Saint Maelisa Ua Brolchain
Saint Maelisa Ua Brolchain, also known as Mael Ísu Ua Brolcháin, was a significant figure in Irish literature and ecclesiastical history.
Born around 970, he was a member of a high-class ecclesiastical family in County Donegal. He was educated at the monastery of Both Chonais and became a cleric and teacher in Armagh. His works include the poem "To an Elderly Virgin" and the Latin and Irish hymn "Deus Meus Adiuva Me." He is remembered as the chief sage of Ireland and is noted for his asceticism and strict devotion.
Maelisa Ua Brolchain passed away in 1086, leaving behind a legacy of scholarship and piety.
Ua Brolcháin, Máel-Ísu
Ua Brolcháin, Máel-Ísu (d. 1086), author and ecclesiastic, was a member of the Uí Brolcháin, which produced several important Armagh churchmen in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. According to John Colgan (qv), he was educated at the monastery of Both Chonais (in the parish of Culdaff, Co. Donegal). He became a cleric and teacher in Armagh and later coarb (successor to the founder) of the monastic church there. If we may judge by his poetry, he led a life marked by asceticism and strict devotion. At least eight poems, in both Irish and Latin, can be attributed to him; it is very likely (in the light of recent research) that he also redacted the body of bilingual homiletic literature preserved in the Leabhar Breac, in which case his status as a scholar must be considerably enhanced.
In his latter years, he left Armagh and undertook a journey to the monastery of Lismore, Co. Waterford, where he died on the feast of St Fursa (qv), 16 January 1086. His death is noted in the annals, martyrologies, and calendars. His obit in the Annals of the Four Masters described him as ‘the senior scholar of Ireland, learned in wisdom, in piety, and in poetry in both languages’. Máel-Ísu was the first of many of the Ua Brolcháin family to merit mention in the Irish annals. His genealogy describes him as a cleric; unusually for his time, he was probably celibate, since there is no evidence that he left any offspring.
O'Brien, Corpus geneal. Hib., 146 d15 (= Lec 56 vb 16 = BB 72 b21); Bibliotheca Sanctorum 8 (1967), 482–3 (M. Salsano); M. Ní Bhrolcháin, ‘Maol Íosa Ó Brolcháin: an assessment’, Seanchas Ardmhacha, xii (1986–7), 43–67; idem, Maol Íosa Ó Brolcháin (1986), esp. 13–20; M. Ní Bhrolcháin, ‘Máel-Ísu Ua Brolcháin’, S. Duffy (ed.), Medieval Ireland: an encyclopedia (2005), 307–8
Mael Ísu Ua Brolcháin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Mael Ísu Ua Brolcháin (died 1086), Irish churchman and writer.
Biography
A member of a high-class ecclesiastical family in what is now County Donegal, "genealogical sources give his father as Máel Brigte and his three brothers as Áed, Diarmait, and Muirecan."
Besides holding a number of benefices and wielding considerable political influence, he was the author of the poem To an Elderly Virgin. He died as a member of the religious community of Armagh in 1086, recorded as being the chief sage of Ireland.
Members of his lineage served as Bishop of Derry.
Works
His best-known work is a Latin and Irish hymn, Deus Meus Adiuva Me.[1] Here are the modern Irish lyrics. For a translation by Professor Gerard Murphy of this well-loved piece see link below:
Deus meus adiuva me
Tabhair dom do shearch, a Mhic ghil Dé
Tabhair dom do shearch, a Mhic ghil Dé
Deus meus adiuva me.
Domine da quod peto a te,
Tabhair dom go dian a ghrian ghlan ghlé,
Tabhair dom go dian a ghrian ghlan ghlé,
Domine da quod peto a te.
Domine, Domine, exaudi me,
M’anam bheith lán de d’ghrá, a Dhé,
M’anam bheith lán de d’ghrá, a Dhé,
Domine, Domine exaudi me.
For translation see Deus Meus, Adiuva Me and live version sung with harp
References
- Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin - Deus Meus, Adiuva Me http://omniumsanctorumhiberniae.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/mael-isu-ua-brolchain-deus-meus-adiuva.html
Sources
- pp. 48–50; 396, The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse, edited, with translations, by Thomas Kinsella, 1986.
Mael Ísu Ua Brolcháin - Explained
Mael Ísu Ua Brolcháin (died 1086), Irish churchman and writer.
Biography
A member of a high-class ecclesiastical family in what is now County Donegal, "genealogical sources give his father as Máel Brigte and his three brothers as Áed, Diarmait, and Muirecan."
