A kistvaen or cistvaen is a tomb or burial chamber formed from flat stone slabs in a box-like shape. If set completely underground, it may be covered by a tumulus. The word is derived from the Welsh cist (chest) and maen (stone). The term originated in relation to Celtic structures, typically pre-Christian, but in antiquarian scholarship of the 19th and early 20th centuries it was sometimes applied to similar structures outside the Celtic world.
Crom Cruach was a pagan god of pre-Christian Ireland. According to Christian writers, he was propitiated with human sacrifice and his worship was ended by Saint Patrick.
Saint Valentine was a 3rd-century Roman saint, commemorated in Western Christianity on February 14 and in Eastern Orthodoxy on July 6. From the High Middle Ages, his feast day has been associated with a tradition of courtly love. He is also a patron saint of Terni, epilepsy and beekeepers. Saint Valentine was a clergyman – either a priest or a bishop – in the Roman Empire who ministered to persecuted Christians. He was martyred and his body buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14, which has been observed as the Feast of Saint Valentine since at least the eighth century.
The Culdees were members of ascetic Christian monastic and eremitical communities of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England in the Middle Ages. Appearing first in Ireland and then in Scotland, subsequently attached to cathedral or collegiate churches; they lived in monastic fashion though not taking monastic vows.
Saint Brigid of Kildare or Saint Brigid of Ireland is the patroness saint of Ireland, and one of its three national saints along with Patrick and Columba. According to medieval Irish hagiographies, she was an abbess who founded the important abbey of Kildare, as well as several other convents of nuns. There are few historical facts about her, and her hagiographies are mainly anecdotes and miracle tales, some of which are rooted in pagan folklore. They say Brigid was the daughter of a chieftain and a slave woman, and was raised in a druid's household before becoming a consecrated virgin. She is patroness of many things, including poetry, learning, healing, protection, blacksmithing, livestock and dairy production. In her honour, a perpetual fire was kept burning at Kildare for centuries.
Dalkey is an affluent suburb of Dublin, and a seaside resort southeast of the city, and the town of Dún Laoghaire, in the county of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown in the traditional County Dublin, Ireland. It was founded as a Viking settlement and became an active port during the Middle Ages. According to chronicler John Clyn (c.1286–c.1349), it was one of the ports through which the plague entered Ireland in the mid-14th century. In modern times, Dalkey has become a seaside suburb that attracts some tourist visitors.
Brehon is a term for a historical arbitration, mediative and judicial role in Gaelic culture. Brehons were part of the system of Early Irish law, which was also simply called "Brehon law". Brehons were judges, close in importance to the chiefs.
Oughterard is an ecclesiastical hilltop site, graveyard, townland, and formerly a parish, borough and royal manor in County Kildare, nowadays part of the community of Ardclough, close to the Dublin border. It is the burial place of Arthur Guinness.
Bega is a medieval Irish saint of Northumbria, venerated primarily in the town of St Bees. According to her Life, she was an Irish princess who fled to Northumbria to escape an arranged marriage to a Viking prince. She became an anchoress and was renowned for her piety. Multiple churches have been dedicated to her in England, and her feast day is still celebrated in St Bees.
Saint Ailbe, usually known in English as St Elvis (British/Welsh), Eilfyw or Eilfw, was regarded as the chief 'pre-Patrician' saint of Ireland. He was a bishop and later saint.
Ciarán of Saigir, also known as Ciarán mac Luaigne or Saint Kieran, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland and is considered the first saint to have been born in Ireland, although the legend that he preceded Saint Patrick is questionable. Ciarán was bishop of Saighir (Seir-Kieran) and remains the patron saint of its successor, the diocese of Ossory.
Saint Gobnait, also known as Gobnat or Mo Gobnat or Abigail or Deborah, is the name of an early medieval female Irish saint whose church was Móin Mór, later Bairnech, in the village of Ballyvourney, County Cork in Ireland. She is associated with the Múscraige and her church and convent lay on the borders between the Múscraige Mittine and Eóganacht Locha Léin. Her feast day is February 11.
Assicus(Asicus, Assic) was the first bishop of Elphin, Ireland, and venerated as the patron saint of that place. He was also an artisan metalworker.
Saint Patrick was a fifth-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Known as the "Apostle of Ireland", he is the primary patron saint of Ireland, the other patron saints being Brigid of Kildare and Columba. Patrick was never formally canonised, having lived before the current laws of the Catholic Church in such matters. Nevertheless, he is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Church of Ireland, and in the Eastern Orthodox Church, where he is regarded as equal-to-the-apostles and Enlightener of Ireland.
Eithne and her sister Sodelb are two relatively obscure Irish saints from Leinster who are supposed to have flourished in the 5th century. They are commemorated together in the Irish martyrologies on 29 March, though 2 and 15 January were also marked out as feast-days. The 17th-century scholar John Colgan believed that a Life written for them had been witnessed in c. 1490 by Cathal Óg Mac Maghnusa, whom he regarded as the author of additions to the Félire Óengusso. Although nothing of the kind has come to light, they do make cameo appearances in the Lives of two better-known 6/7th-century saints, Áedan and Moling, both bishops of Ferns.
Saint Donnán of Eigg was a Gaelic priest, likely from Ireland, who attempted to introduce Christianity to the Picts of northwestern Scotland during the Early Middle Ages. Donnán is the patron saint of Eigg, the island in the Inner Hebrides where he was martyred.
Saint Auxilius, or Usaille, was an early Christian missionary of Ireland who is associated with Saint Patrick, Saint Seachnaill (Secundinus), and Saint Iserninus in establishing Christianity in the south of that island, although more recent studies tend to associate him with the earlier Palladius.
The Cambrai Homily is the earliest known Irish homily, dating to the 7th or early 8th century, and housed in the Médiathèque d'agglomération de Cambrai. It is evidence that a written vernacular encouraged by the Church had already been established alongside Latin by the 7th century in Ireland. The homily is also the oldest single example of an extended prose passage in Old Irish. The text is incomplete, and Latin and Irish are mixed. Quotations from the Bible and patristic sources are in Latin, with the explication in Irish. It is a significant document for the study of Celtic linguistics and for understanding sermons as they might have existed in the 7th-century Irish church. The homily also contains the earliest examples in written Irish of triads, a form of expression characteristic of early Irish literature, though the text taken as a whole is not composed in triads.
Dubthach maccu Lugair, is a legendary Irish poet and lawyer who supposedly lived at the time of St Patrick's mission in Ireland and in the reign of Lóegaire mac Néill, high-king of Ireland, to which Dubthach served as Chief Poet and Brehon. In contrast to the king and his druids, he is said to have readily accepted the new religion. This event has played a major part in Hiberno-Latin and Irish sources as representing the integration of native Irish learning with the Christian faith.
