Saint Patrick and the Legends of the Snakes and the Shamrock

During Great Lent in the year 441, Patrick retired to a mountain in Connaught to commune alone with God. He fasted forty days and forty nights. He wept until his chasuble was soaked with tears. The mountain Croagh Patrick - or Patrick's Hill - is 2,510 feet above the waters of Clew Bay. It is what the Irish call their Holy Mountain. Once a year in July, a pilgrimage is mad to the little chapel on its crest. Some forty thousand pilgrims have climbed the mountain in one day, many  often removing their shoes and socks before ascending a hard path on their bare feet. Now many believe that during Saint Patrick's sojourn upon this mountain that he banished all snakes from Ireland. The life of Saint Patrick, however, has been long shrouded in legend. In reality, the account of Saint Patrick banishing snakes from Ireland was furnished some seven hundred years after Patrick lived, to explain Ireland's freedom from snakes.

Saint Bolcan, Bishop of Derkan (+ 480)

St. Bolcan of Derkan (Feast Day - February 20);
photo shows Cranfield Church in Armoy

Saint Bolcan (also known as Olcan) was found, when an infant, beside his dead mother, by Darius, a chief of Carsedna. It is said he lay by his dead mother for seven days, and was found on the hill at Drumbolcan, Rasharkin around 443. He was baptized at Dunseverick by Saint Patrick, and sent by him to study in Gaul. Patrick later consecrated him in 474 as Bishop of Derkan (known also as Armoy, Conderkan, Airthir-muge, Rath-mugia) in the northern Ireland province of Ulster. He was the first Bishop of Ireland. Bolcan's school there was one of the best equipped in the island. He reposed after 480. Bolcan was reputedly buried at Cranfield Church in earth brought from Rome. This church has a well known as Olcan's Well which is said to be blessed by the Saint with healing properties.

Saint Gobnata of Ballyvourney

St. Gobnata (Feast Day - February 11)

Saint Gobnata (or Gobnait, Gobnet, Deborah, Abigail) was born in County Clare of Ireland at the end of the fifth, or the beginning of the sixth century. Later she fled to the Aran Islands to escape from some enemy. An angel appeared to her one day and told her to leave that place, for it was not to be the place of her resurrection, and to keep walking until she found nine white deer.

She saw three white deer at Clondrohid, County Cork, and decided to follow them. Then at Ballymakeera, she saw six white deer. Finally, at Ballyvourney she came upon nine white deer grazing in a wood. There she was given land donated by the O'Herlihy family for a women’s monastery by her spiritual father Saint Abban of Kilabban, County Laois (March 16), and he installed her as abbess. Excavations in 1951 proved that indeed there had been an early Christian settlement on the site.

Saint Kieran of Clonmacnoise (+ 549)

St. Kieran of Clonmacnoise (Feast Day - September 9)

Saint Kieran (Ciaran), who has been described as a lamp shining with the light of knowledge, was born in 512 and raised in Connacht, Ireland. His father was a builder of chariots. He was one of eight children, at least two of whom also embraced the monastic life.

Kieran had a special affinity for animals, and even had a fox for a pet. The Saint left home as a boy, driving a cow before him to pay for his keep. He went to study with Saint Finnian of Clonard (Dec. 12), and became one of the so-called Twelve Apostles of Ireland. Some of the others were Saint Columba of Iona (June 9), Ninnidh (Nennius) of Lough Erne (Jan. 16), and Saint Brendan the Voyager (May 16).

Saint Gildas the Wise, Abbot of Rhuys in Brittany (+ 570)

St. Gildas the Wise (Feast Day - January 29)

Venerable Gildas may have been born in the lower valley of Clydeside in Scotland around 500. He is often called "Badonicus" because he was born in the year the Britons defeated the Saxons at Bath in the Battle of Mount Badon. His father was of the ruling family of a small kingdom on the borders of Northumbria with its capital at Dumbarton but he was sent from the banks of the Clyde to the monastery of Llaniltut or Llantwit, in southern Wales, where he was trained by Saint Illtyd (Nov. 6) together with Saint Samson (July 28) and Saint Paul Aurelian (Mar. 12), though he was much younger. Well-known Irish monks, including Saint Finnian (Dec. 12), became his disciples. He made a pilgrimage to Ireland to consult with his contemporary saints of that land and wrote letters to far-off monasteries. He seems to have had considerable influence on the development of the Celtic Church.