Tigernach of Clones

Saint Tigernach (Tigernach mac Coirpri, died 549) was an early Irish saint, patron of the town of Clones in County Monaghan, in the province of Ulster. He is commemorated on 4 April. Our sources show no formal Orthodox veneration: he is an Irish saint of the undivided Church, known from his Life and from Irish tradition.

Background

Tigernach (anglicised Tierney) was one of the pre-⁠eminent saints of the territory ruled by the Uí Chremthainn dynasty, together with Mac Caírthinn of Clogher and Mo Laisse of Devenish. His principal foundation is Clones, in the western part of the kingdom of Fernmag. His first foundation, in the same area, is Gabáil-⁠liúin, now Galloon Island, on Upper Lough Erne. His Life depicts a time when the Uí Chremthainn had not yet branched off and had a single royal seat near Clogher. He was born of an illicit union between a king's daughter and an alien warrior: his mother, Der Fraích, was a daughter of Eochaid, king of Airgíalla, and his father, Coirpre, a Leinsterman in Eochaid's service. Soon after his birth he was taken to Leinster. Saint Brigid of Kildare gave the child the name Tigernach, meaning "princely"; according to Butler, he was baptized by Conleth, bishop of Kildare, with Brigid as godmother. His maternal uncle was Cairpre Daim Argat, king of Airgíalla (died 514), his maternal aunt Saint Cinnia of Druim Dubhain (1 February), his cousin Saint Damhnat of Slieve Betha (13 June), and Saint Enda of Aran (21 March) and other Irish saints were his relatives.

Life

His Life describes some experiences of preparation: he was educated at Rosnat in Britain, which Lanigan identifies with Candida Casa, established by Ninian, but David Dumville does not find this credible and Saint David's in Dyfed has also been proposed. Having heard his teacher prophesy the foundation of a prominent church, Tigernach went to Rome for relics and returned to Brigid in Leinster, who urged him to become a bishop. He then went to the land of his birth, but is not shown founding any church before relations with the ruling dynasty and the churches of the area were put in order. Eochaid welcomed him as a dear kinsman and offered him the bishopric of Clogher, but since this involved ejecting the bishop then in office, Tigernach refused and retreated to a minor church on a mountain slope. He earned a good name by his austere life and by a miracle by which he raised Doach, archbishop of Armagh, from the dead. An angel appeared to him and, following his directions, he sought out the boundary of the kingdom for his first foundation, Galloon, which, inspired by God, he offered to Comgall of Bangor, moving a little further east to found Clones. There he is said to have lived like a hermit and died of plague.

The abbey at Clones

Clones Abbey, founded by him in the sixth century and dedicated to the Apostles Peter and Paul, was still active before the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, but had suffered misfortunes: it was burned in 836, 1095 and 1184, and in 1207 Hugh de Lacy destroyed the abbey and town, rebuilt after five years by the English, who also raised a castle. In the town ruins of a twelfth-⁠century abbey building can still be found, a sarcophagus reputed to have been built for Tigernach's remains, a ninth-⁠century round tower and a high cross.