Colman of Templeshambo

Who was Colman of Templeshambo?

Saint Colman of Templeshambo was a Catholic saint from Connacht, Ireland. He has been confused with the patron of Kilmacduagh, but he lived somewhat earlier, and the sphere of his ministry lay in the present County Wexford. He was a contemporary of Saint Aidan, who appointed him Abbot of Templeshambo, the mother church of Enniscorthy.

Many legends are told of Saint Colman and of his holy well with its sacred ducks. Gerald of Wales, in his Topography of Ireland, recorded some of these stories about the saint's sacred teals, which could not be harmed: illustrations on the lower part of Gerald's relevant manuscript depict the teals taking food from a human, a kite paralysed while attempting to take one of the teals as prey, and a fox choking on one of the birds. He is said to have laboured zealously at the foot of Mount Leinster in the Blackstairs Mountains, his monastery being known as Temple Sean Bothe. He died c. 595 on October 27, which is his feast day, as recorded in the "Martyrology of Donegal".