ON SAINT FINIANUS, ABBOT, AT MELLIFONT IN IRELAND.
CommentaryFinianus, Abbot, at Mellifont in Ireland (Saint)
I. B.
[1] Mellifont was once a distinguished monastery of the Cistercian Order in Ireland, Mellifont in Ireland in the County of Louth, beyond the river Boyne, not far from the city of Drogheda; founded by Donald, King of Uriel, who ruled over that tract. The first Abbot there was Christian, a disciple of Saint Bernard together with Pope Eugenius III at Clairvaux, and afterward Bishop of Lismore in Munster, and a Legate of the Apostolic See, most deserving of the Irish Church, as Camden acknowledges in the description of the County of Waterford, who also in Ulster mentions Mellifont, as does also James Ware in the Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland.
[2] Saint Finianus, Abbot, is venerated on February 6 There Saint Finianus, Abbot, once obtained public veneration on the sixth day of February. Thus the author of the Life of Saint Finianus, Bishop of Lismore, who is venerated on March 16: "There was also another Saint Finianus, Abbot," he says, "who is said to be buried at Mellifont; whose feast is celebrated on the 8th of the Ides of February." Richard Whitford in the Sarum Martyrology published in London in 1516 thus recalls him: "In Ireland, Saint Fynian, Abbot, of a distinguished family, but much more distinguished for his sanctity."
[3] John Colgan treats of Saint Finianus on this same day and cites several unpublished Irish writers: whose age and deeds are unknown, but concerning the deeds performed by him and concerning his age, he extracts nothing certain: nor does he assign him to Mellifont, but to the Island of Saint Patrick, which he locates in the region of the Bregians, watered by the river Boyne and receding into the interior toward Meath, above Drogheda; while elsewhere he acknowledges (and truly) that the Island of Saint Patrick faces the shore of Fingal, which lies between the rivers Liffey and Boyne, and the cities of Dublin and Drogheda.