    [4] C. Harrington, Women in a Celtic Church: Ireland 450-1150 (OUP, 2002), 225 and fn 18.

    [5] Brian Lacey, ed., The Life of Colum Cille by Manus O’Donnell, (Dublin, 1998), 59.

    [6] Rev. T O’Rorke, History, antiquities, and present state of the parishes of Ballysadare and Kilvarnet, in the county of Sligo (Dublin, 1878), 2-3.

    [7] Southern Cross, Friday 8 July 1904, p.3

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  • Saint Sinchell of Killeigh, March 26


    March 26 is the feast of an early monastic founder, Saint Sinchell (Sincheall, Sinell, Senchell) associated with Killeigh, County Offaly. Tradition records that there were two saints of this name, the younger Sinchell being nephew to the elder. The Martyrologies preserve two separate feast days for Sinchell of Killeigh, that of the elder on March 26 and that of the younger on June 25. Below is an account of the saint’s life and locality from the Father M. Comerford’s Collections relating to the Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin:

    The parish of Killeigh is situated partly in the barony of Upper Philipstown, but chiefly in that of Geashill. It consists of the union of the former parishes or ecclesiastical districts of Killeigh, Ballykeane and Geashill. This district is noted in both the secular and still more in the ecclesiastical annals of Ireland. The name of Killeigh is common with another ecclesiastical establishment which, according to Colgan, was situated in East Breifny. The Killeigh with which we are at present concerned is situated in Ofalia, and is always distinguished from the other by the addition droma foda. Achadh-droma-foda signifies the field of the long ridge, and Cill was prefixed after St. Sinchell had erected his church there. The name, as Dr. O’Donovan adds (Note to Four Masters) is very descriptive of the locality, for a remarkable, long, low druim or ridge extends south-west-wards, immediately over the village of Killeigh. The entire of the ancient Ofalia, from Slieve Bloom to the Hill of Allen, and from the Sugar-loaf hill to the Great Heath is a plain nearly as level as the surface of a tranquil sea, and the droma-foda, though not high, becomes a remarkable feature in so level a district.

    St. Sinell, or Senchell, one of the most distinguished ecclesiastics of his time, founded a Monastery of Killeigh at the beginning of the sixth century. This monastery became afterwards known as the Priory of the Holy Cross of Canons Regular of St. Augustine. St. Senchell, who is stated to have been St. Patrick’s first convert, was the son of Kennfinnain, and grandson of Inchad, or Finchada, of the royal blood of Leinster (Colgan, Trias. Thaum.) The father of the saint was ninth in descent from Cathair Mor, monarch of Ireland. In both the Martyrology of Tallaght and the Feiliré, St. Aengus notes the 5th of April as the Feast of the first Baptism conferred by St. Patrick in Ireland: —“Baptisma Patricii venit ad Hiberniam.” (Mart. Tall.) “Excellent Patrick’s baptism was kindled in Ireland.” (Feiliré.) On this latter the gloss in the Leabhar Breac adds, “i. Sinell, son of Finchad of the Ui-Garrchon, he is the first person Patrick baptised in Ireland.” It is related that St. Ailbe, of Emly, presented him a cell, in which he had himself lived for some time, at Cluain Damh (now Clane, County Kildare). We find St. Senchell afterwards at Killeigh, where he founded a monastery, which in course of time became very celebrated. In order to distinguish him from another St. Senchell, a relative of his, who lived with him at Killeigh (and who is styled Bishop in the litany of St. Aengus), he is usually called senior. Having lived to a good old age, he died on the 26th of March, AD 549, in his monastery at Killeigh, and was interred there. Petrie states that St Kieran and the two Senchells died of the Plague which raged in 549. In the litany of St. Aengus Ceile De, written in AD. 799, we have evidence of the celebrity and holiness to which this religious establishment had attained. “Thrice fifty holy bishops with twelve pilgrims, under Senchell the elder, a priest; Senchell the younger, a bishop; and the twelve bishops who settled in Cill Achaidh Dromfota in Hy Failghi. These are the names of the bishops of Cill Achaidh: —Three Budocis, three Canocis, Morgini, six Vedgonis, six Beaunis, six Bibis, nine Glonalis, nine Ercocinis, nine Grucimnis, twelve Uennocis, twelve Contumanis, twelve Onocis, Senchilli, Britanus from Britain, Cerrui, from Armenia. All these I invoke unto my aid through Jesus Christ.” And again: —“ The twelve Conchennaighi, with the two Senchells in Cill Achaidh, I invoke unto my aid through Jesus Christ.” (IE. Record, May, 1867.) The learned editor of this litany (which he copied from a MS. in the archives of St. Isidore’s at Rome), in a note on the eight monastic rules of the early Irish Saints extant, writes as follows “We may add that we have ourselves discovered another, some-what different from these, in the St. Isidore MS. from which this litany is published, and we regret that want of space alone prevents us from laying it before our readers. It is entitled— The Pious Rules and Practices of the School of Senchil. This was Senchil, surnamed the Elder. The Rules and Practices are 38 in number. When we say that an ardent desire of hearing, and offering up the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and frequent confession were amongst the rules and practices of a school which was celebrated in the first half of the sixth century, we have said enough to prove under what system of education Ireland became ‘another name for piety, and learning in most of the languages of Europe.”

