Erc of Slane

Holy Hierarch Erc of Slane (Erc mac Dega) was a disciple of Saint Patrick and the first bishop of Slane in Ireland; he reposed around 512. In Cornwall he is venerated as Erth. He is a saint of the undivided Church.

He is believed to have been a druid and the only member of King Laoghaire's retinue to pay homage to Saint Patrick at the latter's confrontation with the druids on the Hill of Slane in 433. He was baptised by Patrick and appointed first bishop of Slane; tradition ascribes to him the founding of the original monastery on the Hill of Slane, which stayed active for at least six hundred years and had a school where King Dagobert II is said to have been taught. Before Patrick died in 461, Bishop Erc was sent south to Munster to complete the conversion of Kerry; around 484 Saint Brigid of Kildare was his travelling companion in his native province. He was a friend and teacher of Saint Brendan the Navigator, whom he is said to have trained in 512 at Ardfert. Patrick is reputed to have said that everything Erc judged was just. In Cornwall, Erc is held to be the brother of Saints Uny and Ia, and a church near St Erth bears his name.

In the 16th century the hilltop monastery became a Franciscan friary; in the grounds of Slane Castle stand the ruins of Saint Erc's hermitage.

He is commemorated on 2 November, the liturgical date in the Orthodox calendar (the same day number on the old and new calendars).