Ibar from Beggerin

Ibar von Beggerin in a stained glass of the pilgrimage church in Lady's Island

Ibar von Beggerin ( Ibar mac Lugna , Latinized Iberius ; † April 23, 502 in Beggerin (Beigéirinn), County Wexford ) was one of the first Irish bishops. He worked in Patrick's lifetime , but independently of him. Possibly he belonged together with Ailbhe von Emly, Ciarán von Seirkieran and Déaglán von Ardmore to the Irish priests who were already involved in the missionary work before Patrick . He is venerated to this day in County Wexford, where numerous churches are dedicated to him. His feast day is April 23.

Written certificates

The death of Ibar is mentioned in the annals of Ulster , the annals of Tigernach , in the Chronicon Scotorum and in the annals of the four masters , each with the day of death. As McCarthy has shown with several examples, entries from this period in the annals can be regarded as reliable. Both the Martyrology of Tallaght and the Martyrology of Oengus , both written between 828 and 833, name Ibar for April 23rd. The martyrology of Oengus has extensive glosses that identify Ibar as the son of Lughna and thus belonging to the Uí Eachach clan , who lived in the east of what is now County Down , and reports of a conflict with Patrick. According to the anecdote, Ibar left empty storerooms when he left Armagh, heavily laden. Patrick had then told him not to stay in Ériu (Ireland), to which Ibar replied that Ériu should be the name of the place where he would settle. And accordingly he called his establishment on a small island in the Bay of Wexford Becc-Ériu ( Old Irish for "Little Ireland" neuirisch Beigéirinn , anglicised Beggerin ). However, Culleton expresses the suspicion that this anecdote could also have its origin in Armagh’s desire to enforce Patrick’s claim to leadership over the other ecclesiastical centers in Ireland, which also had early bishops.

Two vitae have been handed down for Ibar. The shorter and earlier vita can be found in the Book of Leinster . This gives genealogical information, goes into his birth and mentions his teacher, Mochta von Louth. She confirms Ibar as the son of Lughna, but assigns the family to the Dál nAraidhe clan, whose territory was north of that of the Uí Eachach.

The second and much longer version was lost for a long time. It was known to the Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher , who published an extract from it in 1639. The text was passed on to Henry FitzSimon, who converted to Catholicism, became a Jesuit and passed the text on to the Jesuit brother Jean Bolland in Antwerp . To the Bollandists , however, the vita appeared to be too implausible, so that it disappeared in the archives and from there was later included in the Royal Library of Belgium as part of the Collectanea Bollandiana . It was not until three centuries later that the text was rediscovered by the Jesuit Paul Grosjean and published in the Analecta Bollandiana in 1959 . It was translated into English in 1999 by Edward Culleton. This Vita also names Lughna as the father and Mochta of Louth as the teacher.

Ibar is also mentioned in other vitae. Particularly relevant is the inclusion in the Vita des Declán von Ardmore, which Ibar counts as one of the missionaries alongside Ailbhe von Emly, Ciarán von Seirkieran and Declán who were already active in Ireland before Patrick's missionary work. Ibar is also mentioned in Emly's Vita des Ailbhe, where Ibar recognizes Ailbhe's priority, although Ailbhe is younger. Common to the vitae of the early missionaries in the south of Ireland is the portrayal that the missionaries submitted to Patrick's authority after an initial conflict. According to Ailbhe's vita, Ailbhe and Ibar met Patrick in Cashel . Since these vitae did not emerge until very late in the 11th or 12th century, they can also be seen as an attempt to reconcile the traditions based on these early missionaries with the supremacy of Armagh. In principle, based on the state of knowledge, this can neither be excluded nor refuted. What I think is true, however, is that they were all missionaries in the second half of the fifth century.

Life

The year of Ibar's birth is not known. According to some annals, he lived to be a fantastic 303 years old. According to the shorter vita, he was 93 years old. Both Vitae agree that he was the eldest son of a large family. Two of the sons, Mo-Beóóc and Coemán Brecc, also found their way into the martyrology of Oengus , although the assignment is not clear in Coemán Brecc. Mo-Beóóc is mentioned with December 16 as a memorial day; There are several entries for the name Coemán, one of which mentions Ibar by name, but does not indicate that they are brothers.

The hagiographies consistently mention Mochta of Louth as a teacher. Mochta is considered to be a pupil of Patrick, who, like Patrick, came from Britain, which was still dominated by the Romans, according to the hagiography of Columban , which was created at the end of the 7th century . According to the Ulster annals, Mochta did not die until August 19, 533, thirty years after Ibar's death. Christianization crossed Hadrian's Wall in the fifth century and reached the region in Galloway , from where Antrim and Down were easily accessible via the Irish Sea . Louth, which was in the immediate vicinity, developed early as an ecclesiastical center that was to last for centuries and became Augustinian in the 12th century .

A cross stone and rock with signs of the cross by Beggerin in a mid-19th century drawing by George Victor Du Noyer

According to the longer Vita, Ibar first proselytized in Meath , where he baptized the king and numerous other people . As its only foundation, however, only Beggerin has come down to us. In Ibar's lifetime, it was an island in Wexford Bay that gave him and his students an isolated and protected location. It is the earliest and most important foundation in the territory of the Uí Chennselaig, although there are indications that Christianization could also have taken place from Wales . According to one of the vitae for Abbán von Adamstown, Abbán was a nephew of Ibar and was one of his students in Beggerin.

After his death, Ibar was buried under a large flat stone in Beggerin. A monastery was then built in Beggerin, which remained there until 1160. A flat cross stone and a rock with a sign of the cross are still preserved. However, they are now in the Enniscorthy County Museum and the National Museum of Ireland .

