O'Reilly — Old Churches of Dalkeij Toun and Inland. 20''3 



"The so-called Ring Money in reference to many specimens in tlio 

 possession of the Right Hon. the Earl of Londeshorough, and more 

 •especially an Irish one with a movable Swivel Ring" (read Monday, 

 December 8th, 1862). In it, it is stated : " St. Bega was the patroness 

 of St. Eees in Cumberland, where she left a holy bracelet, which was 

 long an object of profound veneration." A small collection of her 

 miracles, written in the twelfth century, is extant, and has been 

 published. In the prefatory statement of the compiler, we learn, 

 among other things, "that whosoever foreswore himself upon her 

 bracelet swiftly incurred the heaviest punishment of perjury or a speedy 

 death." [May there not be some possible relation between the Greek 

 Cross on the rock in front of the church on Dalkey Island and this 

 swearing on St. Bega's bracelet ?] 



In Butler's " Lives of the Saints," under Sej^temher 6th, St. Bega, 

 or Bees, V., it is said : " She was a holy virgin, who flourished about the 

 middle of the seventh century, led an anchoritical life, and afterwards 

 founded a nunnery in Copeland near Carlisle. Her shrine was kept 

 there after her death, and became famous for pilgrims. There is in 

 Scotland a place called Kilbees from her name, according to a note 

 of Thomas Innis on the Manuscript Calendar kept in the Scotch 

 College of Paris." (See Alford Annal., t. 2, p. 294. Monasticon 

 Angles. Suysken, t. 2, September, p. 694. Note : " She is honoured on 

 the S2nd November under the name of St. Bees.") 



It may not be out of place to cite from Montalembert's " Monks of the 

 "West," vol. v., p. 247, where he speaks of her : " She was, according 

 to the legend, the daughter of an Irish King, the most beautiful woman 

 in the country, and already asked in marriage by the son of the King of 

 liTorway. But she had vowed herself, from her tenderest infancy, to 

 the spouse of virgins, and had received from an angel, as a seal of her 

 • celestial betrothal, a bracelet marked with the sign of the cross. She 

 escaped alone with nothing but her bracelet which the angel had 

 given her, threw herself into a skiff, and landed on the opposite shore 

 in Northumbria, where she lived long in a cell in the midst of the 

 woods. Fear of the pirates, who infested these coasts, led her after a 

 while further inland. What became of her? Here the confusion, 

 which is so general in the debatable ground between legend and 

 history, becomes nearly inextricable. (P. 250) What is certain, 

 however, is that a virgin of the name of Bega figures among the 

 most well-known and long venerated saints of the north-west of 

 England. In the twelfth century, the famous bracelet which the 

 . angel had given her was regarded with tender veneration ; the pious 



