Fiacre

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Saint Fiacre
Mural depicting Saint Fiacre, in Seville, Andalusia
Born	7th Century, Ireland
Died	, August 18 670
Feast	September 1 in Ireland, August 18 everywhere else
Patronage	gardeners; taxi cab drivers; venereal disease sufferers; hemorrhoids
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Saint Fiacre (or Fiachra) was born in Ireland in the seventh century. He was better known in France, where he built a hospice for travellers in what is now Saint-Fiacre. His relics are installed in Meaux Cathedral. In Ireland his feast day is 1 September; elsewhere it is 18 August.

St Fiacre is most renowned as the patron saint of gardeners. An abbot, born in Ireland, Fiacre lived in a hermitage on the banks of the Nore of which Kilfiachra, or Kilfera, County Kilkenny, still preserves the memory. His unwanted fame as one skilled with herbs, a healer and holy man caused disciples to flock to him, but seeking greater solitude, he left his native land and sought refuge in France, at Meaux.

At Meaux he was warmly received by St Faro. Initially Faro granted him out of his own patrimony a site at Brogillum (Breuil) surrounded by forests. Here Fiacre built an oratory in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a hospice in which he received strangers, and a cell in which he himself lived apart. He lived a life of great mortification, in prayer, fast, vigil, and the manual labour of the garden. The vegetables he grew around his monastery were said to be quite superb.

The legend of Fiacre goes that St. Faro allowed him as much land as he might entrench in one day with a furrow; Fiacre turned up the earth with the point of his staff, toppling trees and uprooting briars and weeds. A suspicious woman hastened to tell Faro that he was being beguiled and that this was witchcraft. Faro, however, recognized that this was the work of God. From this point on it is said St Fiacre barred women, on pain of severe bodily infirmity, from the precincts of his monastery.

His reputed aversion to women is believed to be the reason he is known as the patron saint of venereal disease sufferers.

Saint Fiacre is also the patron saint of taxi drivers. Fiacre's connection to cab drivers is because the Hotel de Saint Fiacre in Paris, France rented carriages. People who had no idea who Fiacre was, referred to the cabs as "Fiacre cabs", and eventually as "fiacres".

Fiacre is translated into English as "Battle King."