17 



A CATALOGUE OF SAINTS CONNECTED WITH CORNWALL, 



WITH AN EPITOME OF THEIR LIVES, AND LIST OF 



CHURCHES AND CHAPELS DEDICATED TO THEM. 



By The Rev. .S. BARING-GOULD, M.A. 



Part IV. Ki—Ma. 



S. KiERAN, Abbot, Confessor. 



There were two Saints of this name, Kieran, of Saighir, and 

 Kieran, of Clonmacnoise. The latter was never out of Ireland. 

 Martyrologists agree in identifying Kieran, of Saighir, with 

 Piran, of Peranzabuloe. 



The period at which the Saint lived has been confused by 

 interested persons for a definite object. At the beginning of the 

 eleventh century, perhaps as late as the twelfth, a desire 

 manifested itself among the chieftains of Munster to have an 

 archbishop of their own ; and to give colour to a demand for 

 one, it was pretended that there had been four bishops in the 

 South of Ireland before the arrival of S. Patrick, and these were 

 Kieran, Ailbe, Declan, and Ibar. Something to this effect was 

 accordingly foisted into their lives. This, however, produced 

 sad anachronisms ; for we know that these four saints belonged to 

 the Second Order, that is to say such as succeeded the mission 

 under S. Patrick. 



According to the garbled Life, Kieran was born in 352, and 

 yet he was made a contemporary of S. Finnian who died two 

 hundred years later. The MartyrologisL of Donegal, confronted 

 by these difficulties, extricated himself by fabling that Kieran 

 lived to the age of three hundred and sixty years.* 



The extraneous matter thrust into his life related that he 

 had studied at Pome, where he met S. Patrick, that he was 

 ordained by Pope Celestine (422-432) and sent to Ireland before 

 S. Patrick received his mission. All this stuff must be eliminated. 

 Kieran's life brought him in contact with Kings, whose period 



♦ Dr. Todd : Life of S. Patrick, 1864, pp. 198-221. 



