Finian Lobhar

Saint Finian the Leper was an early Irish saint credited by some sources with founding a church and monastery at Innisfallen in Killarney.

Life

Saint Finian was a disciple of St. Columba. He was a strict Irish abbot, whose monks followed a vegetarian diet. For a period of time in the 7th century, he was the leader of the monastery at Clonmore, County Carlow, later becoming the abbot of Swords Abbey near Dublin. A conflicting source, however, says that he only cured the boy and did not contract leprosy himself. His feast day is 16 March.