(ABOUT A.D. 552.)
[Irish Hagiologies, and an addition of Usuardus published in 1490. A
saint of this name was venerated on this day in the Dumblane Breviary,
but it is uncertain if it was the same. The Life of S. Kieran,
published by Colgan, and that given by the Bollandists, are of later
date, and like so many of the Acts of Celtic Saints, abound in fables.]
According to the Irish legendary lives, Kieran of Saigir was bishop
in Ireland before the arrival of S. Patrick. After honouring him
with the title of the "first-born of the saints of Ireland," these
lives proceed to inform us that his father was Lugneus, a noble of
Ossory, and his mother Liadain, of Corcalaighde, (Carberry), in South
Munster. S. Kieran was born in Cape Clear Island. Having spent thirty
years in Ireland still unbaptized, he heard of the Christian religion
as flourishing at Rome, and went thither for the purpose of being
instructed. There he was baptized, and remained twenty years, studying
the Scriptures and canons, after which he was ordained bishop, and
sent to preach in his own country. On his way to Ireland he met S.
Patrick in Italy, who was not as yet a bishop, and who told Kieran
that he would follow him to Ireland in thirty years from the date of
their meeting. This must have happened in 402, and accordingly Kieran,
being then fifty years old, was born in 352. When arrived in Ireland
he was miraculously directed, as S. Patrick had told him he would, to
the place since called Saigir, (Seir-Kieran, in King's County), where
he erected a monastery. Having ordained an innumerable multitude of
bishops and priests, he died at the age of 300!
Other accounts state that Kieran's meeting with S. Patrick somewhere
out of Ireland occurred several years after the latter had commenced
his apostolical labours in this country. Jocelin places it at a time
when S. Patrick was returning from Britain, whither he had gone to
obtain a supply of additional helpers for his mission, and tells us
that Kieran was then one of the six Irish priests who were proceeding
to foreign countries for religious improvement, and all of whom
afterwards became bishops in their own country. In the Tripartite
history of S. Patrick the precise place of meeting is not given; but,
what is more to the purpose, it is represented as having occurred at
least twelve years after S. Patrick had begun his mission in Ireland,
and Kieran is stated to have then received directions from the saint
concerning the district in which he should erect his monastery.
It appears, however, that he was no disciple of S. Patrick at all,
and did not live in his times. His name does not occur in Tirechan's
list, nor in any of the Lives of S. Patrick, except in those two just
quoted, and his appearance in them is evidently due to the legends
in circulation concerning the meeting. Had S. Kieran been a disciple
of the apostle, how could he have become a scholar of S. Finnian of
Clonard, in the 6th century? For such he is stated to have been, not
only in the Life of S. Finnian, and in that of his illustrious namesake
of Clonmacnois, but also in the tract which is called his first life,
and which enters into more particulars than the other. S. Finnian's
school could not have become celebrated before 534. In both Kieran's
lives his namesake of Clonmacnois, who died in 549, and the two
Brendans, one of whom died in 577, and the other a few years earlier,
are spoken of as having had transactions with him.
We may then safely conclude that he belonged to the sixth century,
became distinguished towards the middle of it, and died during
its latter half. As this was known to be the case, his blundering
biographers strove to reconcile their nonsense concerning the antiquity
and privileges of Saigir, with the true date of his death, by making
him die at the age of about 300 years, although, had they calculated
better, about 220 years might have sufficed.
Kieran, we may safely conclude, was made a bishop about the year 538.
Having retired to a lonesome spot, since called Saigir, he led at first
the life of a hermit, and after some time erected a monastery, around
which a city gradually grew up. Next he established a nunnery in the
neighbourhood for his mother Liadania, and some pious virgins, her
companions, whence the church Killiadhuin got its name. Besides the
care of his monastery, Kieran was assiduously employed in preaching
the Gospel in Ossory, and he converted a great number of heathen. He
is usually considered to have been the first bishop of Ossory, and
founder of that see. It is singular that, notwithstanding all that is
said in the lives, in praise of Kieran, he is not much spoken of in
the accounts of contemporary saints, and that none of the Irish annals
or hagiologies give the date of his death. Hence Colgan was inclined
to think that he died in Cornwall, and is to be identified with S.
Piran, of Peranzabulo. But the first life hints that he died at Saigir.
Although the year of his death is unknown, there can be little doubt of
his having been alive after the year 550.
If S. Piran of Peranzabulo be the same as S. Kieran of Saigir, his
bones have been discovered of late years, when the ancient oratory of
Peranzabulo, near Padstowe, in Cornwall, was dug out of the sand. In
favour of this identification, Colgan points out that S. Piran was
commemorated at Padstow on the 5th March, the same day as S. Kieran in
Ireland; and John of Tynemouth asserts that S. Kieran did retire from
Ireland into Cornwall where he spent the latter part of his life, and
died. The Cornish, moreover, change the K. of Irish names into P.
