OBSCURE SAINTS - St Kevin

MS Royal 13 B VIII, Gerald of Wales' Topographia Hiberniae, England, c.1196-c.1223

The website TV Tropes is one which, like Wikipedia, is easy to venture into, and then find yourself going down a metaphorical rabbit hole.  One of its features is that each trope often has a name drawn from one of  the works which has used it.

One trope is Aerith and Bob – the usage of very common-sounding names amongst more fantastical ones – which creates a sense of dissonance.  Even when justified by the story line (such as a character from the 20^th century being catapulted into a pseudo-medieval fantasy world) if creates a certain degree of dissonance.  It is worth noting that the definition excludes those cases where this is deliberate or a translation convention in the manner of Tolkien's use of different historical languages for different culture.  When reading down a list of medieval saints the appearance of Saint Kevin might produce the same effect.*

St Kevin in this case is a modern Anglicisation of the Old Irish Cóemgen (Caoimhín in Modern Irish) – a name which is latinized as Coemgenus.  St Kevin’s life is not particularly well documented as there are no contemporaneous sources in which he appears.  There is however a Latin Life from the later Middle Ages preserved amongst later records – which appears in the Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae edited together by John Colgan in 1645.  A contemporary of St Cronan of Roscrea – Kevin’s birth date is uncertain (even by medieval standards) but legend places it AD 498 – his death is recorded as being 3^rd June 618 (which is now his saint’s day). His name implies noble birth (translating in Old Irish as ‘fair-begotten’.  There is some suggestion that he was a pupil of St Petroc – but this is not present in the later medieval Life nor in the early modern hagiography.    This long life, give or take ten years, is by no means impossible – the concept that medieval people had very low life expectancies is an unfortunate myth based on a misinterpretation of the evidence.  Firstly the general medieval population is uncertain at best, but secondly calculations of average life expectancy can be lowered ‘artificially’ due to high rates of infant mortality.  There are reliable records of a number of long lived individuals in the medieval period – but it should also be noted that longevity is a frequent element of hagiography – particular of saints who dwell in isolation from the world.  

Another example of a particularly long lived is St Gilbert of Sempringham, the founder of the Gilbertine Order which flourished in England between its foundation in 1130 and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in which began in 1536 – during which time it weathered a number of localised scandals including a dispute within Gilbert’s life time (when he was around 90) which ended in Rome upon a judgement from Pope Alexander III.  Given these examples it is on balance possible that St Kevin lived a long life – but there is no real certainty of just how long.

 

St Kevin lived as a hermit in a Bronze Age tomb now referred to as St Kevin’s Bed, cut into a mountain in what is modern day County Wicklow, Ireland.  A monastic community at Glendalough – the surrounding area – grew up and was apparently well established by AD 540.  St Kevin is described as a famous, but as with many medieval hermits, reluctant teacher – and once his community was established he retreated into solitude again.  St Kevin is described as having visited St Columba and St Comgall, amongst others, in AD 544 in what is modern Westmeath – however this is unlikely.  An outbreak of some form of disease had caused this particular group to disperse, and Columba had returned to Ulster in this year – so while it may be possible, it is unlikely that St Columba was present.   

The tomb in which St Kevin lived was later used by St Lawrence O'Toole (Lorcán Ua Tuathail), in the twelfth century.  St Lawrence came to prominence within the news media outside Ireland when in March 2012 the relic of his heart was stolen in mysterious circumstances from Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin and again when in 2018 when it was returned under equally mysterious circumstances.  To date (2020) the case is still classed as open and ongoing.  

St Kevin was canonised by Pope Pius X in 1903 – and to most modern audiences outside Ireland is probably known only from passing references in the work of James Joyce, and the poem 'St Kevin and the Blackbird', by Seamus Heaney.  Heaney’s poem recounters one of the more colourful episodes in the Saint’s life – in which, while the saint is at prayer for long hours a blackbird build a nest in his outstretched hand, which he continued to hold there until the blackbird’s young are grown enough to move on.  You can listen to Heaney’s reading of the poem here.

(*) On a personal note – this gave me a mental image of a puppet Gerbil dressed as a monk – which is a 1980s breakfast television reference which might be familiar to British audiences – and mind boggling to everyone else, for which I apologise.