Aed of Kildare

Saint Aed (Áed Dub, "Aed the Black") was a king of Leinster in Ireland who left the throne and became a monk and then bishop of Kildare; he died in 638 or 639. He is commemorated on 4 January and, according to some calendars, on 10 May. Our sources show no Orthodox canonization: he is an Irish saint of the undivided Church, known from martyrologies, without formal Orthodox veneration.

What the sources say

Of the kings of Leinster in the sixth century the Middle Ages preserved little news. The Annals of the Four Masters and the Annals of Ulster speak of this king who resigned his crown and became bishop of Kildare. He belonged to the ruling Uí Dúnlainge dynasty of north Leinster; his father was Colmán Már, and his brother King Fáelán mac Colmáin. His name appears, in the Latinized form Aidus, in several martyrologies. The year of his death, by the corrected chronology of the Annals of Ulster, is 639; the Russian source says 638.

Colgan writes that he resigned the throne of Leinster in 591 (really 592) and entered the great monastery of Kildare, where he served God for forty-⁠eight years, becoming in turn abbot and bishop of Kildare, from about 630 to 639. He is called Dub, "black", from his dark complexion, in contrast to Áed Finn, king of Ossory, "Aed the cleric", who also left his throne for a cell but was fair (finn, "fair"). Another Saint Aed is venerated on 3 May.

Disputes among historians

The Russian source shows that the information about King Aed is very contradictory. Many medieval sources name as successor to Colmán Már his son Áed mac Colmáin, called in the Book of Leinster Áed Cerr ("the Lame"), whose death the Annals place in 591 or 593; some historians nevertheless identify him with Saint Aed the Black, thinking that in the Annals, in place of a death, an abdication ought to have been recorded. Other sources give as successor of Colmán Már Áed Dibchine, of a related family, of whom almost nothing is known beyond family ties. Historians today dispute which of them was truly the king; some think that the reports that only the Uí Dúnlainge ruled in that century were distorted by medieval authors who wished to exalt them. The death of Aed of Kildare is the first mention of the Kildare monastery in the Irish annals.