    ANNALS OF KILLEIGH

    AD. 548. St. Senchell the Elder, son of Ceanannan, Abbot of Cill-Achaidh-Droma-foda, died on the 26th day of March. Thirty and three hundred years was the length of his life. (Four Masters.) Colgan (AL SS., p. 747), thinks this number should be one hundred and thirty. In the Mart. Tal. we find at 26th March, “Sinchelli, Abb. Chilli Achaidh; and at 25th June, “Sinchell Cilli Achaidh.” The former refers to St. Senchell, Senior, the latter to St. Senchell, Junior.

    The Feiliré makes the 26th of March the “Feast of the two perennial Sinchells of vast Cill Achid;” to which entry the gloss in the Leabhar Breac adds

    “Three hundred years—fine satisfaction!
    That was (the elder) Sinchell’s lifetime
    And thrice ten years brightly
    Without sin, without sloth.”

    26 March. Sincheall, Abbot of Cill-achaidh-dromfota, i.e., the old Sincheall. It was of him this character was given after his death: –

    “The men of heaven, the men of earth,
    A surrounding host,
    Thought that the day of judgment
    Was the Death of Seancheall.

    There came not, there will not come from Adam,
    One more austere, more strict in piety;
    There came not, there will not come, all say it,
    Another Saint more welcome to the men of heaven.”

    —(Mart. Don)


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  • An Ancient Irish Prayer to Our Lady?

    The month of May in Catholic tradition is dedicated to Our Lady and over past weeks I have been praying what the old prayer book, At Our Lady’s Altar, describes as an ‘Ancient Irish Prayer to Our Lady’. But I found myself wondering just how ‘ancient’ this prayer actually was since to me it felt more representative of later medieval or early modern praises of the Blessed Virgin. As you will see from the scans from the prayer book, we are told that it is in use among the Irish-speaking communities of Connacht. I wondered, therefore, if it might have been one of those gathered by Ireland’s first President, Douglas Hyde (1860-1949), in his 1906 collection The Religious Songs of Connacht, and so it proved to be. Dr Hyde recorded that he got this prayer from two separate sources, first from a friend of his who took it down from an old man called Hegarty from Claremorris, County Mayo, but he goes on to say:

    I got it a great deal better in a beautiful manuscript book that Seóirse Giolla an-Chloig, or Bell, had in Claremorris, and which Dr. Maguire has since very kindly given to me. This book was written by one Edmond O’ Conor in the year 1740. I put down hero the prayer exactly as he wrote it, and since I am changing nothing in the orthography, not even a dot, the reader will see how excellent and exact the book is.

    A PRAYER TO THE VIRGIN MARY.

    O glorious Virgin, Mother of God, Woman above all rank, praiseworthy in all praising no matter how great, make intercession on my behalf to thine own beloved Only-Son. O honourable Woman, thou art the mother of the King of the Angels and of the Archangels relieve me and save me from every hardship and evil.

    O blossom of the patriarchs, of the Virgins and of the angels; O Hope of Glory, O Beauty of the Virgins, O Higher Thought of the angels and of the archangels, remember me, and I pray thee not to forsake me in the fearsome time of my death. O star of the sea, O door of Paradise, O temple of God, O Palace of Jesus Christ, O Harbour of health, O blossom of all nations, O pearl of all sweetness. O Queen sheltering the guilty, O Hope of the Faithful, O upper Brightness of the Virgins and of the Angels; verily it is thy conversation with the angels and with the archangels that is for them a delight.

    Therefore, O Mother of Mercy, I place in the protection of thy own blessed hands my going out and my coming in, my lying-down and my rising-up, the sight of my eyes, the touch of my hands, the speech of my mouth, the hearing of my ears, so that they may be pleasing to thine own beloved Son. Amen.

    Douglas Hyde , Abhrain diadha chúige Connacht -The Religious Songs of Connacht, a collection of poems, stories, prayers, satires, ranns, charms, etc., Volume II (London, 1906), 291-295.

    So it seems that this prayer was known from at least the middle of the eighteenth century. I would suspect there is an even older Latin original behind it. This type of litany-style prayer seems to have translated very readily into Gaelic tradition, there is another at the blog here which was similarly labelled ‘ancient’, but which is later medieval. One which may fairly be described as ‘ancient’, the Hymn of the eighth-century monk Cú Chuimne of Iona, is also available at the blog here.

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