Aedth Mac Brice

Who they were

Aedh mac Bricc was of the Uí Néill. He worked on his father's land as a young man, and when his brothers kept back his inheritance he tried to force them by carrying off a girl of their household, but St Illathan, bishop at Rathlihen in Offaly, persuaded him to give up his claim and send her back.

He stayed with Illathan and was then sent to found a monastery in his own country; his chief house is said to have been at Cill-air in Westmeath. Many miracles, some extravagant, are told of him. He died in 589, and St Columba on Iona is said to have known of his death at once.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

A sixth-century Irish monastic founder of the midlands.