The patron of Saint Latiaran (known as Latiaran Sunday) is celebrated on the Sunday either before or after July 25,[1] which is the saint’s actual holy day. The patron saint of Cullen, Latiaran is one of three local sister saints. The names of her sisters vary, but they are often named as Lasair and Inghean Bhuidhe.[2] It seems that this trio of saints may be linked to seasonal symbolism,[3] with Lasair’s feast likely falling at the beginning of spring,[4] Inghean Bhuidhe’s feast at the beginning of summer (May 6), and Latiaran’s feast at the beginning of the harvest (July 25).
The most popular story of Latiaran is that of The Saint and the Ember: Every morning Latiaran went to a forge and brought back fresh coals to her cell in her apron. One morning the smith at the forge remarked of the beauty of Latiaran’s feet. She looked down at her feet with vanity and her apron instantly caught fire. Angry, she cursed the smith and prophesied a smith’s anvil would never again be heard in Cullen.[5]
Like her sisters, Latiaran also has a holy well in her parish. MacNeill records that the well “is beside an old church ruin in a graveyard. A whitethorn tree, said to have been planted by Saint Latiaran stands near the well, and there is a heart-shaped stone in the graveyard called ‘Cloichín na Cúirtéise' (or 'a’ Chúirtse’) [The Curtsey Stone], at which pilgrims curtseyed in making the rounds.”[6]
In In the Shadow of the Paps, Dan Cornin, speaking of his home in the Sliabh Luachra region, ventures that “With the passing of time, and the influence of the Christian church, this pagan festival [i.e., Lughnasadh] was observed here on the last Sunday in July, Latiaran Sunday.”[7] Cronin goes on to write about the gatherings that used to take place at Coola on this day: “The hillside was thronged with people, young and old…All around to the northern side of this historic site hundreds of ripening cornfields could be seen, their colour a lovely golden brown. Behind our backs, grazing peacefully, flocks of sheep, with their lambs, could be observed. And then, as if presiding over it all there was Dana, the great mother goddess, just as she had done for hundreds of generations. To have experienced it was an overwhelming emotional experience, never to be effaced.”[8]
[1] Cf. Máire MacNeill, The Festival of Lughnasa (Oxford University Press: London, 1962), 268, and Dan Cronin, In the Shadow of the Paps (Crede, Sliabh Luachra Heritage Group: Killarney, 2009), 20.
[2] See my previous post on Lasair for more information regarding these sisters.
[3] MacNeill, Lughnasa, 271.
[7] Cronin, Shadow of the Paps, 20.
