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January 09, 2006

AN TOSTAL SOUVENIR PROGRAMME 1953 - CHAPTER 2

The second chapter of the An Tostal Souvenir Programme from 1953 recounted the life of St. Conleth, the reclusive hermit from Old Connell, who became the 1st Bishop of Kildare.
 

SAINT CONLAETH

 Closely associated with St. Brigid in the foundation at Kildare was St. Conlaeth, first Bishop of the See. Owing to the great and rapid increase of her community and to meet the spiritual wants of the new city that rose around this already famous monastery, St. Brigid asked that a bishop be appointed. Her request was granted and on her recommendation, St. Conlaeth, a holy recluse who lived in the south of the Liffey plain, probably the present Old Connall, was appointed. The date of his appointment is not certain, but it was probably not earlier than 490. St. Conlaeth no doubt had under him a body of clergy for the service of the Church. He was a skilled artificer in gold and silver. The Four Masters call him St. Brigid’s Brazier. An ancient crozier of St. Finnbhar in Connacht, now preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, is said to have been made by him. During his episcopate he made a pilgrimage to Rome. He brought back from Rome precious vestments for the use of his Church in Kildare. Cogitosus, a monk of Kildare, who wrote a life of St. Brigid early in the ninth century, recording St. Brigid’s great charity, refers to these vestments and states that “she gave to the poor even the transmarine and rare vestments of Bishop Conlaeth which he was accustomed to use when offering the Sacred Mysteries at the Altars, on the festivals of Our Lord and the vigils of the Apostles.” After governing his See for about twenty years, St. Conlaeth died on the 3rd. May, 519. Some authors say that he died a violent death having been killed by wolves. In 799 his relics were removed from his grave at Cinel Lugair, probably the present Killeen Cormac, and placed in a shrine of gold and silver.

 

 [There were no actual chapters but it is the easiest way to differentiate between the sections]

The second chapter of the An Tostal Souvenir Programme from 1953 recounted the life of St. Conleth, the reclusive hermit from Old Connell, who became the 1st Bishop of Kildare.

Posted by mariocorrigan at January 9, 2006 07:12 PM