Saint Fintan of Clonenagh

The name was common. Butler reports that the seventeenth-century hagiographer Colgan counted twenty-four Irish saints called Fintan, and thought some of them were probably the same man honored in several places. ³ The best known besides this one is Fintan of Taghmon, also called Munnu, a defender of the Irish date of Easter who died in 636 and is kept on October 21. ¹³ CatholicIreland adds that the two made a pact, recorded in the Martyrology of Oengus, to give each other their names, and that the confusion was predictable. ⁴

For Fintan of Clonenagh the main source is his Latin Life, which John Healy, Bishop of Clonfert and historian of the early Irish schools, retells at length. ² The Catholic Encyclopedia gives a paragraph. ¹

He was a Leinster man, born about 524 by the encyclopedia's reckoning and about 525 by Healy's, a few years after Saint Columba of Iona. ¹² Healy names his father as Gabhren, of the race of Eochaidh Finnfuathairt, and his mother as Findath, who, the Life says, was warned by an angel to go somewhere secret until the child was born, because he would be holy to the Lord. ² A holy man of Cluain Mac Trein baptized him on the eighth day and taught him as a boy. ²

Healy's source tells a story of those years. The boy, already gifted with prophecy, told his master to make ready for guests because Columcille was coming; the master rebuked him for presumption, and when Columcille arrived he rebuked the master in turn. ²

Fintan was next put in the care of Columba, son of Crimthann, later the founder of Terryglass on Lough Derg. ¹²⁴ The encyclopedia's article on that Columba says that after his studies he "took charge of Caemban, Fintan, and Mocumin," and that he founded Terryglass in 548 and died of the plague in 552. ⁶ CatholicIreland says the severity of Columba's rule and penances shaped what Fintan later built. ⁴

In Healy's account the master and his three pupils looked first for a place in Leinster, then spent a year at Clonenagh without settling, and, troubled by the crowds, went up into the solitude of Slieve Bloom. ² There, the Life says, Columba looked back and saw the place they had left full of angels, and Fintan volunteered to go back to it. ² So he became, Healy says, "the real founder of that great monastic establishment, which ever since bears his name." ²

Clonenagh, in Irish Cluain Eidnech, lies about four miles southwest of Maryborough, in what was then called the Queen's County. ² Healy translates the name as "the Ivy Meadow," a place almost surrounded by bog but sheltered by oak woods hung with ivy; Butler gives Ussher's reading, "the Ivy-Cave," and puts it in the diocese of Leighlin. ²³ The encyclopedia says Fintan settled in the solitude of the Slieve Bloom mountains in 550. ¹ Healy puts the founding about 548, when Fintan was no more than about twenty-five, and in his chapter on Comgall writes as if the monastery already existed about 545. ²

The encyclopedia says his oratory soon drew numerous disciples, for whom he wrote a rule. ¹ The rule is lost, but Healy says it was strict beyond the monastic rules of the time. ² The monks worked the ground with spade and hoe. ² They had no cattle, "not even a single heifer," and so no milk, and Fintan would not let them take the milk their neighbors brought out of pity. ² Healy's chapter on Comgall lists what else they did without: butter, eggs, cheese, fat and meat, living on a little corn, herbs and water. ² CatholicIreland quotes Oengus on Fintan himself, who lived on "bread of woody barley and clayey water of clay." ⁴

The neighboring saints thought it too much. Healy says Cainnech of Aghaboe and others came and begged him to soften the life of his monks. ² Fintan agreed, the Life says, because he was divinely told to, and relaxed the rule for the others while keeping his own practices unchanged. ²⁴ CatholicIreland gives another version, in which he set a great feast before the visiting deputation, plenty for as long as they stayed, and when they left everything went back to what it had been. ⁴

The Life still lets the severity show its gentler side. Healy tells of the half-starved monks running up to him in the field like children and begging for something better to eat, "as great folk do, who visit the workmen"; Fintan smiled, said he had nothing to give them but that God was good, and the next day wagonloads of provisions arrived from Leinster. ² In spite of the hardship, or because of it, CatholicIreland says, the monastery was crowded with young monks from all over Ireland. ⁴

His most famous pupil was Comgall, who came from Dalaradia in the north and later founded Bangor, on Belfast Lough. ¹² Butler adds that Comgall was the master of Saint Columban. ³ Healy says Comgall at first felt all the severity of Clonenagh and was tempted to give it up, persevered on Fintan's advice, received the monastic habit there, and went home on Fintan's advice to found his own house. ² The two monasteries stayed close, and the monks of Clonenagh were always kindly received at Bangor. ²

The Life gives him the virtues of a pastor as well as an ascetic: "No one," it says, "can describe the charity, meekness, humility, patience, abstinence, watchings, and other virtues of this blessed man." ² Healy says he was always ready to help the afflicted and protect the oppressed, and tells from the Life how he went with twelve companions to free a young prisoner held by Colman, King of North Leinster. ²

The Irish annalists compared him to Saint Benedict, and he is styled the "Father of the Irish Monks." ¹ Healy explains the title: Fintan founded his monastery young, lived an extremely ascetic life, and trained many founders, so that Clonenagh became a kind of novitiate whose monks spread his discipline through Ireland. ² Centuries later it was the school of Oengus the Culdee, one of the oldest authorities on the early Irish saints. ²

Toward the end of his life, at seventy by the encyclopedia's account, he chose one of his monks, Fintan Maeldubh, as his successor. ¹² Healy says he called the community around him, raised his hands to heaven and blessed them, received the Sacrifice, "and went to sleep in the Lord." ² He was buried at Clonenagh, and Healy says no trace of the tomb remains. ²

He died on February 17. ¹² The encyclopedia gives the year as probably 594, or at least before 597; Healy says about 592, and some time before the death of Columba of Iona in 597; CatholicIreland gives 603. ¹²⁴

None of the sources used for this page names Saint Fintan of Clonenagh patron of anything. ¹²³⁴ He is remembered as an abbot and a teacher of monks, which is how the National Proper for Ireland keeps him. ⁷

Saint Fintan's feast is February 17, the day of his death. ¹² The Roman Martyrology lists him that day as the abbot of the monastery of Cluain Ednech in Ireland, its founder, "famous for the austerity of his life," in its Italian text, translated here. ⁵ The National Proper for Ireland, approved by the Irish bishops, keeps him on February 17 as Saint Fintan, abbot. ⁷ Butler and CatholicIreland give the same day. ³⁴

Clonenagh was hard enough that the saints nearby came to complain on behalf of its monks. ² Fintan gave way for them, and did not give way for himself. ²⁴

The stories that survive are not only about severity. Hungry monks ran to him like children, and he smiled at them. ² He walked to a king's gates to get a prisoner out. ²

The young man he trained went north and founded Bangor, and Comgall's pupil Columban went further still. ²³ Healy calls Clonenagh "a kind of noviciate for the training of monks," which fits a man whose work was other people's vocations. ²