Ciarán

Ciarán of Saigir (5th cent.) was a monastic founder who became patron saint of the diocese of Ossory. According to the various recensions of his Life, he was born on Clear Island off the south-west coast of Cork, a member of the Osraige on the side of his father Lugna, and of the Corco Loígde on that of his mother Liadain. It is related that he went abroad to receive instruction in the Christian faith before any trace of the faith existed in Ireland. He was baptised abroad and was subsequently ordained a priest. When he returned, he established a monastic foundation at Saigir (Seirkieran, about five miles south-east of Birr, Co. Offaly), supposedly thirty years before St Patrick (qv) began his missionary enterprise. There are still some monastic remains at the site.

The Lives of Ciarán, both Latin and Irish, differ in their details but seem to derive from a common archetype of some antiquity, written by a member of the community of Saigir when it was still flourishing. They portray him as a saint in the primitive mould, a cross between John the Baptist and Francis of Assisi: clad in animal skins, subsisting on the simplest food, and befriending the animals of the forest – ‘Now a boar, a fox, a badger, a wolf, and a deer with her fawn came humbly to him and served him in all obedience’. He preached within the territory of Osraige, displaying the usual manifestations of divine power.

A gloss in the Martyrology of Óengus (qv) (fl. c.830) mentions the existence at Saigir of an illuminated manuscript known as ‘Imirche Ciaráin’: ‘that wonderful manuscript, namely Ciarán's “journey”, with its many various illustrations, and this book still remains at Seir’; this suggests that Ciarán came to be associated with voyage literature: he is mentioned in the Irish litany of pilgrim saints. He is described as ‘first-born of the saints of Ireland’ in the Martyrology of Óengus, where his feast-day is given as 5 March.