The Holy Hound of Fermoy: Munster’s Berserker Abbot (Jordan Hopwood)

‘So the howling and rending of a hound possessed him on that day…for he cut the foreigners with his weapons and teeth...’

Saint Findchú was a seventh-century monk, raised by St Comgall whom he succeeded as abbot of Bangor. His places in the hagiographies of the Martyrology of Óengus and Book of Lismore secure his place in the Céili Dé tradition of Irish ascetism. Yet when, as the turbulent times required, he faced his foes in battle, a canine fury is unleashed. In episodes remarkably similar to those of Cú Chulainn’s ríastrad ‘warps’ from the Ulster Cycle, Saint Findchú devastates his enemies in an animalistic frenzy. There is next to no secondary scholarship on this saint, which is curious given his unique martial attributes, save for passing references or dictionary entries.

In Irish Fianaigecht literature (pertaining to Finn or the Fianna - roving bands of outlaw youths), the hound has long been totemic of the landless and ferocious brigands so condemned by the church. Like Cú Chulainn (Culann’s Hound), St Findchú also carries a canine epithet (fair-hound). Though a hallowed cleric of early Irish Christendom, might it be possible that St Findchú emerges from a Fíanna background, something weaponised against his foes, making him the acceptable face of pre-Christian warriorhood now euhemerised? Exploration of his frenzy and the wider notion of a hound-associated youth-cult brings the research into contact with the berserkergang of the Norse sagas, and, with some trepidation, much broader themes of the Indo-European Männerbund. Whilst the frenzies of Scandinavian berserkr are often treated with a good degree of historical veracity, with theories as to what could induce the fits and ample parallels drawn to Spartan dog-cults, much of the treatment of Cú Chulainn’s ríastharthae is limited chiefly to textual criticism, and it is often reduced to being a creative expression of the author to reflect the grotesque inversions of the wider narrative. It is the aim of this research on the St Findchú hound-frenzy episodes to locate the ríastrad as a potential Irish feature of an Männerbund phenomenon. Regardless of the potential findings to be had, it is my hope that the account of this Munster saint and his place in Irish hagiography and historical context will be nonetheless enjoyably fascinating.