Indract (Indrechtach) (d. 726), pilgrim and martyr, was – according to a twelfth-century passio (Oxford, Bodl., Digby 192) – the son of an Irish king. He was martyred with his companions near Glastonbury by one of the thegns of King Ine of Wessex (688–c.726), when he was returning from a pilgrimage to Rome with seven or nine companions. The location of the murders was supposedly disclosed by a miraculous column of light. Ine had the remains translated to Glastonbury and placed beside the shrine of St Patrick (qv). Miracles frequently occurred at Indract's tomb. The author of the passio (sometimes attributed, probably erroneously, to William of Malmesbury), says that he drew on an Old English account, which he faithfully rendered into Latin.
Indractus is a latinisation of a well-attested Irish name ‘Indrechtach’, but the only bearer of that name whose biographical details correspond with those of the Latin passio is Indrechtach, grandson of Fínnechta, abbot of Iona, who transported the relics of Colum Cille (qv) from Iona to Ireland in 849. He was martyred by or among the Saxons five years later (854), on his return from a pilgrimage to Rome according to one source. In almost every other respect, the Irish sources differ from the Latin account: he was martyred in the middle of the ninth century as opposed to the eighth century, and his feast-day is given as 12 March as against 8 May in the English source. Moreover, the Irish sources make no mention of companions, who form an integral part of the English narrative.
It is quite probable that there is a sound historical basis for the account in the English passio, but that at an early stage of its redaction it was confused with details relating to Indrechtach son of Muiredach, a member of the Uí Briúin dynasty and king of Connacht, who died in 723 at Clonmacnoise after returning from a pilgrimage. It is quite likely that such accounts were given by Irish pilgrims at Glastonbury. It is also possible that elements of the tradition of Indrechtach of Iona were later mingled with accounts from Irish pilgrims, or from written tradition, of the St Indract martyred in the early eighth century during the reign of Ine, or indeed with accounts of the natural death of Indrechtach son of Muiredach at Clonmacnoise in 723 after a pilgrimage to Rome.
However it happened, the eighth-century saints Indract and his sister Dominica and their companions were venerated as martyrs at Glastonbury and throughout England during the middle ages. Their feast-day on 8 May is recorded in the martyrologies of both Norwich and Donegal, and in a marginal note in the Martyrology of Tallaght. Their sojourn for some time at Tamerworth or Tremanton (Tamerunta in the Latin passio) in Cornwall is still preserved in a number of dedications and placenames.