Saturday 4 April 2020

tigernach mac coirpri

Criminally anglicised as Tierney, today marks the feast day of Tigernach (†549), patron saint of the town of Clones in County Monaghan, part of the border region of Ulster. Born of an unsanctioned and scandalised affair between one of the princesses (Der Fraรญch) of Farley (Fermag) and a mercenary warrior called Coirpre allied to her father the king, Tigernach was fostered by Saint Brigid of Kildare, whom gave him his name—meaning “princely”—and saw to that the child received a good education. Brought up in a parochial environment, Tigernach was dispatched to Rome to retrieve some relics to found a church and monastery and was eventually, the relationship with his grandfather the king reconciled, offered the rank of bishop in his home territory. As that would mean the ejection of the incumbent in Clones, Tigernach choose instead to retreat to life on a hillside as a hermit, cultivating the grace and wherewithal to perform the accounts of miracles attributed to him including raising from the dead the archbishop of neighbouring Armagh.