St Kentigern’s Church Eyeries

Sun’s Out!

On one April day after a bleak, harsh winter that had gales, hurricanes, blizzards and unceasing bitter east winds thrown at us – the sun came out! We were out too, and headed up to the Beara Peninsula to see if we could remember what sun-soaked landscapes felt like… They felt great!

Header – the glories of Cork and Kerry combine on the spectacular Beara; top photograph – finally, after a long,harsh winter, we see the spring blossoms appearing; middle – a wayside shrine on the road out from Glengariff; bottom – Hungry Hill dominates the views as we head west on the peninsula

You will remember our previous visits to the Beara: there are not enough superlatives for what it has to offer in the way of stunning scenery and colour. None of these photographs have been enhanced – what you see is exactly what we saw on the day – and it’s what you will see, too, if you choose aright (although even on dull days we always find plenty to interest us).

Top photograph – St Kentigern’s Church is in the centre of one of Ireland’s most colourful villages; middle – the sunlight plays games with the beautiful windows by glass artist George Walsh; bottom – light from the windows dances on the pews

We knew where we were going: Finola was keen to revisit the little Catholic church of St Kentigern in Eyeries, which has a fine collection of windows by George Walsh: it’s a gem – and at its best for the quality of the light enhancing it on the day. I wanted to see the settlement itself in the early spring sunlight as it’s one of the most colourful places in the whole of Ireland! Neither of us was disappointed.

Just a taster of the treats in store in Eyeries: on a beautiful spring day there was hardly a soul around, but we were still able to find an ice cream in O’Sullivan’s!

Our second objective was to travel into the hills and find Ardgroom Outward stone circle. The trail involves farm gates, stiles and a lot of mud – but the 9 stone circle (named locally ‘Canfea’) is a fine, almost intact monument with wide vistas to mountain and sea. The impressive outlier stone is 3.2m in height.

The magnificent Ardgroom Outward (or ‘Canfea’) stone circle is accessible via a marked, boggy path: the vistas from the site make the journey worthwhile. Finola is dwarfed by the huge outlier!

It’s barely a skip up to Eyeries from Nead an Iolair, so we had to carry on around the peninsula and take in the almost surreal views of oceans, lakes and mountains before dipping into Kerry and then heading over the top back into Cork county and down the Healy Pass – surely one of Ireland’s most spectacular road trips.

Returning home – with the evening sun setting gloriously over Roaringwater Bay – we reflected that there can’t be many places in the world where a single day can offer such a feast to satisfy all the senses.

 

Darerca – A Neglected Saint

Ireland is ‘The Land of Saints’. The Catholic Online website lists 331 of them, but some get much better treatment than others. Last week we celebrated St Patrick – the news was full of it, as it always is on 17 March. Yet, just five days after Patrick’s Day – on 22 March – I was at a schoriacht and asked the assembled crowd who was the Saint for that day: nobody knew. It was the day for St Darerca and she is, unfairly, much neglected, especially since she is St Patrick’s sister. In order to redress the balance I have put together everything I can find on the story of St Darerca, and – because she has never been pictured (as far as I can tell) – I have illustrated it with some general Irish Saintly connections.

Land of the Saints: header picture – Clonmacnoise, Co Offaly – Ireland’s holy centre, and one of the oldest and most important early Christian settlements in Europe. Above – the beautifully located Kilmalkedar monastic site in Kerry has long associations with Saint Brendan the Navigator

St Darerca is first mentioned in the Vita tripartita Sancti Patricii (Tripartite Life of Saint Patrick), which some scholars believe was written in the sixth century – within a century of St Patrick’s death (possibly in 493 at the age of 120). In the Tripartite Life, we read that St Patrick had two sisters, and that when he came to Bredach in County Derry for an ordination, . . . he found there three deacons, who were sons of his sister Darerca . . . These deacons were eventually ordained bishops and became St Reat, St Nenn, and St Aedh, the . . . sons of Conis and Darerca, Patrick’s sister . . . 

