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aggart was in
Celtic times the site of a monastery, and derives its name from St. Sacer or Mo
Sacra, the founder or first abbot of that establishment, whose festival is celebrated
on March 3rd. Descendant of Roderic, king of Ireland, canonized pre-Congregation.
Roderic succeeded his father, Turloch O'Connor, as king of Connaught in 1156.
Since Turloch's title of high king was claimed by Muirchertach O'Lochlainn of
Ulster.
In 1153 Dermot MacMurrough abducted the wife of Tiernan O'Ruark, king of Breifne (what we know today as the modern counties of Leitrim and Cavan). MacMurrough fled to England and immediately went to King Henry II who granted permission for the exiled ruler to enlist the aid of several Anglo-Norman lords, in particular Richard de Clare (b. c. 1130 d. April 20, 1176, Dublin, Ire.) who is also known by the name Strongbow. 1258 the greatest Irish Clans remaining elected Brian Ó Neill as their High King in an attempt to unite the country. But the Irish forces were weak compared to the Anglo-Normans and were quickly defeated in the disastrous Battle of Downpatrick in 1260. In 1263, the Irish tried again and the offer of High Kingship went to King Håkon IV (b. 1204) of Norway.
The gallowglass were a combination of Scot and Viking who lived on the western islands of Scotland under Norse control. These mercenaries of the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries were not usually in the pay of Scots and Irish chieftans. They wore conical helmets and long coats of reinforced chain mail and were descended from Viking settlers in the Hebrides. Donal Ó Neill and the other Lords invited Edward Bruce to Ireland in 1315. Although the small numbers of gallowglass prevented a swift Irish victory, Anglo-Norman power faded in Ireland.
Gerald of Wales (1146-1223), bishop of noble extraction, in his histories, left an account of the Norman invasion and conquest of Ireland. The Irish conquest was an extension of the conquest of Wales - an activity of Norman lords in the marches who were acting more or less independently of the crown. The Treaty of Windsor, 1175, between Henry II and Rory O'Conor, High King witnessed by Robert, bishop of Winchester; Geoffrey, bishop of Ely; Laurence, archbishop of Dublin; Geoffrey, Nicholas and Roger, the king's chaplains; William , Earl of Essex; Richard de Luci; Geoffrey de Purtico, and Reginald de Courtenea.
After the Anglo-Norman Conquest, the lands of Saggart, together with those of Newcastle Lyons, Esker, and Crumlin, were retained as Crown property, and became one of the four royal manors now embraced in the barony of Newcastle; a parish and Saggart; a civil parish.. A church dedicated to Sacer stood upon the lands, and after the Anglo-Norman Conquest, when Saggart became a royal manor, this church was served by a cleric known as the King's clerk. Subsequently Saggart, or Tasagart, as it was then called, became a prebend in the Cathedral of St. Patrick. At that time there were two chapels within the limits of the parish subservient to the parent church. Of the parent church there is no further record until the reign of Edward VI., when on the dissolution of the Cathedral the prebend of Tasagart, "with the parson's croft," was leased to Archbishop Browne.
On the Isle of Man, the Celtic period of dominance, the kingdom of Ulster included emmigration from Scotland. Irish missionaries spoke Welsh and expanded one of the largest vocabularies of the phonetic sound system. Their many events contributed to Christened dates on the council calendar and investing in the cosmos were early grounds for astronomical dates with a hierarchical and ceremonial order. Columba, the Apostle of Scotland, for example, was an abbot, but never a bishop. Aidan, the Apostle of Britain (Lindisfarne, AD 635) was for long a bishop, but not an abbot. Bishops lived in abbeys under the authority of the abbot. Like Aidan, they were often sent out as missionaries. Abbots and officers openly supported wives, sons and other kin. They sent their relatives to become officers in nearby monasteries, or they kept sons, brothers, and nephews within their own communities to succeed to offices there. Successive generations of the Maicc Cuinn na mBocht, for example, controlled major monastic offices at Cluan Moccu Nois (Clonmacnoise) for about three centuries.
Another family, the Úí Sinaich, battled for and won control of Ard Macha, remaining in power for generations. The Irish Annals and Chronicles are replete in their references to the children of Abbots (abbas). In the Annals of Ulster just for the yeare AD 793 we find recorded not only Dubh Da Leithi, the son of Sinaich, the Abbot of Armagh, but of Cinaed, son of Cumascach, the abbot of Demag, Flaithgel, son of Taichlech, abbot of Druim Rátha and so on. Sons of abbots certainly reached high rank in the Irish Church. For example, Bishop Flann, who died in AD 812, was the son of Cellach, abbot of Finnglas. The family of Breasal's brother, Eochaid or Eochu was the Armagh family of Uí Ech[d]ach, one branch of whom produced the Clann Sinaigh, 'Sinach's children', hereditary abbots of Armagh in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The now obsolete district name Tuaghy, Tuath Eachach 'Eochu's people', for what was mainly the archbishop's territory south of Armagh, seems to have been derived from this Eochu of Airthir.
According to the Irish origin-legend, Lough Neagh was named from an Eochu who was an ancient king of all Ulster, and who forgot to send back immediately a magic horse he had borrowed. Horses are significant not only in the origin legend of Lough Neagh, but also in Geraldus Cambrensis' story of the inauguration ritual of an Ulster king. Another Uí Eachach family in Co. Down gave rise to the barony name Iveagh, from the dative Uibh Eachach." and the earliest union of the Picts and the Scots (Connacht).
Sacer, was known as the Palatium Britannicum. Later, its name was changed to the Titulus, then to Hospitum Apostolorum. The initial burning sensation led to the Latin name ignis sacer, which means holy fire. Symptoms as ignis sacer, "holy fire;" ignis infernalis, "hell's fire;" or "St. Anthony's fire was a plague by rye bread. This human malady was so horrible that in 1093 a religious order was founded in southern France to help those afflicted; St. Anthony was the patron saint, so the malady, now called ergotism, was then named St. Anthony's fire. St. Francis adopted St. Anthony's Cross after meeting monks working at a leper house in Assisi and the hospital of St. Blase in Rome (now the church of San Francisco a Ripa) where Francis stayed. They would include the Poor Clares, Friars, and Order of Hospitaliers. The monks were Antonines from the Holy Order of Hospitalers of St. Anthony. In the early 11th century, relics of St. Anthony had been taken to southwestern France where the Order was founded.
An abbey in the province of Naples, Italy, near the town of Avellino, commanding a magnificent view of the Mediterranean along the Bays of Naples, Salerno, and Gaeta, and inland as far as the Abruzzi Mountains. Monte Vergine was formerly known as Mons Sacer because of a temple sacred to Cybele that stood there; also as Mons Virgilianus, from the legend that Virgil retired thither to study the Sibylline books. In 1119 St. William of Vercelli built a monastery of strict observance and perpetual abstinence on Monte Vergine, and in 1149 his successor Blessed Robert, with the approval of Alexander III, gave it to the Benedictines. The Isle of Man gave birth to the MacDonalds and among Munster families they married and the Hebridean relatives the MacDougalls- presiding Lords of Argyle, the Ulster MacDonnells - all patronymic ancestors of Somerled's sons and sooner Galloway and Hebrides outnumbered by their Lordships.
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