Oran of Iona

Saint Oran of Iona (Odhrán, sometimes also called Otteran) was an Irish monk, a companion of Saint Columba on the island of Iona and, by tradition, the first Christian buried there. He is commemorated on 27 October. The story of his death, full of legend, has stayed alive to this day.

Life

Oran was Irish and, by tradition, a descendant of Conall Gulban, a legendary pagan ruler said to have become a Christian; the basis of this link is not known. For more than forty years he lived in the district now called Silvermines, in County Tipperary in Ireland, where in 520 he built a church. Irish tradition says that he was also abbot in Meath, where he is said to have founded Lattreagh, though it is possible that another Oran is meant.

In the year 563 he was among the twelve monks who accompanied Columba to the island of Iona, off the coast of Scotland, where Columba founded the monastery of that name. Oran reposed there soon afterwards and was buried in the new foundation. The story says that Columba saw devils and angels fighting over Oran's soul before it ascended to heaven.

The legends of his death

One legend says that Oran consented to be buried alive beneath the foundation of a chapel that Columba was trying to build on Iona. The walls raised by the monks kept falling; every morning the builders found the work of the day before undone. Columba heard a voice telling him that the walls would not stand until a living man was buried under the foundation (in one version, the advice came from a mermaid who rose from the sea). The choice fell on Oran, and the chapel was built above him.

By another legend, one day Oran lifted his head out of the ground and said: "There is no Hell as you suppose, nor Heaven that people talk about." Alarmed, Columba ordered the body removed and buried in consecrated ground, or, in other versions, simply called for more earth to cover it. In a Hebridean version Oran was promised that his soul would be safe in heaven. After some days Columba wanted to see him once more and had the grave opened. Oran, still alive, tried to climb out, but Columba had the pit covered again, to keep his soul from the world and its sin.

The story does not appear in Adomnán's Life of Columba. The scholar George Henderson sees in it a trace of a very old folk belief, of the same kind as the legend of the building of Dinas Emrys, where Vortigern was told to find and sacrifice "a child without a father" so that the fortress walls would stop falling. Because of the likeness of the name, some have identified Oran with another Saint Oran, the companion of Saint Patrick, the first Irish martyr; the two stories share the self-⁠sacrifice of one man for the work of a better-⁠known saint.

Veneration

The oldest church still standing on Iona is dedicated to Saint Oran, and the cemetery around it, Reilig Odhráin, bears his name. He is the patron of the parish of Silvermines in County Tipperary, his home region, and in 1096 the Vikings of Waterford chose him as patron of the city, and later of the diocese. The monastery on Iona, founded by Columba, is today an ecumenical Christian church and a major draw for visitors in the Outer Hebrides. The story of his death was retold in a poem by Neil Gaiman, "In Relig Odhrain", and in an animated short film of 2019.