St Finbarr (560-610) patron of the diocese of Cork
The
tradition is that Finbar was from Inchigeela and lived as a hermit at
Gougane Barra, in west Cork.
When disciples gathered round him, he moved
his monastic settlement to the mouth of the Lee, where the present city
of Cork grew up.
Origin of his name
Several Lives of the saint were written. According to these, the saint's original name was Lóchán,
but when he went as a young man to be tonsured as a monk for the first
time, the man shaving his head said: "The hair of this servant of God is
beautiful."
Another said: "You have spoken well, because his name will
be changed and he shall be called Finn-barr, that is 'beautiful hair',
from the beautiful head he offered in sacrifice to God."
So he was
called Finbarr by some and Barra by others, Barra being generally used
in the Irish language.
Monastic community at Gougane Barra
He was the
son of a metal-worker and probably he trained in monastic school and was
ordained.
Finbarr founded a number of schools, one at Loch Irce, a
beautiful place at the source of the River Lee, and now called Gougane
Barra (Guagán in Irish means "little fissure").
He did not
hesitate to join in the manual work of constructing the buildings for
his community.
Cork
When disciples gathered round him, he moved
on to make a foundation at Cork, round which a town later developed and
the Vikings made a port.
The motto for University College, Cork, is
"Where Finbarr taught, let Munster learn".
Finbarr's monastery was probably sited near where the Church of
Ireland Cathedral of St Finbarr stands today. He is said to have died,
not in Cork but in Cloyne.
Influence in Scotland
There are also many places
in Scotland that have the name Barra, but this is probably more due to
journeys made by Finbarr's disciples than to journeys by himself.
An alias of Finian of Movilla?
Pádraig Ó Riain, the scholar who has translated all the Lives
and done most research on this saint, believes Finbarr of Cork is an
alias of Finian of Movilla.
He believes he was born and reared in an
Irish colony on the west coast of Britain, that he came to Movilla, on
Strangford Lough, that because of his reputation a penitential was named
after him and that Colmcille came to study with him, when he was
already an old man.
The question then is: How did he come to be
established in Cork?