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Jarlath of Tuam, not to be confused with Jarlath of Armagh, was a Connaught man of the family of Cormac.

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December 25 · Bishop

St. Jarlath of Tuam

St. Jarlath of Tuam

Jarlath of Tuam, not to be confused with Jarlath of Armagh, was a Connaught man of the family of Cormac.

Traditional feast

December 25
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Bishop

Their story

Adapted in modern English from Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints · little is known

Jarlath of Tuam, not to be confused with Jarlath of Armagh, was a Connaught man of the family of Cormac. He was educated under Benignus of Armagh and ordained by him. He then withdrew to Cluainfois, near Tuam, founded a monastery, and opened a famous school, where St Brendan of Clonfert and St Colman of Cloyne studied under him.

He was made the first bishop of Tuam. He died full of years on 26 December, about 540 according to Butler; Baring-Gould places him about 560, and the sources differ. His bones were later kept in a silver shrine at Tuam in a church called Tempull-na-scrin, 'church of the shrine'.

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 0 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Keep their day. Remember them on December 25 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 0 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Irish Martyrologies; also on June 6. Authority: — A Life in Colgan on Feb. xi, on which day S. Jarlath of Armagh was commemorated.] S. Jarlath was the son of Lugh, of the noble house of Conmacnie, in Galway, now the barony of Downamore. He was bom about the beginning of the sixth century or the end of the fifth. He founded a monastery at Cluainfois, the site of which cannot now be identified. Among his disciples was Colman, son of Lenine, who died about 601. By the advice, apparently, of S. Brendan of Clonfert, Jarlath moved to Tuam, was consecrated bishop, and made that the seat of his bishopric. Some curious prophecies of his relar trve to his successors in the see have been handed down; but they are probably not by Jarlath. The date of his death is not known with anything approaching to certainty. He was buried at Tuam, not in the cathedral, but in the chapel called Serin or Shrine.

Feast days

Feast: December 25

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Jarlath of Tuam's story, and a nudge to keep going.

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← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Story sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.