Fiacre

Life Saint Fiacre, 15th-century statue in the Church of Saint Taurin d'Évreux.

"Though not mentioned in the earlier Irish calendars, Fiacre was born in Ireland at the end of the sixth century AD. He was raised in a monastery where he became a monk and imbibed knowledge of herbal medicine."

He arrived in Meaux, France in AD 628. (presently Saint-Fiacre, Department of Seine-et-Marne, France) when Fiacre approached him and manifested his desire to live a life of solitude in the forest. There Fiacre built a hermitage for his dwelling, a vegetable and herb garden, an oratory in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and a hospice in which he cared for travellers. He lived a life of great mortification devoted to prayer, fasting, keeping vigils, and manual cultivation of his garden. "His fame for miracles was widespread. He cured all manner of diseases by laying on his hands".

Fiacre's sister Syra came to join him in France and became a nun. She was blind, but as John O'Hanlon relates, "Through his merits, St. Fiacre had an inspiration, that his sister should recover her sight, while to her in like manner was revealed the spot where the body of St. Savinien lay. There, prostrating herself, she poured forth her soul in prayer, and her face bedewed with tears, she would not rise from the ground until her petition was heard. She was restored miraculously to the use of vision."

Veneration

Fiacre's relics were preserved in his original shrine in the local church of the site of his hermitage, garden, oratory, and hospice, in present Saint-Fiacre, Seine-et-Marne, France, but later transferred in 1568 to their present shrine in Meaux Cathedral in Meaux, which is near Saint-Fiacre and in the same French department, because of fear that fanatical Calvinists endangered them. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 30 August, although some Catholic sources use an alternative date of 1 September. Meaux continued to be a great centre of devotion to him, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. Visitors to his shrine included Anne of Austria, Bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, John of Matha, Louis XIII, and Vincent de Paul. Wooden devotional figures of the saint exist from as early as the 1400s.

To celebrate the Second Millennium, "Saint Fiachra's Garden" opened in 1999 at the Irish National Stud and Gardens, Tully, County Kildare, Ireland, his nation of birth.

Patronage Fiacre is the patron saint of the commune of Saint-Fiacre, Seine-et-Marne, France. He is the patron of growers of vegetables and medicinal plants, and gardeners in general, including ploughboys. Finally, he is commonly invoked to heal persons suffering from various infirmities, premised on his reputed skill with medicinal plants.

Fiacre cabs

From about 1650, the Hôtel de Saint Fiacre, in the rue St-Martin in Paris, hired out carriages. These carriages came to be known as fiacres, which became a generic term for hired horse-drawn transport. Although sometimes claimed by taxi-drivers as a patron saint, Fiacre is not recognized as such by the Catholic Church.