Which Dympna?

I went to Kildalkey in Meath not expecting a challenge, it is a quiet and little known place. My curiosity was about St Dympna, its patron. I am interested in the role of women in the early Irish Church though she seemed one of the less mentioned figures. I was wrong about that and am still struggling with the questions she poses.  

The first puzzle was that three saints are associated with Kildalkey and none of them seem to have spent much time there.  

The name comes from Cill Dealga,  ‘Dealga's Cell’,  but little information on Dealga is available.

The person who founded the original community there was Mo-Luog, an Ulster man born in the early 500s. He was a bishop who ordained his kinsman Comgall, later founder of the famous school of Bangor. He himself set up communities in a number of places but Kildalkey was not his main base.    

The person best remembered there is Dympna and at her Holy Well there you can read ‘The Legend of St Dympna’. It relates that her father was a minor king in Oriel and her mother was famous for her beauty.  When his wife died the king said he would marry only someone who resembled her and his thoughts gradually turned to his daughter, Dympna.    

Dympna had other ideas and fled with her confessor Gerebernus and two companions, first to Antwerp and then to nearby Gheel in Belgium. However her father pursued them, tracing them through Irish coins they had used on their journey. When she refused to return home with him he became enraged and killed both his daughter and Gerebernus. 

Where does Kildalkey come in? According to their version of the story,  when Dymphna fled from her father she took refuge near the old Abbey in Kildalkey. She was greatly upset by her situation and cried so much that a well sprang up at her feet. It is still there, Tober Damhnata.

I read the account and visited the well. That would have satisfied my curiosity if I had not, a few weeks later, visited Tydavnet in Monaghan. It is also associated with Dympna but there she is also known as Davnet (Tigh-Davnet, House of Davnet).

Indeed she is one of the patrons of Clogher Diocese and in Carrickmacross church there is a vivid Harry Clark glass window depicting her setting out determinately, leading her confessor and two companion, one of whom is the court jester! Harry must have enjoyed unearthing that fact!

Are Dympna and Davnet the same person? Both Kildalkey and Tydavnet treat her as if she were but it raises a lot of questions. Did Dympna/Davnet just pass through Kildalkey? The impression she left seems to indicate more than that.  I’m still trying to solve the mystery and hopefully will have a chance to let you know how I get on.

In January 2023 the National Gallery of Ireland, in association with the Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp, held an exhibition entitled, ‘St Dympna: The Tragedy of an Irish Princess’.