Gerald of Mayo, St.
GERALD OF MAYO, ST.
Abbot; b. Northumbria, England; d. Mayo, Ireland, 732. When the synod of whitby (664) banned the observance of the Celtic date of Easter in Northumbria, St. colman left lindisfarne with all the Irish monks and with some 30 of the English monks, including Gerald. In Ireland they founded a monastery at Inishbofin off the Mayo coast. Strife between the Irish and English monks led Colman to establish a house on the mainland (Mayo) for the English monks. He acted for a time as superior of both houses, but then Gerald succeeded him as abbot of Mayo, which became a great sanctuary for saints. Gerald's vita, though legendary, contains valuable material on the relations of Christians and Druids in early Ireland.
Feast: Mar. 13.
Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum March 2:284–288. j. colgan, Acta sanctorum Hiberniae (Louvain 1645; repr. Dublin 1948) 599–704. j. f. kenney, The Sources for the Early History of Ireland (New York 1929) 463–464. c. plummer, comp., Vitae sanctorum Hiberniae, 2 v. (Oxford 1910) 1:lxxi–lxxii; 2:107–115. a. butler The Lives of the Saints (New York 1956) 1:584.
[r. t. meyer]