Brónach

Saint Brónach
Major shrine	Kilbroney (Irish: Cell Brónche)
Feast	2 April

Saint Brónach (sometimes anglicised to Bronagh) was a 6th-century holy woman from Ireland, the reputed founder and patron saint of Cell Brónche ("church of Brónach"), now Kilbroney, in County Down.^[1] As a disciple to Saint Patrick, she is said to have founded her convent to help sailors cast up on the beach by a cruel sea.

Lying in Glenn Sechis, a mountain valley in County Down (near Rostrevor), Cell Brónche lay at some distance from the major political centres of the region.^[1] It may have been a nunnery in origin, but later came to serve as a pastoral church manned by nuns as well as one or several priests.^[1] It was chosen as the parish church of Glenn Sechis.^[1] A high cross which survives among the ruins of Cell Brónche attests to the importance of her church.^[1] It is made of Mourne granite and stands over the traditional site of her grave in the old cemetery. The building suffered damage during the 1641 Rebellion, as well as in Cromwellian times.

According to the genealogies of the saints, she is the mother of Saint Mo Chóe of Nendrum and herself a daughter of Míliucc maccu Buain.^[1]

In the Irish martyrologies (O'Clery, Martyrology of Tallaght, note added to Félire Óengusso), her feast day is 2 April.^[1][2]

References

• Charles-Edwards, T. M. (Jan 2007) [Sept 2004]. "Ulster, saints of (act. c.400–c.650)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/50136. Retrieved 14 Dec 2008. 

Primary sources

• Félire Óengusso ("The Martyrology of Óengus"), ed. and tr. Whitley Stokes (1905). The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee. Henry Bradshaw Society 29. London.  (PDF here)

Further reading

• Ó Riain, Pádraig (1989). "Sanctity and politics in Connacht c. 1100: the case of St Fursa". Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 17: 1–14. 

External links

• Kilbroney High-cross, Megalithic Ireland

This page or section lists people that share the same given name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change that link to point directly to the intended article.