Map of Omey Island

Religious Strife Between Protestants and Catholics on Omey Island

The Church of England Magazine - Church Pastoral-aid Society, London

Under the superintendence of Clergymen of the United Church of England and Ireland
December 1853

The two following were received in acknowledgement of some of the parcels of clothing sent by kind friends. I answer to the last appeal:

From the missionary at Sallerna: “With feelings of the most lively gratitude I beg to inform you that the parcels of clothing for the schools at Omey Island and Sallerna have all been disposed of according to your directions. The poor children are most wretched for want of food: a poor widow told me yesterday that her children had not tasted for two days; and it was truly lamentable to witness the distress of herself and her four little girls, You will rejoice to hear that the attendance has been very little decreased notwithstanding the want of food. There have been about sixty girls in Sallerna school yesterday; and, while I was speaking to them, one poor thing fainted from the effects of hunger and exhaustion. Our enemies are rejoiced at the state of things. The trial is a severe one; but the faith of the children fails not. A little boy told me yesterday that he knew by experience what is to pray for daily bread. The school at Omey Island has been quite full the whole week: the poor children expressed their determination to pray, and asked me to pray with them, at the same time remarking that when their heavenly Father thinks it fit he will send them food.”

London: John Hughs, 12 Ave-Maria Lane

The Church of England Magazine, Volume 35, pp. 111-112

J. Burns 1853

Original from the New York Public Library

Digitized, August 29, 2006

http://tinyurl.com/o56nwmz

St. Féchín (Festus) - Patron Saint of Omey Island

St. Fechin (anglicized Festus)

Feast Day: January 20

Patron of Fore Abbey, Cong Abbey, Omey Island, Ardoilén

Died: 665

Féchín is said to have been born in Bile, probably Billa, in what is now the parish of Collooney (Kilvarnet), County Sligo). The medieval Lives [of the Saints] calls his mother Lassair, identified in the Irish text as a member of a royal Munster line. The Lives tell us that Féchín received his monastic training from St Nath Í of Achonry and later moved on to Clonmacnoise

Ruins of the church founded by St. Feichin on Omey Island

Foundations - The first monastic houses said to have been founded by Féchín are those on the islands of Omey and Ardoilén, both off the coast of Galway, which fell under the protection of the king of Connacht, Guaire Aidne mac Colmáin. His principal foundation was Fobur, now Fore, Co. Westmeath.

Traditions of Omey Island

Traditions of Omey Island

Family names: Faherty, Toole, Mulkerin, Flaherty, King, Lacy, Kane, Bodkin

If the tourist, who contemplates a journey through the majestic scenery which intervenes between the towns of Clifden and Westport, consent to leave the high-road after crossing the bridge of Streamstown, about a mile and a half from the former place, and turn with us in a due westerly direction, we undertake to conduct him along one of not, the least interesting bye-ways of the wild region of West Connaught. The road lies for about two miles by the northern shore of the narrow channel or inlet known as Streamstown bay, which indeed in some places is scarcely a hundred yards across, and is frequently enclosed among rugged and blackened rocks of huge dimensions. We pass the old church-yard of Tempul Athdearg, or the church of the Red-ford; and a little further on, the ruins of the old house or castle of Doon, which stands on our side of the inlet, while on the other side of the water are the ruins of the ancient church of Kill, covered with ivy. This inlet was once a favorite resort of smugglers, and a good story is told of a contrivance by which they succeeded, on a certain occasion, in escaping from the crew of a revenue cruiser who pursued them in boats; a number of spade-handles having been so placed to resemble a formidable array of muskets projecting from a steep bank, and the king’s people being induced by these “threatening” preparations to make a rapid retreat to their vessel.

At length we obtain a view of the vast ocean, with the islands of Inisturk, Croagh, Omey, and others, scattered over its bosom, and the grandeur of that prospects compensates for the dreariness of the scene which immediately surrounds us; although this same granite wilderness of Claddaghduff rivals for barrenness and wretchedness any other spot in all Conamara. The road here deserts us at the low beach from which, at ebb-tide, we may cross almost dry-shod to the once famous island of Omey. But why do we call it famous? Can there be anything to distinguish that flat unpicturesque abode of misery from any other spot in which human wretchedness prevails along the most desolate tracts of the Irish coast? We answer, yes: that poor unfavoured island in the remote west, nearly half the surface of which is covered by a lough and spewy marsh, while the other half is little better than drifting sand, the scanty vegetation on which is frequently blasted by the “red wind” of the Atlantic—that island, we say, has a history of its own. It was the “Imagia insula” of the old Latin hagiologists, and was, as far as we know, the very last spot in which paganism lingered in Ireland. In the latter half of the seventh century, St. Feichin, the holy abbot of Fore, in Westmeath, found the inhabitants of Omey still pagans, and encountered violent opposition from them when building a monastery there, although he obtained the island from the good King of Connaught, Guaire the Generous. We are not, however about to ransack the pages of Colgan or Ussher for ancient references to Omey, but shall for the present content ourselves with such incidents of its history as we find preserved in the traditions of the islanders.