St Macartan of Clogher (d.506) bishop
Tréanfhear of Patrick
Macartan (Aedh MacCairthinn)
was a convert from paganism. He is said to have gone south from his
home in the north to hear Patrick preach and that their first meeting
took place at Drumlease, near Dromahair, County Leitrim. Soon Patrick
baptised him and Macartan became Patrick's companion and bodyguard.
Because of this, he became known as the "strong man" (tréanfhear)
of Patrick.
When Patrick became worn out by his labours, Macartan would
carry him on his broad shoulders across rivers and over rough ground.
Bishop of Clogher
An ancient life of St Macartan
tells the story that as Patrick was crossing a stream at the druidic
stronghold of Clogher, Macartan, his strong man, groaned exclaiming:
"Ugh! Ugh!"
"Upon my good word," said Patrick, "it has become not usual with you now to be making that noise."
"I am now old and infirm," said Macartan, "and all my early
companions in mission-work you have settled down in their respective
churches, while I am still travelling."
"Found a church then," said Patrick, "that shall not be too near us
(at Armagh) for familiarity, nor too far from us for communication."
And that is how Patrick made Macartan bishop of Clogher.
The diocese
Macartan preached the gospel in
Tyrone and Fermanagh.
He died in the year 506 from natural causes and is
thought to have been buried at Clogher.
There are two cathedrals of the
Church of Ireland in the Clogher diocese - one in Clogher village and
one in Enniskillen.
In post-Emancipation times, a great Catholic
cathedral designed by architect J. J. McCarthy was built high on a hill
above Monaghan town between 1864 and 1892.
The diocese of Clogher of
which St Marartan is the patron, includes County Monaghan, most of
County Fermanagh and portions of Counties Tyrone, Donegal, Louth and
Cavan.
The Golden Stone (Cloch-Ór)
The Cloch-Ór
(Golden Stone), from which this ancient diocese takes its name, may
have been a ceremonial or oracle stone originally covered in gold sacred
to the druids, and called the Cermand Cestach.
It is said to
have been given to Macartan by an old pagan noble, who had harassed him
in every possible way until the saint's patient love won the local ruler
to the faith.
The stone is preserved till today inside the Church of
Ireland Cathedral in Clogher village, Co Tyrone.
The Domhnach Airgid
Patrick is also
reputed to have left a reliquary called the Great Shrine of St Macartan
containing a fragment of the True Cross, known as the Domhnach Airgid. This is now preserved in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.
Fortis et fidelis
The spirituality of
Macartan is evoked in the crest and motto of the diocesan secondary
school for boys on the outskirts of Monaghan town.
The crest is a cross
and Celtic shield and, underneath, the motto of the College, Fortis et fidelis, recalls
St Paul's advice in 1 Cor 16:13: "Be firm in the faith, brave and
strong".
The words occur in one of the last letters of Father Cornelius Tierney,
a former student and priest-teacher in St. Macartan's, and later a
Columban missionary who died a prisoner of Communist guerillas in China
in 1931.