Early Irish Saints

These short popular essays on fourteen well-known and well-loved early Irish saints present a very readable and informative amalgam of often scarce historical fact and much folklore and legend from the tradition of the people. Fr O Riordain introduces the book with an overview of the sources for information on these saints which includes a most informative and helpful commentary on what the authors of the early Lives of the saints saw as their function - something very different from the function of a modern day biographer.The result is a series of very lively pen-pictures which reverberate with the traditional faith and insights of the people who kept these stories alive for over a millennium. These saints include Patrick, Brigid, Colmcille, Enda, Brendan the Navigator, Cummian the Tall, Ciaran of Clonmacnoise, Ninnidh, Ita, Kevin, Adomnan, Cainnech, Columbanus and Gall.