Abbán of Moyarney (Adamstown)

  • d. 510?
  • feast-day: 16 March, 27 October
  • abbots, saints of Ireland
  • Mag Arnaide, Cell Abbáin
early Irish saint, abbot of Mag Arnaide (Moyarney, now Adamstown, Co. Wexford) and Cell Abbáin (Killabban, Co. Laois)
See also references for related subjects.
Ó Riain, Pádraig, A dictionary of Irish saints, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011.  
Scarcely a parish in Ireland is without one or more dedications to saints, in the form of churches in ruins, holy wells or other ecclesiastical monuments. This book is a guide to the (mainly documentary) sources of information on the saints named in these dedications, for those who have an interest in them, scholarly or otherwise. The need for a summary biographical dictionary of Irish saints, containing information on such matters as feastdays, localisations, chronology, and genealogies, although stressed over sixty years ago by the eminent Jesuit and Bollandist scholar, Paul Grosjean, has never before been satisfied. Professor Ó Riain has been working in the field of Irish hagiography for upwards of forty years, and the material for the over 1,000 entries in his Dictionary has come from a variety of sources, including Lives of the saints, martyrologies, genealogies of the saints, shorter tracts on the saints (some of them accessible only in manuscripts), annals, annates, collections of folklore, Ordnance Survey letters, and other documents. Running to almost 700 pages, the body of the Dictionary is preceded by a preface, list of sources and introduction, and is followed by comprehensive indices of parishes, other places (mainly townlands), alternate (mainly anglicised) names, subjects, and feastdays.
Abán of Adamstown (51); Acobhrán of Kilrush; Adhamhnán of Iona; Ádhán of Imleach Tuaiscirt (55); Ádhán of Imleach Tuaiscirt (55); Adhlann of Derry (55);
Ó Riain, Pádraig, “St. Abbán: the genesis of an Irish saint’s life”, in: D. Ellis Evans, John G. Griffith, and E. M. Jope (eds), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Celtic studies, held at Oxford, from 10th to 15th July, 1983, Oxford: D. E. Evans, 1986. 159–170.
Heist, W. W., “Over the writer’s shoulder: Saint Abban”, Celtica 11 (1976): 76–84.