St. Finbarr

  Posted on September 25, 2020  by admin  No comments

Born: c.550 at Connaught, Ireland as Lochan 

Died: 25 September 623 at Cloyne, Ireland of natural causes, interred in the cathedral at Cork, Ireland 

Patronage: Cork, Ireland, diocese of, Barra, Scotland, Cork, Ireland

Saint Finbarr, who lived in the sixth century, was a native of Connaught, Ireland. He founded a monastery or school at Lough Eire, to which great numbers of disciples flocked, changing, as it were, a desert into a large city. This was the origin of the city of Cork, built chiefly upon stakes on marshy little islands formed by the river Lea. 

The baptismal name of our Saint was Lochan; the surname Finbarr, or Barr the White, was afterwards given him. He was Bishop of Cork for seventeen years, and died in the midst of his friends at Cloyne, fifteen miles from Cork. His body was buried in his own cathedral at Cork; his relics were put into a silver reliquary a few years later and kept in the great church, which bears his name to this day. Saint Finbarr’s cave, or hermitage, used to be shown in a monastery situated to the west of Cork, which tradition affirms was established by the holy bishop.