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Betha Finnchua Brí Gobunn ‘The life of Finnchua of Brí Gobann’

  • Irish
  • prose

Vernacular Irish Life of Finnchua, al. Finnchú, of Brí Gobann (Brigown, Mitchelstown, Co. Cork). The text presents its subject, not as a mere local saint, but as one whose activities extended further afield in Ireland, concluding with a visit to Rome.

Manuscripts
Language
  • Irish
Date
“composed ... probably in the fourteenth century, if not later” (Ó Riain); “eleventh- or twelfth-century life” (Johnston).
Provenance
Origin: Ireland
Ireland
No short description available
See more Unknown. According to Ó Riain, “there is some evidence to suggest that the Life was written in the Cistercian abbey of Fermoy[,] which may have had a claim to lands in north Cork associated with Fionnchu”. He also emphasizes the relevance that the establishment of the Cistercian abbey of Mellifont, near Monasterboice, is likely to have.
Form
prose (primary)

Classification

Subjects

Finnchú of Brigown
Finnchú of Brigown
(supp. fl. 7th century, d. 655/665?)
patron saint of Brí Gobann (Brigown in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork)
See more

Sources

Primary sources Text editions and/or modern translations – in whole or in part – along with publications containing additions and corrections, if known. Diplomatic editions, facsimiles and digital image reproductions of the manuscripts are not always listed here but may be found in entries for the relevant manuscripts. For historical purposes, early editions, transcriptions and translations are not excluded, even if their reliability does not meet modern standards.

[ed.] [tr.] Stokes, Whitley [ed. and tr.], Lives of saints from the Book of Lismore, Anecdota Oxoniensia, Mediaeval and Modern Series, 5, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890.
CELT: <link> Internet Archive: <link> Internet Archive: <link>, <link> Internet Archive: <link>
84–98 (text); 231–246 (English translation); 347–348 (notes);vii, cviii (introduction) Edited from the Book of Lismore.
[ed.] Fáinne Fionn, “Beatha Fionnchon Brighobhann [pt 1]”, The Irish Rosary 15 (1911): 840–843.
Edited from RIA MS A iv 1.
[ed.] Fáinne Fionn, “Beatha Fionnchon Brighobhann [pt 2]”, The Irish Rosary 16 (1912): 47–48, 195–196, 313–314.
Edited from RIA MS A iv 1.

Secondary sources (select)

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.
335–337 [‘Fionnchú’]
Johnston, Elva, “Munster, saints of (act. c.450–c.700)”, Oxford dictionary of national biography, Online: Oxford University Press, 2008–. URL: <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/51008>.
Downey, Clodagh, “Intertextuality in Echtra mac nEchdach Mugmedóin”, in: John Carey, Máire Herbert, and Kevin Murray (eds), Cín Chille Cúile: texts, saints and places. Essays in honour of Pádraig Ó Riain, 9, Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications, 2004. 77–104.
Grosjean, Paul, “MS. A. 9 (Franciscan Convent, Dublin)”, Ériu 10 (1926–1928): 160–169.
Plummer, Charles, “A tentative catalogue of Irish hagiography”, in: Charles Plummer, Miscellanea hagiographica Hibernica: vitae adhuc ineditae sanctorum Mac Creiche, Naile, Cranat, 15, Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1925. 171–285.
Utrecht University Library: <link>
189–190 [id. 36.]
web page identifiers
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
March 2021, last updated: June 2023
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