cranatlives

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- Grove White, Historical and topographical notes, etc. on Buttevant, Castletownroche, Doneraile, Mallow, and places in their vicinity.

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☞ Cranat Lives is a research blog that attempts to piece together and interpret various sources that include or tangentially allude to the Irish figure Cranath (Cranath, Craebhnait, Cranad, etc.). These materials have been collected to inform my animated adaptation, Cranat.

☞ Most material (including typed) is directly transcribed from sources, and my own comments will always be marked by a wee manicule (☞).

Sister blogs:

- You Are a Tree (Exploring More-Than-Human Narrative) - Crann Fuinseoige (Folklore Collection and Ash Tree Love)

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The Book of Fermoy

☞ The Book of Fermoy contains the story of the beheading of Cairbre Crom and the reattachment of his head by St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise. To my own knowledge, there doesn't seem to be any mention of Cranat by name in this story. Meanwhile, the Book of Fermoy itself is difficult for me to decipher on my own: I'm going to have to ask someone (maybe) to help with translating it.

Book of Fermoy: the, a manuscript dating from the 14th cent. and written for the Roches of Fermoy. It contains a collection of thirty poems composed by the 3rd Earl of Desmond, Gearóid Iarla.

- Welsh, R. (2000), The Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature

An Irish manuscript of the mid-15th century now housed in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. Includes the text of Altrom Tige Dá Medar. Fermoy is a small town in north-east Co. Cork, 16 miles E of Mallow.

- MacKillop, J. (2004) A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology.

The Book of Fermoy (Irish: Leabhar Fhear Maí, aka RIA MS 23 E 29 or the Book of Roche, leabhar de Róiste) is a medieval Irish text dated to the 14th to 16th century AD. ... The book was written in the Irish language in the fifteenth century by several scribes. The 238 pages contain numerous tales, histories, and biographies.

- Anon., Book of Fermoy, Wikipedia.

By the early eighteenth century, literacy in Irish had expanded beyond the professional learned class. It then became necessary to explain the standard scribal shorthand for the benefit of all who wished to learn to read Irish. The Book of O’Loghlen (RIA MS E iv 3) provides a good example of this process.

- (2017) Learning to read Irish text, 1727, Royal Irish Academy.

List, of contractions, headed "Clár athchumaire nó noduighiochta san Ghaoidhilg."

- Mac Cruitín, A. (1727) Leabhar Ó'Lochlainns, p.6

Fol. 51. a. col. 1. (...) "Coirpre Crom* was the son of Feradach, son of Lugaidh, son of Dalian, son of Bresal, son of Maine mór, a quo Hy Maine in Connacht, &c." This is a short legend giving an account of how the iniquitous Cairbre Crom, King of Hy Maine, in Connaught, was murdered and his head cut off; and how he was afterwards restored to life by the miracles of St. Ciaran of Clonmacnois, who replaced his head, but in such a manner that it remained from that time forward somewhat stooped, a circumstance from which Cairbre received the name of Crom, or the stooped. This story is interesting in consequence of the topographical information it contains. Seventeen townlands are enumerated which the grateful king, on the restoration of his head, conferred upon St. Ciaran and his church for ever.* See Proceedings of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, New Ser. vol. i. p. 453. The present is a very excellent copy of this legend.

- Henthorn, J. (1868) A Descriptive Catalogue of the Contents of the Irish Manuscript Commonly Called "The Book of Fermoy", pp.23-24.

- O'Donovan, J. (1857) The Registry of Clonmacnoise: WithNotes and Introductory Remarks, in The Journal of the Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, pp. 453-454.

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Life of Cranat (Betha Cranatan)

Although titled Betha Crantan this text does not reflect a typical ‘Life.’ It is a narrative of how St. Cranatan, a female saint, avoided marriage to Cairbre Crom of Munster, by gouging out her eyes only to have them miraculously restored. She has been dubbed the Saint of Fer Muighe (Fermoy.) Plummer mentions that there is some speculation as to whether or not St. Cranatan is the same person as St. Craebnat. In many instances, ‘Life’ texts might include details of the saint’s conversion or baptism to Christianity as well as recounting the various miracles and wonders performed by the saint. Accounts may also include incidents with kings, pagans/druids, superstitions, contemporary diseases, curses or monsters.

The author of this text is unknown. Date for this text is unknown, the dates above indicate a rough timeline of when the saint lived and when his ‘Life’ was recorded.

- Online Medieval Sources Bibliography.

At a place called Crounahalla about a mile from the ancient ruined church of Clenor [near Fermoy] is a dwarf ash-tree, also associated with her memory. It is supposed to be very old, and is the only ashtree in the neighbourhood.

