“A Place Built For God [Locum Deo Construendum]”: The Geographic Function in St. Finán Cam’s Hagiographic Tradition
By Matthew Carey Salyer
Published in Eolas: Journal of the American Society for Irish Medieval Studies, 2025.
Link
Published in Eolas: Journal of the American Society for Irish Medieval Studies, 2025.
Link
Abstract
St. Finán Cam’s vitatradition inflects medieval hagiographical tropes through a geographical logic that emphasizes place over biographical plot. This article reads the monastic settlement at Inis Úasal, thought to have been founded by Finán, as both hagiographical text and a lens for understanding the construction of narrational emphases in Finán’s vitae. This reading posits the imaginary “sacred core” of Inis Úasal as a site of creative adaptation and reimagining that characterized Irish hagiographic development in pre-Norman Munster.