O'Cullenan, Gelasius (Glaisne)
O'CULLENAN, GELASIUS (GLAISNE)
Order of Cîteaux, abbot of Boyle, Co. Roscommon, Ireland; b. probably at Mullaghshee near Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, 1554; d. Dublin, Nov. 21, 1580. He was the eldest of seven sons of whom six became ecclesiastics, five being Cistercians. At an early age Glaisne entered the monastery, completed his novitiate and theological studies at Paris, and eventually became a doctor of the Sorbonne. Having visited Rome, he returned to Ireland, where he was made abbot of the suppressed Abbey of Boyle. There he carried on his sacred ministry until his arrest in 1580 with Eoghan O Maoilchiarain, Premonstratensian abbot of Holy Trinity in Loch Cé. Imprisoned in Dublin Castle, they were tortured and, having refused to conform, were sentenced to death and executed. Glaisne's near-contemporary, the Cistercian Menologist Chrysostomus Henriquez, called O'Cullenan "the ornament of the Cistercian Order, the splendour of our age, and the glory of all Ireland." Glaisne's name is included in the list of Irish martyrs awaiting beatification.
See Also: irish confessors and martyrs.
Bibliography: c. henriquez, Menologium Cisterciense (Antwerp 1630). m. hartry, Triumphalia chronologica Monasterii Sanctae Crucis in Hibernia, ed. d. murphy (Dublin 1895). j. macenlean, "Eoin Ó Cuileannáin … ," Archivium Hibernicum 1 (1912) 77–121.
[c. s. Ó conbhuÍ]