Gerald of Mayo

Who was Gerald of Mayo?

Gerald of Mayo is a saint of the Catholic Church. Born in Northumbria, the son of an Anglo-Saxon king, he was one of the English monks at Lindisfarne who accompanied Colmán of Lindisfarne to Iona and then to Ireland. This occurred after the Synod of Whitby 664AD which decided against the Celtic Church's method of calculating the date for Easter. Colman was an ardent supporter of the Celtic mode of calculating Easter. After the synod decided to adopt the Roman computation in place of Celtic custom, Colman and thirty Anglo-Saxon monks, St. Gerald among them, left Lindisfarne and eventually settled on Inishboffin off the coast of Co Galway in 668. St. Gerald became the first abbot of the monastery of Mayo after disputes arose among the monks on the island. The Anglo-Saxons were disgruntled by the behaviour of the native monks, who would leave Inishboffin to preach around the rest of the country for the duration of the summer while the Anglo-Saxon monks were left to tend to the island. St. Colman resolved the dispute by founding the monastery at Mayo and settling them there with Gerald as abbot.

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