Finbarr of Cork

Saint Finbar (Finbarr, Fionnbharra, often abbreviated Barra) was bishop of Cork and abbot of a monastery in what is now the city. He is patron of the city and of the diocese of Cork. He fell asleep on 25 September 623, the day on which he is commemorated.

Beginnings

He lived at Templemartin, near Bandon, at first called Lochan (Loan), and was the son of Amergin, a skilled craftsman from Galway. He studied in Ossory, around present County Kilkenny. He received the name Fionnbharra (fair head) when at his tonsure the priest said: Is fionn barr Lócháin, that is, Fair is the crest of Lochan. He went on pilgrimage to Rome with some monks and, on the way back, visited Saint David in Wales. After completing his studies he returned home and lived for some time on an island in a small lake, then called Loch Irce; the island is now called Gougane Barra (the little rock-⁠fissure of Barra). He is said to have built small churches in several places, among them at Ballineadig, in County Cork.

Cork

Toward the end of his life, some seventeen years, he settled in the area called Corcach Mór na Mumhan (the Great Marsh of Munster), now the city of Cork, where he gathered around him monks and students. The place became an important centre of learning, whence the saying Ionad Bairre Sgoil na Mumhan, Barra's foundation, the school of Munster; in English, the motto of University College Cork today: Where Finbar taught let Munster learn. The church and monastery he founded in 606, on a limestone cliff above the river Lee, remained the site of the cathedral of his diocese; the present building, of the Church of Ireland, is called Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral. He died at Cell na Cluaine, returning from Gougane Barra, and was buried in the cemetery of his church at Cork.

Veneration

There are at least six schools named for Saint Finbar in England, Australia, Nigeria and the United States, among others in San Francisco and Burbank. The first cathedral of the diocese of Charleston, South Carolina, was dedicated to him, because its first bishop, John England, came from County Cork. In Ireland there are five saints named Finnbarr; one scholar thinks the saint of Cork the same as Finnian of Moville, teacher of Columba. In Scotland some place names recall him, among them the island of Barra, with a ruined church, Cille Bharra; tradition links that Finnbarr with the saint of Cork, although it has been argued that he was Scottish.