Baring-Gould’s sources: Irish Martyrology. Authority:—Colgan.

Angus, surnamed Kel-Dhu, a man of great love and fervour in the service of God, was born in Ireland in the eighth century, of the race of the Dalrhidians, kings of Ulster. In his youth, renouncing the pomp and vanities of the world and all earthly pretensions, he chose Christ for his inheritance, and entered religion in the famous monastery of Cluain-Edneach, in East Meath, under the holy abbot Malathgen. There he became such a proficient in virtue and learning that he was thought to excel all others in Ireland. He is said to have sung a hundred and fifty psalms every day, fifty of which he recited standing up to his neck in water, in winter and summer; and three hundred times a day he adored God on his bended knees. Finding that his sanctity attracted attention, he privately withdrew from his monastery, and disguising himself, took refuge in that of Tamlacht, three miles from Dublin, where he was received as an outside novice by the abbot Moelruan, and for seven years was given the meanest drudgery of the monastery. At length his great merit was discovered, and his name having been found out, the abbot apologised to him for having set him such degrading tasks, and brought him into the brotherhood. S. Angus became afterwards abbot of Desert-Aenguis and Cluain-Edneach, where he was raised to the office of bishop, the abbots in the ancient Irish Church being very generally bishops as well, but without territorial jurisdiction.

S. Angus is regarded as one of the most famous writers of Ireland. He composed a metrical martyrology, and five books of lives of the saints of Ireland, together with other treatises.