Saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

Damnat (; also known as Davnet or Dymphna) was a

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...

who seems to have lived and died at

Tydavnet Tydavnet, officially Tedavnet (), is a village in northern County Monaghan, Ireland, and also the name of the townland and civil parish in which the village sits. Both the Church of Ireland and Catholic church have Tydavnet named as a parish ...

(from ''Tech nDamnat'', meaning "House of Damnat") at

Sliabh Beagh Slieve Beagh () is a mountainous area straddling the border between County Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland and County Fermanagh and County Tyrone in Northern Ireland. A point just east of its summit is the highest point in Monaghan; however ...

County Monaghan County Monaghan ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is part of Border Region, Border strategic planning area of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town ...

, Ireland.Charles-Edwards, T.M., "Ulster, saints of (act. c.400–c.650)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2007, accessed 31 Oct 2014
/ref> Tradition speaks of Saint Damnat as a virgin and the founder of a church or

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

, which is generally considered to have been located in the graveyard of the current village Catholic church. A ''bachall'' (staff) said to have belonged to her has been preserved; in the past, it was used as a lie detector. It is now in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. She is sometimes confused with

Dymphna Dymphna (also Dimpna, Dymfna, Dimfna, Dympna and Dympha, Irish also Damhnait or Davnet) is a Christian saint honoured in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox traditions. According to tradition, she lived in the 7th century an ...

, the saint of Geel in Flanders, since John Colgan identified them as the same person in the mid-seventeenth century. Both George Petrie and John O’Donovan of the antiquities division of the Ordnance Survey c.1830/40s doubted the link between the two names."St. Dympna's Holy Well", Tydavnet Village Community Centre
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Damnat Ancient Christian female saints 5th-century Irish nuns 5th-century Christian nuns 6th-century Christian saints 6th-century Irish people Female saints of medieval Ireland Medieval saints of Ulster People from County Monaghan Religion in County Monaghan 5th-century Christian saints Christian female saints of the Middle Ages 6th-century Irish nuns 6th-century Christian nuns Medieval Irish saints