Besides holding a number of benefices and wielding considerable political influence, he was the author of the poem To an Elderly Virgin. He died as a member of the religious community of Armagh in 1086, recorded as being the chief sage of Ireland.
Members of his lineage served as Bishop of Derry.
Works
His best-known work is a Latin and Irish hymn, Deus Meus Adiuva Me. Here are the modern Irish lyrics. For a translation by Professor Gerard Murphy of this well-loved piece see link below:
Deus meus adiuva meTabhair dom do shearch, a Mhic ghil DéTabhair dom do shearch, a Mhic ghil DéDeus meus adiuva me.
Domine da quod peto a te,Tabhair dom go dian a ghrian ghlan ghlé,Tabhair dom go dian a ghrian ghlan ghlé,Domine da quod peto a te.
Domine, Domine, exaudi me,M’anam bheith lán de d’ghrá, a Dhé,M’anam bheith lán de d’ghrá, a Dhé,Domine, Domine exaudi me.
For translation see Deus Meus, Adiuva Me and live version sung with harp
Sources
- pp. 48–50; 396, The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse, edited, with translations, by Thomas Kinsella, 1986.
Notes and References
Saint Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin, January 16
Saint Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin, January 16
Written by
in
This saint is both a poet and a scholar, who died in 1086. I knew the name of Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin in connection with a hymn in Latin and Irish Deus meus, adiuva me which I am pleased to say still features in Irish hymnals today. I have posted a translation of it here. I did not know, however, that its author also featured on the Irish calendars of the saints, so I am delighted to bring a short essay on Saint Máel Ísu’s life and works from a latter-day daughter of the Ua Brolcháin clan, Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin:
Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin (d.1086)
Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin was a religious poet from Donegal who was a member of the Armagh community. His death in Lismore is mentioned in the Annals of Innisfallen in 1086. He is recognized as one of the primary poets of his age, and there is a full-page account of his life and family in the 16th-century Acta Sanctorum by Colgan. He was educated in the monastery of Both Chonais, Gleenely, beside the present-day Culdaff, Co. Donegal. His death is mentioned in all major annals, but the Annals of the Four Masters give a longer notice than others:
The senior scholar of Ireland, learned in wisdom, in piety and in poetry of both languages. So great was his erudition and scholarship that he himself wrote books and compositions of wisdom and intellect. His spirit ascended into heaven on the 16th of January, as is said: On the sixteenth of January/on the night of fair Fursa’s feast,/Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin perished/Oh! Who lives to whom this was not a great distress.
His Work
The manuscript sources attribute eight poems to Máel Ísu. Scholars mention him as the possible author of four further compositions. Fr. F. Mac Donncha suggested that he may also be the author of the Passions and Homilies because he was well educated with a deep knowledge of the scriptures and of Latin and had access to an extensive library. The content of his poems reflect the concerns of his age, the secularization of the church and the budding reform. He composed devotional, personal prayers as well as didactic poems that reflect the beliefs and teaching of the Céilí Dé (Culdees) in preaching restraint, fasting, continence and study as a way of life. He prays directly to the Trinity, to St Michael, and to God himself, using his poetry as a vehicle for religious teaching and for personal prayer. Some of the poetry may be directed at his students. Dia hAine ní longu says: ‘You eat/as for me, I shall fast,/on account of fire which water does not extinguish/and cold which heat does not quench.’ He may have moved to Lismore in search of the reforming spirit that was absent in the secular world of Armagh.
The lorica, A choim diu, nom chomet, seeks protection from the eight deadly sins for eight parts of the body: eyes, ears, tongue, heart, stomach, male organ, hands and feet. The sins associated with each are outlined, for example: ‘Protect my ears so that I do not listen to scandal, so that I do not listen to the foolishness of the evil world’ and he continues: ‘Do not allow me to fall into the principal sins of the eminent, reputed eight, Christ come to me, to hunt them, to defeat them.’ In this he follows the teachings of the Penitentials as he does in his longest poem Ocht n-eric na nDualach that treats the eight vices. Some five or six stanzas are given over to each vice and to its cure, for example: ‘Greed- what it does is/to force miserliness upon you:/ a craving for all things,/pillage, plunder and robbery,/The sole cure is contempt for the dark world,/being in continual poverty/without acquiring wealth.
