Saint Finian the Leper () was an early Irish saint credited by some sources with founding a church and monastery at

Innisfallen Innisfallen ( ) or Inishfallen (from , meaning 'Faithlinn's island') is an island in Lough Leane; one of the three Lakes of Killarney in County Kerry, Ireland. Innisfallen is home to the ruins of Innisfallen Abbey. Geography Innisfallen ...

Killarney Killarney ( ; , meaning 'church of sloes') is a town in County Kerry, southwestern Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is on the northeastern shore of Lough Leane, part of Killarney National Park, and is home to St Mary's Cathedral, Killar ...

Life

Saint Finian was a disciple of

St. Columba Columba () or Colmcille (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission. He founded the important abbey ...

. He was a strict Irish abbot, whose monks followed a

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...

diet. For a period of time in the 7th century, he was the leader of the monastery at

Clonmore, County Carlow Clonmore () is a village, civil parish and townland in County Carlow, Ireland. It is located 3½ miles south of Hacketstown and 9 miles east of Tullow in the north-east corner of County Carlow. History Clonmore was named after St Mogue (not to ...

, later becoming

the abbot ''The Abbot'' (1820) is a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, one of the Waverley novels. A sequel to ''The Monastery'', its action takes place in 1567 and 1568. It reaches its climax in the escape of Mary, Queen of Scots from Lochleven Cast ...

of Swords Abbey near

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

. He may have returned to Clonmore in his later years, and was called ''Lobhar'', "The Leper". Following the custom, he acquired the name when he contracted leprosy from a young boy, whom he had cured of the disease. A conflicting source, however, says that he only cured the boy and did not contract leprosy himself. His

feast day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does n ...

is 16 March.

Notes

References

Sources

* 6th-century Christian saints Medieval Irish saints 560 deaths {{Ireland-saint-stub