Some of the legends related of S. Kieran deserve to be recorded. He is
said when a little boy to have been bitterly distressed at seeing a
hawk carry off a little bird in its talons. Then he cried to God, and
the hawk dropped its prey.
One day a king or chief in the neighbourhood carried off one of the
nuns of the convent governed by his mother. Kieran pursued him full of
wrath, and coming to the castle, bade the chief restore the poor maiden
to her cell. "Not unless the cuckoo should rouse me to-morrow morning,"
answered the chief. Now it was mid-winter. But that night no snow
fell round the house where lodged the abbot, and at early dawn a bird
perched on the roof under the window of the chief, and began to call
"Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!" Then the ravisher, in alarm, started from
his bed, and restored the nun to her convent.
On an autumn day, Kieran noticed a magnificent bank of blackberries, so
large and ripe, that he thought it a sad pity the winter should come
and destroy them. Therefore he cast a cloak over the bramble. Now it
fell out that the next ensuing April, Ethnea Vacha the wife of king
Ængus was ill, and felt a craving for blackberries. She was then, with
her husband, the guest of Concraidh, king of Ossory. Concraidh told
S. Kieran of the strange wish of the lady, and instantly the saint
remembered the hedge of blackberries covered by his cloak, and he went
and plucked as many as he could carry, and brought them to the sick
queen, and she ate them and revived.
One day S. Kieran of Clonmacnois and the two Brendans visited the
monastery. The steward came to the abbot in dismay, and said, "There
is nothing to offer these distinguished guests except some scraps of
bacon, and water."
"Then serve up the bacon and the water," said the saint. And when
they were brought on the table, the bacon tasted to every man better
than anything he had ever tasted before, and as for the water, the
benediction of the man of God had converted it into wine. But there
was at the table a lay-brother, and when he had some bacon put before
him, he thrust his platter away angrily, for he was tired of bacon,
and had expected something better, when distinguished visitors were
present. "Hah!" said the abbot,--'not by way of condemnation, but of
prophecy,'--"The time will come when you, son of Comgall, shall eat
ass's flesh in Lent, and soon after you will lose your head."
It is also related that there was a boy came to Saigir called Crichidh
of Clonmacnois, and remained for a while under the abbot Kieran. Now it
was the custom and rule of S. Kieran, that the blessed Paschal fire
should burn all the year. But out of mischief, as we moderns should
say, "instigante diabolo," as the mediæval chronicler expresses it,
the boy put the fire out. Then S. Kieran said to the brethren, "Look!
our fire is extinguished by that confounded boy (a maledicto puero),
Crichidh, purposely, for he is always up to mischief (sicut solet
semper nocere). And now we shall be without fire till next Easter,
unless the Lord sends us some. As for that boy, he will come to a bad
end shortly." And so it was, for on the morrow a wolf killed the boy.
Now S. Kieran of Clonmacnois, to whom the boy belonged, hearing of
this, came to Saigir, and was courteously received by S. Kieran the
Elder. But there was no fire, and the snow fell in large flakes; and it
was bitterly cold, so that S. Kieran of Clonmacnois and his companions
sat blue with frost, and their teeth chattering. Then S. Kieran of
Saigir raised his hands to heaven, and prayed, and there fell a globe
of fire into his hands, and he spread the lap of his chasuble (casula),
and went with the fireball in it before his guests, and they warmed
themselves thereat. And after that, dinner was served. Then said S.
Kieran of Clonmacnois, "I will not eat till my boy is restored to me."
"Brother," answered S. Kieran of Saigir, "I knew wherefore thou didst
come; the boy is now on his way hither." And presently the door opened,
and the boy that the wolf had eaten, walked in alive and well.
King Ængus of Munster had seven bards "who were wont to sing before
him, harping, the deeds of heroes," but these seven men were murdered
and drowned in a bog, and their harps were hung upon a tree by the side
of the morass. S. Kieran, at the king's request, restored the seven
harpers to life, after their having been steeped in bog-water for a
whole month.
Now when he was dying, Kieran besought the Lord to bless all such as
should keep his festival. "And," says his historian, "on March 5th, God
introduced him into the lot of his inheritance in the vineyard, and
planted him in the mountain of his possession, even in the celestial
Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all. Wherefore, then, my brothers,
let us hold a most solemn feast to the most holy Kieran, and let the
voice of praise resound in the tabernacles of the righteous; for the
right hand of the Lord made virtue to spring up in this man, which may
Jesus Christ for the merits of his servant Kieran cause to grow in us
present likewise, that we may be meet, He being our leader, to enter
into the courts of our eternal inheritance. Amen."