Upper – St Patrick’s Bell; lower – inscription on another 10th century bell – both now in the National Museum, Dublin

In his own Confessio, St Patrick makes no mention of his sisters. The Confessio begins:

. . . My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. I am looked down upon by many . . .

But it’s a very brief account of his life, and hardly qualifies as an autobioigraphy.

Medieval cross head, in the National Museum, Dublin

One version of the Tripartite Life suggests that both sisters were kidnapped from Britain along with St Patrick and returned to Ireland with him when he set out on his missions. A 17th century Irish hagiographer, John Colgan, collected fragments of information pertaining to Darerca . . . from Irish tradition . . . He asserted that St Darerca may have had as many as seventeen sons between two husbands, and that all of them became bishops. He also states that, according to tradition,  many of these became saints:

. . . By Darerca’s first husband, Restitutus the Lombard, she bore St Sechnall of Dunshaughlin; St Nectan of Killunche, and of Fennor (near Slane); of St Auxilius of Killossey (near Naas, County Kildare); of St Diarmaid of Druim-corcortri, in addition to five other children. By her second husband Conis the Briton, she bore St Reat, St Nenn, and St Aedh; ancient Irish authors also attributed her motherhood to St Crummin of Lecua, St Miduu, St Carantoc, and St Maceaith . . .

A 1950s photograph from Tomás Ó Muircheartaigh showing the annual pilgrimage to the summit of St Patrick’s holy mountain in Co Mayo, Croagh Patrick

St Darerca’s second husband, Conis, was said by some to be the King of the Bretons, although others only suggest that, by him, she gave birth to Gradlon the Great, who became King of Brittany. It’s really surprising (and a shame) that we don’t know more about Darerca: perhaps she has just always been overshadowed by her famous brother. As well as – perhaps – seventeen sons, she is supposed to have had four daughters, all of whom were also connected with the spread of Christianity in Ireland. Only two are named: St Eiche of Kilglass and St Lalloc of Senlis.

The Ardagh Chalice, National Museum, Dublin

There is a reference to Darerca as having another name: Moninna, said to have founded a convent at Killeevy, Co Armagh which was second in importance only to that at Kildare. A curious story is told to account for the change of her name to Moninna. The Irish commentary is translated into English by Whitley Stokes:

. . . Darerca was her name at first. But a certain dumb poet fasted with her, and the first thing he said after being miraculously cured of his dumbness was minnin. Hence the nun was called Mo-ninde, and the poet himself Nine Ecis . . .

Moninna studied theology, established convents in Ireland, Scotland and England and travelled to Rome. Perhaps most interestingly she is also known by the name Liamain, and there is a connection with an ancient stone on the island of Inchagoill in Lough Corrib. The ‘Pillar Stone’ on that island is known as Lugnaedon Pillar, a piece of Silurian grit stone, about two feet high with an incised cross on the north side, and two such crosses on each of the other sides. The inscription on the stone translates as . . . The stone of Lugnaedon, son of Limenueh . . . or Liamain. The pillar is said to originate in the 6th century, and would therefore be the oldest Christian inscribed stone in Ireland.

Two photographs of the 6th century Lugnaedon Pillar on Inchagoill Island. It is also known as the Rudder Stone because of its shape

The Benedictines say that Darerca’s name is derived from the Irish Diar-Sheare which means ‘constant and firm love’. And, finally, a piece of local folklore say that St Darerca blessed a poor man’s beer barrel so that it provided an endless supply of beer ever after!

Lives of the Saints – a detail from a stained glass window by George Walsh in St Kentigern’s Church, Eyries

So there you have it – scraps gleaned from many sources, some of which are not named – from which we can piece together an incomplete picture of an Irish saint who may well have done as much in her day for Christianity in Ireland as her famed brother. How about giving Patrick a rest next year and, instead, celebrating the day of St Darerca?

