Saint Moninne, or Moninna, is remembered as an early Irish woman saint who founded a community of eight virgins and a widow with a baby boy at Killeavy, on the slopes of Slieve Gullion in what is now County Armagh. She is said to have died around 517 and been buried at Killeavy. Legends say she was baptised by St Patrick and raised by St Brigid, and that she got her name when she cured a mute man whose first word was Ninna, or when her own first word as a baby was that.
A large granite stone covers her supposed grave. On her pattern day, 6 July, pilgrims said prayers at the grave and then climbed to her holy well higher up the mountain, returning to the stone for the final prayer. The pattern was suppressed in 1825, as such gatherings were discouraged, and the existence of the well was forgotten until Father James Donnelly rediscovered it in 1880.
The well is marked by a large white cross. The pattern was revived in 1928 and is recorded to have survived until 1934. A shrine with a statue of the Virgin Mary was placed over the well, and a Holy Year pilgrimage was held there on 4 August 1974. Pilgrims still visit on her feast day.
Comments