Senan

Senan (d. c.544), Irish abbot, founder of monasteries. Born near Kilrush (Co. Clare), he first tended his father's cattle and later became a monk, studying first with Cassidan in Irrus, afterwards with Notal at Kilnamanagh (Kilkenny). His own foundations included Inniscarra (near Cork), Inis Mor (Canon Island), Mutton Island (Clare), but above all Scattery Island (near Kilrush), where there are still plenty of medieval ruins, of which none certainly date from Senan's time. The shrine of Senan's bell is in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. Feast: 8 March.

The patron of Sennen (Cornwall), often asserted to be Senan of Scattery, seems instead to have been an unknown Cornish woman saint, called Sanctae Sennanae in the Poll‐tax rolls of 1377.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• P. Grosjean, ‘Trois pièces sur S. Senan’, Anal. Boll., lxvi (1948), 199–230
• G. H. Doble, The Saints of Cornwall, i (1960), 145; The Irish Saints, pp. 285–7