A Misplaced Saint

detail 11

Partly in West Cork, and partly in Kerry, the Beara Peninsula is a majestic place to explore. Some of Ireland’s highest mountains are here, and in places they sweep sheer down to the Atlantic to create dramatic landscapes, hard to match – in my own limited traveller’s view – with anything else in the world, But it’s not just landscape: the Beara offers surprises in the way of rainbow-hued village houses, off-the-beaten-tracks pubs with lively music and conversation, and the occasional gem of an altogether different kind. My post today is simply about one place – one church, in fact – which we found by chance in the village of Eyeries situated on the recently implemented long distance drive around the whole magnificent west coast of this country: the Wild Atlantic Way.

Wild Atlantic Way...

Wild Atlantic Way…

‘…Come to Eyeries Village. Embrace the tranquility…’ That’s the advice of this little community’s website. We did just that and, as we were enjoying our coffee outside Miss Murphy’s cafe in the centre of town we were only disturbed by one or two cars and diverted by the sound of the street sweeper’s brush. But the focus of our attention for this visit became the church: St Kentigern’s.

notice

As you will know, I am always on the lookout for Irish Saints, and I had never heard of St Kentigern, so I went inside expecting to find a new story. My eyes were assailed by a riot of colour! This unassuming little building hides a magnificent set of coloured glass windows telling the story of the world from prehistoric times and Ireland’s central part in that history… I have put a precis of the artist’s explanation of the designs below, but the windows must speak for themselves.

There are eleven windows in all: eight in the main body of church, two in the Sanctuary, and the last in the west wall, over the entrance doors.

So – why are they here? A very good question. I have gleaned no information from the usual sources. The best I could find (based on a chat with a passer by) was that the windows were commissioned in the 1980s, and each one is dedicated to the memory of a local person, and they were all paid for by friends and relatives of the dedicatees. It seems that there was a wish at the time to ‘brighten up’ the interior of the formerly nondescript building. I think this aspiration has been completely successful, but it’s a shame that there’s hardly a mention of the church or its windows in any of the information I could find about Eyeries.

Regarding the stained glass artist himself – George Walsh: I have found mentions of him as an artist working in Dublin. His father, George S Walsh, worked in the studios of Harry Clarke. He has carried out commissions in Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Dublin, Galway and as far afield as Newfoundland and Florida. My source thought that he is now retired and living in Dublin. It seems odd that he hasn’t gained more public recognition (unless I am missing something – comments please).

Here are the notes of George Walsh giving an ‘explanation’ of the Eyeries windows: it would be easy to miss, as it is a single fading typewritten sheet on a window cill on the south side of the aisle:

 ‘…The windows… begin with the elements sun, rain wind etc. The next depict fishing and the tradition of work on seas and rivers… Next, farming and husbandry, sowing seed etc. the final windows on this side show Saint Finbar – emigration, both going and returning old and new. The windows on the right side begin with the Dark Ages and pre-history to the next which remembers our Megalithic and Celtic past. Following on to the Christian period – Eucharist, Gospel Missionaries etc and finally to Resurrection… Sun and birds symbolise renewal and hope… The Sanctuary windows show Baptism, Water, Fish, Shell etc. Next is Mary in the form of Annunciation… the balcony windows are seen as we go out from the Church into the world in renewed spirit…’

What of Saint Kentigern? You may well ask that – he gets no mention in the church, nor in the Irish Saint Hagiographies. He is mentioned as a Scottish Saint (more commonly known as Saint Mungo) who founded the city of Glasgow in the 6th century. Look for him on that city’s coat-of-arms. I could only glean (from another local source after a bit of a grumble) that when the church was restored and the new windows were commissioned a priest of the time decided to give the church that dedication. He evidently had unearthed some obscure link, but this has apparently never been put on record. There is another possibility: he might have been the local saint whose name is now more commonly given as Chaitighern or Catherine. There is a ruined church of this dedication on the Beara, not far from Eyeries.

Church of Catherine, Close to Eyeries

Kilcatherine Church, close to Eyeries

Our elusive Saint on Glasgow's coat-of-arms

Our elusive Saint on Glasgow’s coat-of-arms