Feast Day of St. Dermot, January 10

 

"You can call me Dermot, or you can call me Diarmis, or you can call me Diarmaid..."

Whatever you call him, St. Dermot founded a monastery on Quaker Island (or you can call it Innis Clothran or Inchcleraun) in Ireland. St. Dermot also was a teacher of St. Ciaran who founded the famous Clonmacnoise Monastery.

The island is named after the ancient mythical figure Clothra. No, not the giant moth of pretty much the same name, but the sister of Queen Maeve. After Clothra's husband died, she supposedly settled on this island and lived a peaceful life until she got bunged in the bean with a rock thrown by that rascal, Fergus.

If you go to Quaker Island (you can't miss it...it's right there off the shore of Loch Ree) you can see the remains of St. Dermot's monastery (built in 540 A.D.)and 6 other churches. You might want to stay away from the smallest church, though. It's called Templemurray, and the superstition is that women who enter it die within 12 months.

What was a Jewish guy doing building a church anyway?