Adoration

Ruins of the pilgrimage church dedicated to Ibar in Lady's Island

Even after the monastery was dissolved, Beggerin remained a place where Ibar was worshiped. Remains of a church built in the 13th century can still be seen there. In 1400 it fell into the possession of the Augustinian Canons of Selskar Monastery in Wexford. An English officer's report from 1682 mentions a small wooden chapel with a wooden statue of Ibar. In the city ​​of Wexford , founded by the Vikings on the bay, there is evidence of a community dedicated to Ibar even before the Anglo-Norman invasion in the 12th century. The Anglican Church in Wexford, built around 1764 and still in existence today, is also dedicated to Ibar.

Two other churches dedicated to Ibar can be found in the pilgrimage parish of Lady's Island in south Wexford. The Augustinian Canons from Ferns built a pilgrimage church dedicated to Ibar on the peninsula of the lake in the Middle Ages, of which only one gable has survived. At the northern tip of the lake are the ruins of a parish church dedicated to Ibar.

literature

• Richard Sharpe: Medieval Irish Saints' Lives: An Introduction to Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1991, ISBN 0-19-821582-7 .
• James F. Kenney : The Sources for the Early History of Ireland: Ecclesiastical . 2nd Edition. Four Courts Press, Dublin 1997, ISBN 1-85182-115-5 .
• Edward Culleton: Celtic and Early Christian Wexford . Four Courts Press, Dublin 1999, ISBN 1-85182-515-0 , pp. 81-96 .
• Pádraig Ó Riain: A Dictionary of Irish Saints . Four Courts Press, Dublin 2011, ISBN 978-1-84682-318-3 , pp. 381-382 .

Web links

Commons : Saint Ibar  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

1. ↑ Culleton, p. 85; the year of death is documented by the entry M500.2 in the annals of the four masters ; the year has been corrected according to the tables by Daniel P. Mc Carthy .
2. ^ Culleton, p. 81.
3. ↑ Culleton, p. 84; Ó Riain, p. 382.
4. ^ Culleton, p. 85.
5. ^ ^{A b} Whitley Stokes (Ed.): The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee . Henry Bradshaw Society, London 1905, p. 108 .
6. ↑ Entry U500.2
7. ↑ Entry T502.2.
8. ↑ Entry CS500
9. ↑ Entry M500.2
10. ^ DP Mc Carthy: The Irish Annals: Their genesis, evolution and history . Four Courts Press, Dublin 2008, ISBN 978-1-84682-048-9 , pp. 159-163 .
11. ↑ Pádraig Ó Riain: Feastdays of the Saints: A History of Irish Martyrologies . Société des Bollandistes, Brussels 2006, ISBN 2-87365-018-4 , p. 1 .
12. ↑ JBL Tolhurst (ed.): The Martyrology of Tallaght . Henry Bradshaw Society, London 1927, p. 35 .
13. ↑ Culleton, p. 84; Ó Riain, p. 381.
14. ^ Whitley Stokes (Ed.): The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee . Henry Bradshaw Society, London 1905, p. 119 .
15. ^ Culleton, p. 84.
16. ^ Culleton, p. 81.
17. ^ Culleton, p. 86; Ó Riain, p. 381.
18. ↑ Culleton, pp. 81-82; Sharpe, pp. 375-379, 394; Codex 7773, folio 550-551; in the new numbering Codex 3444, see p. 430 in Tome V: Histoire - Hagiographie - (nos3047-3594) ( Memento of the original from October 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 32.7 MB) of the Catalog des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique . 
19. ↑ Culleton, pp. 89-96.
20. ↑ Culleton, p. 84; Kenney, pp. 310, 313, 315; Sharpe, pp. 115-116.
21. ↑ Ó Riain, p. 382. Entry M500.3
22. ^ Culleton, p. 86.
23. ↑ Culleton, pp. 86, 92.
24. ^ Whitley Stokes (Ed.): The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee . Henry Bradshaw Society, London 1905, p. 261 .
25. ↑ Culleton, p. 87; June 12 gloss: Whitley Stokes (Ed.): The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee . Henry Bradshaw Society, London 1905, p. 149 .
26. ↑ Ó Riain, pp. 465-466; Entry U535.1; The year has been corrected according to McCarthy's tables; Adomnán of Iona: Life of St Columba . Ed .: Richard Sharpe. Penguin, London 1995, ISBN 0-14-044462-9 , pp. 55, 244-245 .
27. ^ TM Charles-Edwards: Early Christian Ireland . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 0-521-03716-6 , pp. 185-186 .
28. ^ Aubrey Gwynn , R. Neville Hadcock: Medieval Religious Houses in Ireland . Longman, London 1970, ISBN 0-582-11229-X , pp. 185-186 .
29. ^ Culleton, p. 83.
30. ^ Culleton, p. 143.
31. ↑ Billy Colfer: Wexford: A Town and its Landscape . Cork University Press, Cork 2008, ISBN 978-1-85918-429-5 , pp. 24 .
32. ^ Culleton, p. 98.
33. ^ Culleton, p. 86.
34. ^ Aubrey Gwynn , R. Neville Hadcock: Medieval Religious Houses in Ireland . Longman, London 1970, ISBN 0-582-11229-X , pp. 30 .
35. ↑ Michael J. Moore: Archaeological Inventory of County Wexford . Stationery Office, Dublin 1996, ISBN 0-7076-2326-X , pp. 117 .
36. ^ Culleton, p. 144.
37. ↑ Billy Colfer: Wexford: A Town and its Landscape . Cork University Press, Cork 2008, ISBN 978-1-85918-429-5 , pp. 33 .
38. ↑ Michael J. Moore: Archaeological Inventory of County Wexford . Stationery Office, Dublin 1996, ISBN 0-7076-2326-X , pp. 133, 135 .