Saint Jarlath

Very little is known of Jarlath, and the sources say so. ²⁶ John Healy, the historian of Ireland's early schools, writes that "no Life of the saint has been discovered," that his name is not mentioned in the annals, and that what there is comes from "isolated passages having reference to him in the Lives of other saints," gathered by the seventeenth-century scholar Colgan. ² Healy wrote about him three times, in his book on the Irish schools and in two articles of the Catholic Encyclopedia, and the three accounts largely agree. ²³⁴

His name in Irish is Iarfhlaith. ⁶ CatholicIreland notes that its second part means "lord," which might suggest a family of some standing, and that the meaning of the first part is unknown. ⁶ The Italian text of the Roman Martyrology calls him Iarlath. ⁷

He was born in Connacht about 445, by the encyclopedia's reckoning. ¹ Healy places him among the Conmaicne, the descendants of Conmac, son of Fergus Mac Roy, and most likely among the Conmaicne of Dunmore, in whose territory Tuam lies, since the Irish saints generally founded their churches on their own tribe's land. ² He gives his father as Loga, or Lugha, and his mother as Mongfinn, daughter of Ciardubhan. ²

His teacher was Saint Benignus, or Benen, the founder of Kilbannon, a little northwest of Tuam. ¹²⁵ Healy says Benignus set himself to train two young clerics, Jarlath and Caillin, to be bishops of the Conmaicne after him, ordained them and founded churches for them. ² Healy takes this Benignus to be the disciple of Saint Patrick who became his coadjutor at Armagh. ² The encyclopedia's article on Benignus disagrees: from Tirechán's collections in the Book of Armagh, it says, Benignus of Armagh and Benignus of Kilbannon "were two distinct persons," contemporaries, the second the son of Lugni of Connacht, and it was at his monastery that Jarlath was educated. ⁵

Healy uses the date of Benignus's death, 468 in the Annals of Ulster, or 476 by some writers, to argue that Jarlath cannot have been born after 460. ² The encyclopedia adds that later, out of humility, Jarlath went to study under Saint Enda on Aran, about 495, and CatholicIreland also names Enda among his teachers. ¹⁶

His first foundation was at Cluainfois, now Cloonfush, which Healy and his encyclopedia article place about two miles west of Tuam; CatholicIreland puts it some miles east. ²³⁶ Colgan dated it to 510, but Healy thought passages in the Life of Brendan pointed to about 500. ² Healy says Colgan interpreted the name as a "Meadow of Retreat," and that a vivid local tradition still told, as he could testify himself, of conferences there between Benignus, Jarlath and Caillin on questions of Scripture and theology. ²³

The school drew scholars from all over Ireland. ¹³ Healy says that Jarlath was particularly skilled in the exposition of Scripture, and that it was love of that subject which brought the young Brendan from Kerry to so remote a school. ² On the way Brendan met Colman, son of Lenin, and persuaded him to come too; Colman later founded the see of Cloyne. ²³ The encyclopedia says these two pupils are proof enough of the school's fame. ¹

Healy describes Cloonfush as he found it: an old churchyard on the southern slope of a wide grazing farm, a causeway overgrown with grass, a single ash tree, and part of the foundations of the church, with the Clare river below. ²

The best-known story of Jarlath is Brendan's, and it comes from the Life of Brendan. ² Before he left, Brendan told his master that Cluainfois was not to be the place of his resurrection; he was to go east, and stop where the wheel of his chariot broke. ²³ "There you shall build your oratory," Healy's article has Brendan say, "for God wills that there shall be the place of your resurrection, and many shall arise in glory in the same place along with you." ³ CatholicIreland gives the prophecy as the place where Jarlath would meet his death. ⁶

The wheel broke at the place now called Tuam, and there Jarlath built his church and monastic school, on the site where the medieval cathedral of Tuam would stand. ²³ Taking leave of Brendan, he said, by Healy's account, "O holy youth, it is you should be master and I pupil, but go now with God's blessing elsewhere." ³ CatholicIreland says the chariot wheel became the symbol of the town of Tuam. ⁶

The encyclopedia dates the move to Tuam to about the second decade of the sixth century, and Healy's article on Tuam says the see was founded about 520. ¹⁴ Healy's book suggests that Brendan was at Cluainfois between about 504 and 512. ²

The oldest witness to his character that the sources cite is the Félire of Oengus. ¹² The encyclopedia says it describes him as noted for his fasting, watching and mortification, and that "three hundred times by day and three hundred times by night did this saint bend the knee in prayer"; he had also the gift of prophecy. ¹ Healy says prayer and sacred study were his chief food, and that "his diet was so meagre that he seemed to have no body." ²

A prophecy in Irish about his successors at Tuam was attributed to him and seems to have existed in Colgan's day. ² Healy thought its authenticity "very doubtful," and judged it one of a class of documents composed centuries later and fathered on the early saints to give them authority. ²

The date of his death is uncertain. ² The encyclopedia gives the day as December 26, or February 11 by another account, and the year as about 540, reasoning that as one of the second order of Irish saints he must have lived until then. ¹ Healy makes the same reckoning and notes that it would make him about ninety. ² CatholicIreland says he died around 550. ⁶

His relics were enclosed in a silver shrine and kept in a church built for them beside the cathedral, called Teampul na Scrín, "the church of the shrine." ¹² The encyclopedia says the church dated from the thirteenth century, and that in 1415 it was made a perpetual vicarage united to the prebend of Kilmainemore. ¹ Healy's book places it, with Jarlath's ancient cathedral, on the site of the later Protestant cathedral, while his article on Tuam puts it close to where the Catholic cathedral now stands. ²⁴ Healy says that by his time no trace of the church or the shrine could be found. ²

After Jarlath there is almost nothing about Tuam in the annals for nearly five hundred years. ²³ In 1085 the Four Masters record the death of Aedh O Hoisin as "Comarb of Jarlath," his successor, and High Bishop of Tuam. ³ CatholicIreland says the diocese was established by the twelfth-century synods of Rathbreasail and Kells and later absorbed the dioceses of Annaghdown and Mayo. ⁶

Saint Jarlath is the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Tuam. ¹⁶ The encyclopedia calls him that in its first words about him, and CatholicIreland calls him the founder and patron saint of the archdiocese. ¹⁶ No source used for this page names him patron of anything else. ¹²⁶

Saint Jarlath's feast is June 6. ¹⁷⁸ It is not the day he died: the encyclopedia says the feast is kept on June 6, "being the date of the translation of his relics to a church specially built in his honour." ¹ The Roman Martyrology lists him on June 6 in a single line, "In Ireland, Saint Iarlath, bishop," in its Italian text, translated here, and the National Proper for Ireland keeps him that day as Saint Jarlath, bishop. ⁷⁸ CatholicIreland gives the same day. ⁶

Almost nothing of his own survives. ² He is known through his pupils, and the most famous story about him is one in which a pupil tells the master where to go. ²³

He went. ²³ Healy's source gives his answer to the young man as a teacher's humility: "it is you should be master and I pupil." ³ The encyclopedia tells of the same humility in another way, an established teacher who went to Aran to study under Enda. ¹

The Félire remembers him on his knees, three hundred times by day and three hundred times by night. ¹ The church he built where a wheel broke became the mother church of a province. ²⁴