ON ST. AEDAN, PRINCE OF OIRGIALLA IN IRELAND,
BEGINNING OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY
CommentaryAidus, prince of Oirgialla in Ireland. (S.)
BY C. D. S.
[1] Aidan, prince of Eastern Ulster, It seems quite probable that Aedan, son of Colga or Colganus, of Lann-Abhaich in Ulster (which last words, added by the scholiast of Marianus Gorman, were inserted in the text of the Martyrology of Donegal), is the same as Aedan son of Colga, prince of that part of Ireland which was anciently called Airthir or Eastern Ulster, and is now part of the county of Armagh in the province of Ulster; who, according to the Annals of Tigernach, died in the year 606 (according to other codices in the year 609 or 610). Of him these things are read at this year: Aedh, son of Colgan, prince of Orgiellia and of all Airthiria, died on pilgrimage at Clonmacnoise. Of whom it was said:
There was a time when Loch da Dam was a noble wave: Not the lake noble, but the kingdom of Aedh son of Colgu. It is my grief that the friend who loved me lives no more, Whoever may have set hearths through the islands of Loch da Dam [So from the rendering of the distinguished Whitley Stokes in Revue celtique, vol. XVII (1896), p. 169. Somewhat different is the rendering of O'Donovan, Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters, vol. I, p. 233, where at the year 606 this passage is transcribed from the Annals of Tigernach.].
[2] whose brother and four sons are clearly venerated as saints, On this passage John Colgan Act. SS. Hiberniae, p. 732, note 15.: “Of the death of this Aidus, prince of Oirgiellia, the Four Masters write thus in the Annals at the year 606: Aidus son of Colgan, prince of Oirgiellia and of the Artherii (that is, the Eastern Ulstermen), died on his pilgrimage at Clonmacnoise. There are added in the same place certain verses in the native metre, written by a certain contemporary, by which it is indicated that this Aidus, having abdicated rule, embraced the monastic institute and was a man of outstanding holiness. The name of this pious prince was left more celebrated to posterity, and his family was ennobled in no small degree, by the outstanding sanctity of his brothers and sons, celebrated in the calendars. For he had two full brothers, Baitanus, otherwise Boetanus, and Furadhranus, and four sons, namely Magnendus, Tuanus, Cobhtachus and Librenus, inserted in the list of the saints, as the Sanctilogium Genealogicum c. 13, and Selvacius on the Genealogy of the Irish Saints c. 11 testify.” So far Colgan; but, as O'Donovan rightly notes Annals of the four Masters, vol. I, p. 223, annot. d., Colgan perhaps interpreted those verses too freely, understanding them to indicate that Aedan abdicated his principality. Certainly they are very obscure, nor is Colgan's assertion easily gathered from them.
[3] Yet from the very fact that Aedan or Aidus, a prince, was the brother and father of so many saints, and from the two facts which alone are told of him, and he himself to the roll of the saints namely that he was beneficent towards the saints, since he is said to have offered a field to St. Mochta [Life of St. Mochta in Colgan, Act. SS. Hib., p. 730, n. 16; Act. SS., Aug. vol. III, p. 745, end of n. 15.], and that he died on pilgrimage, there could easily have arisen a particular veneration towards him and his name could have been inserted in the Irish calendars of the saints. Add that the church in which he is said to be venerated, Lann-Abhaich, today Glenavy [Compare W. Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore (Dublin, 1847), p. 47, annot. k, and p. 236.], lies in that part of the county of Armagh which adjoins the county of Antrim on the north, and which one may easily conjecture to have been included in the ancient principality of Orgiellia.
[4] seems to deserve to be numbered. Some difficulty arises, however, against our opinion, in that in the Martyrology of Gorman the epithet og is placed before the name of our Aedan, by which commonly virgin is signified (whence the distinguished Whitley Stokes also rendered it here as virginal), although Aedan is read to have begotten at least four sons. But sometimes by that word there is signified also, in a more general sense, a young man, or one entire, perfect Compare E. Windisch, Irische Texte und Wörterbuch (Leipzig, 1880), p. 719. or holy, in which last sense it may have been used here.