Ireland kept its calendar by saints long after it stopped keeping it by kings. Here are 26 of them with their feast days — and the four old quarter days the Christian year was laid over, which are still going strong.
Patrick (17 March), Brigid of Kildare (1 February) and Colmcille, also called Columba (9 June). Tradition holds that all three are buried on the same hill at Downpatrick in County Down.
1 February, which is also Imbolc, the old first day of spring. Since 2023 it has been a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland, marked on the first Monday of February — the first Irish public holiday named for a woman.
Early Irish Christianity was monastic rather than diocesan, and every significant monastery had a founder who was venerated locally. The martyrologies list hundreds; over two hundred are called Colmán alone. Most were never formally canonised — the process did not exist yet — but were acclaimed by their own people.
A great many, because Irish monks spent centuries on the Continent. Columbanus lies at Bobbio in Italy, Gall at St Gallen in Switzerland, Killian at Würzburg in Germany, Fiachra at Meaux in France, Laurence O'Toole at Eu in Normandy and Aidan on Lindisfarne.
Is your parish saint missing? Every parish in Ireland has one, and most of them are not in any book. Tell us who they are and what is remembered of them.
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