Short essays on 14 well-known and well-loved early Irish saints.

Scarcely a parish in Ireland is without one or more dedications to saints, in the form of churches in ruins, holy wells or other ecclesiastical monuments. Professor Pádraig Ó Riain's Dictionary of Irish Saints is intended to serve as a guide to the (mainly documentary) sources of information on the saints named in these dedications, for those who have an interest in them, scholarly or otherwise. The need for a summary biographical dictionary of Irish saints, containing information on such matters as feastdays, localisations, chronology, and genealogies, although stressed over sixty years ago by the eminent Jesuit and Bollandist scholar, Paul Grosjean, has never before been satisfied. Professor Ó Riain has been working in the field of Irish hagiography for upwards of forty years, and the material for the over 1,000 entries in his Dictionary has come from a variety of sources, including Lives of the saints, martyrologies, genealogies of the saints, shorter tracts on the saints (some of them accessible only in manuscripts), annals, annates, collections of folklore, Ordnance Survey letters, and other documents. Running to almost 700 pages, the body of the Dictionary is preceded by a Preface, List of Sources and Introduction, and is followed by comprehensive Indices of Parishes, Other Places (mainly townlands), Alternate (mainly Anglicised) Names, Subjects, and Feastdays. Professor Ó Riain's Dictionary has been described as 'an astonishingly comprehensive, intelligent and well-organized work'; it is unlikely to be superseded for many decades to come.

Isle of the Saints recreates the harsh yet richly spiritual world of medieval Irish monks on the Christian frontier of barbarian Europe. Lisa Bitel draws on accounts of saints' lives written between 800 and 1200 to explain, from the monks' own perspective, the social networks that bound them to one another and to their secular neighbors.

Saint Patrick Retold draws on recent research to offer a fresh assessment of Patrick's travails and achievements. This is the first biography in nearly fifty years to explore Patrick's career against the background of historical events in late antique Britain and Ireland.

This beautiful book weaves together faith and wonder, miracles and mystery, to tell the little-known story of Saint Ciaran of Ireland.

Sacral Geographies explores the spatiality of reliquaries in early Ireland, and the intersections of devotional loca sancta with the territories of secular kingship, with the hierarchies of medieval monastic enclosures, and with modern, institutional spaces of knowledge. --Book Jacket.

In this book St. Patrick testifies to us of his conversion, trials, and tribulations in seeking, surrendering, and suffering for Christ. Even though most of us do not dare attempt to aspire to reach the heights of St. Patrick, it is important to realize that God made each and every person an individual - not to be like another - but rather to be like Christ. He made each person unique and endows each of us with different gifts and graces. This is why we study and admire other followers of Christ but we are not to try to be exactly like another. In growing in virtue - yes. But God has a very specific wills and assignments for each of us. Nevertheless it is helpful to study and reflect on the virtues of others like St. Patrick.

The Celtic Christians beheld the world around them and perceived the divine life of God as upholding every aspect of the material universe. Their prayers and poems, their liturgies and theological interpretations give Christians a sense of faith that is confident in a merciful and infinitely creative, healing God.