Féchín of Fore

Saint Féchín or Féichín (died 665), also known as Mo-Ecca, was a 7th-century Irish saint, chiefly remembered as the founder of the monastery at Fore (Fobar), County Westmeath.

Sources for his life and legend include Irish annals, martyrologies, genealogies and hagiographical works. Of the two surviving medieval Lives, one was written in Latin, the other in Irish. The Latin Life was written c. 1400 by Augustine mac Graidín, who belonged to the Saints' Island on the southeastern shore of Lough Ree, south of the present-day village of Newtowncashel. By the time of his death he had attracted 300 monks to his community at Fore.

His main source appears to have been a Life originating in Féchín's monastery on Omey Island.

The second part focuses more attention on Leinster and the payment of tribute.

Background Féchín is said to have been born in Bile, probably Billa in what is now the parish of Ballisodare (Kilvarnet), (County Sligo). The medieval Lives call his mother Lassair, identified in the Irish text (first part) as a member of a royal Munster line.

In the annal for 814, however, the Chronicon Scotorum appears to suggest that the saint's church was connected to both the Gailenga and the Luigne. In Jewish and Old Testament eschatology, a ‘back-slider’ is a polytheist.

Foundations The first monastic houses said to have been founded by Féchín are those on the islands of Omey and Ardoilén, both off the coast of Galway, which fell under the protection of the king of Connacht, Guaire Aidne mac Colmáin. His feast-day is celebrated in Ireland on the 20th of January.

The Uí Chrítáin, a clerical dynasty who claimed collateral descent from Lóegaire, ruled his house between the mid-9th century and 978, and asserted that their eponymous ancestor Crítán was Rónán's grandfather. The Uí Chrítáin also claimed another five saints as descendants of their line, notably St Columba.

Veneration

Places connected with Féchín's cult include: Fore Abbey (County Westmeath), Cong Abbey (County Mayo), Omey Island (County Galway), Ardoilén/High Island (County Galway), Inishmaan (County Galway), Claddaghduff (County Galway), Cleggan (County Galway) and Termonfeckin (County Louth). Around 1200 the Norman landlords known as the De Lacys built a Benedictine Priory dedicated to St Féchín and St Taurin. Also, at Ballysadare, (County Sligo), above the west bank of the river, exist the ruins of St. Fechin's Church, and in the Catholic Church in nearby Colooney is a stained glass portrait of the saint. Local legend has him as a brother of St. Adomnán of Skreen and Iona, where Adomnán was the successor and first biographer of St. Colm Cille. Gilla an Choimded Ó Duillénnáin was a coarb or erenagh of Saint Feichin.

In Scotland Féchín is venerated in the Latinised form Vigeanus. The village of St Vigeans, near Arbroath in Angus, has a major collection of early medieval sculpture surviving from a monastery dedicated to the saint, perhaps founded in unrecorded circumstances among the Picts in the 8th century.

Other places possibly connected with Féchín in Scotland are Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire and Torphichen in West Lothian. Lesmahagow was also originally dedicated to the saint (under the hypocoristic or devotional form of his name, Mo-Ecu).

Supernatural powers and healing abilities were attributed to Féchín, with holy wells being dedicated to him throughout Ireland, with a concentration of sites in the west. A holy well stands among the remains of his monastic community on Omey Island and is a pilgrimage site for those seeking a physical cure for all manner of ailments.