ST JARLATH, BISHOP - 26 DECEMBER

SAINT JARLATH, FIRST BISHOP OF TUAM IN IRELAND, CONFESSOR

Saint Jarlath flourished about the beginning of the sixth century, and is not to be confounded with Jarlath, archbishop of Armagh, who was a disciple of St Patrick, an Ulsterman, and the son of Trien.

Our St Jarlath was a Connaughtman, of the family of Cormac, and was educated from his youth under Binen or Benignus, archbishop of Armagh, by whom he was promoted to holy orders.

Leaving this great master, he retired to Cluainfois, a solitary place in Conmacne, now in the county of Galway, near Tuam.

HE FOUNDED A MONASTERY

Here he founded a monastery which retained this name, and is now a chapel within the parish of Tuam. In this monastery St Jarlath opened a famous school, to which numbers flocked for education in piety and learning, among whom the great St Brendan, abbot of Clonfert, and St Colman, first bishop of Cluain-Uamha, or Cloyne, laid the foundation of their eminent virtue under the discipline of St Jarlath.

Our saint was called from this employment to be consecrated first bishop of Tuam, anciently called Tuaim-da-Gualan, which church was afterwards dedicated in his memory, and called Tempull-Jarlaith, or Jarlaith’s church.

HE DIED FULL OF DAYS ABOUT A.D. 540

He died full of days on December 26, about the year 540. His bones were afterwards placed in a silver shrine, and deposited in a church at Tuam, called from thence Tempull-na-Scrin, that is, church of the shrine. His chief festival was kept at Tuam on June 6, the day of the translation of his relics.

THE ARCHBISHOPRIC

Some bishops of this see were styled metropolitans, and archbishops of Connaught. At length it was regularly erected into an archbishopric, with the concession of a pall in 1152.

Two other sees were afterwards united to this of Tuam, first, that of Enaghdune, reduced to a parish under Tuam, by a union of the sees in the fourteenth century; and second, that of Mayo, founded by St Gerald, an English-Saxon, who accompanied St Colman from Lindisfarne into Ireland.

St Colman erected a monastery at Mayo for his English-Saxon followers, called from them "Mayo of the Saxons". St Gerald, who is honoured on March 13, enlarged this monastery, and erected it into a bishopric about the year 685. The see of Mayo was united to Tuam in 1560.

Source: Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Saint Jarlath may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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