Muireann Ní Brolcháin, Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin (d.1086), in S. Duffy, ed., Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia (CRC Press, 2005), 307-308.Canon O’Hanlon also has an entry for this great poet-saint. He tells us of a County Donegal parish which claimed Ua Brolcháin as its patron:
‘The patron saint of the parish of Cloncha, in Inishowen, was always regarded as being the present Maelisa Ua Brolchain. In this parish, there stood an ancient monastery, known as Temple Moyle, or Tapal Moule. An old graveyard, surrounded by a stone wall, with an iron gate entrance, is found at this place. We find recorded in the Martyrologies of Marianus O’Gorman and of Donegal, at the 16th day of January, Maelisa Ua Brolchain. On the seventeenth of the calends of February, he resigned his spirit to heaven, as stated in this quatrain:
” On the Seventeenth of the calends of February,
The night of fair Fursa’s festival,
Died Maelisa Ua Brolchain,
But, however, not of a heavy severe fit.”
This account seems to convey, that he ended life by a process of natural decline, and that he expired without much suffering. It is likely he attained an advanced age. The Annals of Clonmacnoise, at A.D. 1084, have recorded his death. The year 1086 was that of his decease, according to the Annals of Ulster and of the Four Masters. ‘
I am left with a picture of a saint who was very much a representative of the old penitential traditions of the Irish church and of its love of learning and scholarship. Yet he lived at a time of change, the Great Schism between east and west occurred in his lifetime and the church reforms he sought would come a century after his death. But Saint Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin has not been forgotten. Apart from the survival of his hymn Deus Meus, adiuva me, now sung in modern Irish and Latin, a number of his poems have been translated by twentieth-century scholars and I will post a selection of these in the future.
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Saint Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin
Biographical Overview:
- Name: Máel-Ísu Ua Brolcháin (anglicized as Mael Ísu Ua Brolcháin)
- Death: 1086 CE
- Origin: A member of a prominent ecclesiastical family in what is now County Donegal, Ireland
- Family: Son of Máel Brigte, with brothers Áed, Diarmait, and Muirecan; members of his lineage later served as Bishops of Derry
- Education: Likely educated at the monastery of Both Chonais, parish of Culdaff, County Donegal
- Religious Life: Cleric and teacher in Armagh, later became coarb (successor to the founder) of the monastic church at Armagh; lived a life of asceticism and strict devotion
- Celibacy: Probably celibate, as there is no record of offspring
Ecclesiastical Recognition:
- Recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters as “senior scholar of Ireland, learned in wisdom, in piety, and in poetry in both languages (Irish and Latin)”
- His death noted in multiple annals, martyrologies, and calendars
- Known as an influential member of the Uí Brolcháin family, the first to merit mention in the Irish annals
Literary and Scholarly Contributions:
- Poetry:
- Author of at least eight poems in Irish and Latin
- Notable work: To an Elderly Virgin, reflecting devotional and moralistic themes
- Composed an invocation to the Archangel Michael, preserved in manuscripts such as Laud Misc. 610 and YBL, consisting of nine stanzas in treochair metre
- Hymns:
- Authored the bilingual Latin-Irish hymn “Deus Meus Adiuva Me” (Latin: Deus meus adiuva me, Domine da quod peto a te; Irish: Tabhair dom do shearch, a Mhic ghil Dé)
- Hymn demonstrates both theological depth and literary skill, often performed with harp accompaniment in modern reconstructions
- Redaction:
- Likely contributed to redacting bilingual homiletic literature preserved in the Leabhar Breac, one of the most important medieval Irish manuscripts
Later Life and Death:
- In his later years, he traveled to the monastery of Lismore, County Waterford, where he passed away on 16 January 1086, on the feast day of St Fursa
Summary of Significance:
Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin represents a confluence of ecclesiastical influence, literary achievement, and scholastic authority in 11th-century Ireland. His bilingual works, devotional poetry, and contributions to manuscript transmission highlight the intellectual vibrancy of the Irish monastic tradition in this period.
Selected Works and Attributions:
- Deus Meus Adiuva Me (bilingual hymn)
- To an Elderly Virgin (poem)
- Invocation to Archangel Michael (poetic prayer)
- Possible redaction work in Leabhar Breac
References for Further Study:
- Wikipedia: Mael Ísu Ua Brolcháin
- Dictionary of Irish Biography
- JSTOR: The Alliterative Structure of Mael Ísu Ua Brolcháin’s Invocation
This compilation integrates biographical, literary, and ecclesiastical data to provide a comprehensive overview of Saint Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin’s life and legacy.