- Plummer, C. (1925) Miscellanea Hagiographica Hibernica, Vitae adhuc ineditae sanctorum MacCreiche, Naile, Cranat, ad fidem codicum manu scriptorum recognovit prolegomenis notis indicibus instruxit Carolus Plummer. Accedit Catalogus hagiographicus Hiberniae ab eodem pro tempore informatus, pp.157-

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Betha Cranatan available mirrored here.

Miscellanea Hagiographica Hibernica available mirrored here, and here.

For more ancient manuscripts: https://celt.ucc.ie/publishd.html#gael

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Chapter six discusses some lesser-known female saints (Lasair, Attracta, Cranat, Gobnait, and Dígbe—not a saint but a female poet). A conclusion completes the volume.

- Collins, T. (2019) Review: Maeve Callan, Sacred Sisters: Gender, Sanctity, and Power in Medieval Ireland

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Contains mention of Cranat. Not open access.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/44510977

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☞ This source is amazing, demonstrating that the tale remained surprisingly preserved throughout the centuries. The recounter of the story is himself from Annakisha, and indeed this is where St. Craebhnait's Church can be found.

In the townland of Annakisha North about two miles from Doneraile village and about six miles from Mallow there stands on the side of a by-road a very large old ash tree named Crannahulla. Long ago in Clenor castle, about a mile east from the tree, lived a beautiful girl named Saint Cranath. She was so beautiful that she was spoken of at home and abroad. A certain Munster Prince who had heard of her great beauty made up his mind to marry her. He sent his soldiers to Clenor to bring the girl to him by fair or foul means. But Cranath fled from her father’s castle when she heard that the soldiers were come for her. She travelled west in the Doneraile direction for about a mile and suddenly she understood that ’twas her great beauty was the cause of all her misfortune. She determined there and then to destroy her beauty and catching hold of one of her eyes she plucked it out and cast it on fence. Immediately a big strong ash tree sprang up in the spot where here eye had fallen. The tree is to-day in the same place. What is locally regarded as Cranath’s eye is plainly to be seen on the butt of the tree. Strangely enough moss never grows on what is know as “the eye”. In a fork of the tree is a well which never runs dry. At one time “rounds for sore eyes” used to be paid here. People have tried and have failed to burn timber from this tree. The tree stands in a very prominent position and can be seen from several places in the parish.

- The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0372, Page 280-1.

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There are only two trees classified as holy in the Cork Archaeological Inventory, both close together and both connected to the same saint: St Cranat, also spelled Cranit or more significantly Creabhnat which contains the word craebh, or branch. In the townland of Annakissa North near Doneraile there was once a large ash tree, known as the Crannahulla  (Crann na  hUlla, Tree of the Eye) which sprang up due to a startling event... Another entry describes how Cranit used a branch from a tree to do the deed. Sadly the Cranahulla no longer exists, nor do the wells (it was one of those wells that moved). A rather spindly whitethorn grows on the possible site today.

Even more intriguingly, a second tree associated with the saint once stood in nearby Killuragh. In 1847 the tree was still flourishing and described by Windele as a beautiful and healthy tree, immensely large, and sacred to St. Cranit (Grove White 1905-25, vol. 3, 303). 50 years later it seems to have disappeared for its twigs were considered to be effective against shipwreck and were stripped by emigrants to keep them safe on their voyages overseas. Today nothing remains of this tree.

-- Clarke, A (2019) On Wells 5: Their Sacred Trees

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It seems only fitting that when a man’s severed head is re-attached to his body and he is thereupon returned to life, the occasion should be marked in some small way.

- Burke, D. (2013) The Cross of Cairbre Crom.

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ALL parishioners are invited to The Concelebrated Mass on Sunday at 2pm to celebrate the anniversary of The Blesssing and Opening of St. Cranat's Church on June 30 1861.

- Anon (2011), 150th Anniversary of St. Cranat's Church.

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...both Cranat and the Brigit of vernacular hagiography are the agents of their own maiming. Lucy’s pain is inflicted by another. Given this pattern, it is likely that Cranat’s deed is based directly on Brigit’s and indirectly, through her, on Lucy’s torture. The Irish saints take their place in a long line of christian self-mutilators who were, and remain, objects of devotion. There is a strikingly sexual overtone to the accounts in Bethu Brigte and the Life of Cranat. Each saint maintains her virginity by literally penetrating her own eye sockets, symbolically enacting sex to preserve physical intactness. A temporary loss of sight saves the hymen forever.

- Johnston, E. (2001) Powerful women or patriarchal weapons? Two medieval Irish saints .