The Irish saint of bees

I cannot resist copying this absolutely delightful entry for today off the website catholicireland.net - though it does not have a particularly Carmelite flavour.  According to the website, the Irish saint of the day is ‘St Modhomhnóg. The names of Irish saints often have the prefix “mo” (= “my”, “little”, “dear”) attached to them, indicating endearment or affection, so Domhnoc or “Dominic” is likely to have been this saint’s original name. The Latin word Dominicus means “belong to the Lord”. So one could paraphrase his name as “my little one that belongs to the Lord“.   Modhomhnoc seems to have come from the royal line of the Uí Néill of Ulster. He went to study at the monastery of St David at Menevia in Wales, where he cultivated the flowers in the garden and kept the bees.  According to Rhygyfarch’s Life of David, the bees were so attached to Modhomhnóg that when it came to the time for him to return to Ireland, they swarmed around him and the ship that was carrying him and, though he tried to return them to their rightful owner, David eventually blessed the bees and allowed them to go with Modhomhnóg. This story is confirmed by Oengus in the entry in his Féilire: “In a little boat from the east over the pure-coloured sea, my Domhnoc brought … the gifted race of Ireland’s bees.”  (Saint Gobnait, however, is also said to have kept bees in Ballyvourney around the same time!)  When Modhomhnóg landed back to Ireland, he set up a church at a place called Bremore, near Balbriggan, in County Dublin, and here he established the bees in a happy garden just like the one they had in Wales. The place is known to this day as “the Church of the Beekeeper”, though it is also associated with St Molaga, who went there to control the bees that Modhomhnóg had brought.  Modhomhnóg eventually made a hermitage for himself at Tibraghny in south-west Kilkenny. Some say he became bishop (or abbot) of Ossory after Moling. Pádraig Ó Riain in his recent A Dictionary of Irish Saints gives his name as Modhomhnóg Oilithir. ‘Oilithir’ means ‘pilgrim‘ and this may indicate how Modhomhnóg came to be in Wales with St David in the first place.

What a rich and multi-coloured treasury of saints we have in the Church!

Intercessions:

Marie, Bernard (and wife Angela), Agnes – cancer

Siena, Elara – sick children

Rosemarie – very seriously ill

Wojtek – massive heart attack leaving him incapacitated

RIP Anthony Kirke, husband of Judith Kirke OCDS (distributors of the Carmelite Diary)

RIP Roswitha Watson OCDS (former President of St Therese Community, Oxford)