Saint Finnian of Clonard

He was born at Myshall, in County Carlow, on the slopes of Mount Leinster, in the latter part of the fifth century; the Catholic Encyclopedia suggests about 470. ¹² CatholicIreland gives his father as Rudraigh, an Ulsterman of noble descent, and his mother as Telach, a woman of Leinster. ² He was placed young in the care of Saint Fortchern, a bishop, who taught him first. ¹²

From there he went abroad. The Catholic Encyclopedia says that at Fortchern's direction he went to Wales to grow in holiness and sacred learning under the saints of that country, and stayed, by the account of the Salamanca manuscript, thirty years. ¹ CatholicIreland names Cadog of Llancarfan, David and Gildas among the Welsh saints he knew, and adds that he may also have been at Tours, a monastery known for its austerity. ²

The Spanish life on Catholic.net is more guarded. It says the accounts of his life are full of contradictions and anachronisms, and that the belief that he spent a long time in Wales as a monk was held three centuries after his death. ³ It thinks it impossible to prove in detail, but likely, that Cadoc, Gildas and other British monks shaped him, given the weight he put on study and on the monastic life. ³

The medieval Lives surround these years with wonders. Catholic.net reports that he was said to have rid the island now called Flatholm, in the Severn estuary, of the pests that ruined its crops, and to have saved his hosts from Saxon raiders by an earthquake that swallowed their camp. ³ He meant, the story goes, to go on pilgrimage to Rome with Cadoc, but an angel told him to go home to Ireland instead. ³ CatholicIreland says only that he may have intended to go to Rome and went back to Ireland. ²

Back in Ireland, CatholicIreland says, he built churches at Aghowle in County Wicklow, on a site given by King Oengus of Leinster, and at Dunmanogue on the Barrow, and then studied and taught at Saint Brigid's monastery in Kildare; Brigid, it says, gave him a gold ring when he left. ² Catholic.net names his early schools and monasteries as Aghowle and Mugna, and tells how at Mugna a local prince's son set his older brother against the saint, and the brother broke his leg trying to drive Finnian out by force. ³ The Catholic Encyclopedia sums up these years more plainly: he went from place to place, preaching, teaching and founding churches. ¹

At last, in the Catholic Encyclopedia's telling, an angel led him to Cluain Eraird, Erard's Meadow, on the Boyne, at the boundary between the northern and southern halves of Ireland, and told him it would be the place of his resurrection. ¹ CatholicIreland dates his arrival to around 520 and places Clonard between the kingdoms of Meath and Leinster. ² Catholic.net has a different story about the same phrase: a famous pagan seer named Fraechan, tested by the saint, finally told him that the place of his resurrection was the place where he was sitting, and the place was Clonard. ³

He began with a small cell and a church of clay and wattle, later replaced in stone, and a life of study, mortification and prayer. ¹ Students came from every side: young laymen and clerics, abbots and even bishops. ¹ The Office of Saint Finnian, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, speaks of no fewer than 3,000 pupils at one time, taught in the open fields of Clonard. ¹ CatholicIreland gives the same figure for his community, and Catholic.net the same for his disciples. ²³

Among them were the men later called the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. ¹² CatholicIreland notes that the twelve are listed differently in different places, but names among Finnian's students Colmcille of Iona, Ciarán of Clonmacnoise, the two Brendans of Birr and of Clonfert, Canice, and Mobhí of Glasnevin. ² The Roman Martyrology calls him the father and teacher of a great company of monks and the founder of many monasteries. ⁴

All three accounts agree on what drew the crowds. The Catholic Encyclopedia says he excelled in explaining the Sacred Scriptures and credits that above all for the popularity of his lectures. ¹ CatholicIreland says Clonard became a center of biblical studies, and Catholic.net that his fame as an interpreter of Scripture lasted for centuries there. ²³ Catholic.net adds that he came to be called the teacher of the saints of Ireland, or simply "the Master". ³

CatholicIreland attributes to him the Penitential of Finnian, a book of penances meant to correct sinful tendencies and grow the opposite virtue, which draws on John Cassian's teaching on overcoming eight evil tendencies: gluttony, fornication, covetousness, anger, dejection, accidie or listlessness, vainglory and pride. ²

The sources do not agree on when he died. The Catholic Encyclopedia says the exact date is uncertain but was probably 552. ¹ CatholicIreland gives 539 in its heading and 549 in its summary, and says in its text that he is said to have died in the great plague of 549 and 550. ² Catholic.net says he died in the middle of the sixth century, during an epidemic. ³ He was buried in his own church at Clonard. ¹

The school went on. The Catholic Encyclopedia says it stayed renowned for Scripture for centuries, and suffered at the hands of the Danes, especially in the eleventh century. ¹ CatholicIreland describes Clonard in the early tenth century as a large town with a round tower, a high cross and a new stone church, and says it became the center of the diocese of East Meath in the reform of the twelfth century. ² When the Norman bishop de Rochfort moved the see of Meath from Clonard to Trim in 1206, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, "the glory of the former place departed forever". ¹ Catholic.net adds that the monastery passed to the Augustinians, who held it until the sixteenth century. ³

The old monastic site now lies in the grounds of the Church of Ireland church at Clonard, and the Catholic church of Saint Finian there has been renovated with images of the saint and the twelve apostles of Ireland. ²

None of the sources consulted for this page names a patronage for Saint Finnian, so none is given here. ¹²³⁴ He is remembered instead by a title: the tutor of the saints of Ireland. ²³

The feast of Saint Finnian of Clonard is December 12. ²⁴ The Roman Martyrology enters "San Finniano, abate", Saint Finnian, abbot, at Clonard on that day. ⁴ In Michael J. Breen's table of the National Calendar for Ireland he is listed on December 12 as "St. Finnian, Bp.", kept as a feast in the diocese of Meath, and Catholic.net says his feast is celebrated throughout Ireland. ³⁵

Whether he was a bishop at all is uncertain. The Martyrology and the Catholic Encyclopedia call him abbot, while Breen's calendar and CatholicIreland's summary call him bishop; Catholic.net says he is usually venerated as a bishop but that it is doubtful he was one. ¹²³⁴⁵

What is certain about him is less than what is told. ³ The Lives are crowded with wonders and disagree with each other; the dates of his death differ by more than a decade. ¹²³ What all the sources agree on is the school, and that what was taught there was the Scriptures. ¹²³

He began at Clonard with a cell and a church of clay and wattle. ¹ The thousands who came afterward came to study, and the encyclopedia credits his teaching of the Bible above all for drawing them. ¹

His pupils went on to found monasteries of their own, and the Martyrology remembers him as father and teacher of a great company of monks. ²⁴ Much of what he did is known only through them.