Life
His life is not well known, as no contemporaneous material exists. His Latin vita maintains that he was descended from a royal line and was related to the Dál Messin Corb. He was given the name Coemgen, which means "gentle one", was baptized by Cronan, and educated by St Petroc during that saint's sojourn in Ireland. He lived in solitude at Disert-Coemgen for seven years, sleeping on a dolmen (now known as "Saint Kevin's Bed") perched on a perilous precipice, that an angel had led him to, and later established a church for his own community at Glendalough. This monastery was to become the parent of several others. Eventually, Glendalough, with its seven churches, became one of the chief pilgrimage destinations in Ireland. His legend says that he lived to the age of 120.
St. Kevin is said to have first lived in Kilnamanagh (church of the monks) in what is modern-day Tallaght, Dublin 24, but moved on to Glendalough in order to avoid the company of his followers, a group of monks who founded a monastery on the site. Locals say that it was his monastery that was demolished by developers in the 1970s when building the housing estate that is there today. St. Kevin’s well is all that remains today as the plot was unsuitable for building. It is now surrounded by a garden kept by locals in the saint’s honour. St. Kevin is today the patron saint of the Kilnamanagh parish.
His feast day in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches is 3 June.
Kevin is remembered in popular culture as an ascetic. This is commemorated in a folk song about him which descibes how he drowned a woman who attempted to seduce him. This was recorded and made popular by The Dubliners. the opening verse is as follows "In glendalogh there lived an auld saint, renowned for his learning and piety, his manners were curious and quaint and he looked upon girls with disparity."
The independent film-maker Kevin Smith refers irreverently to his namesake 'Saint Kevin' and the key events of his life in the introduction to Sold Out: A Threevening with Kevin Smith, his 2008 live Q & A show. Raised a Catholic, one of the recurring themes of Smith's work is critical and off-beat analysis of organised religion.
Read more about this topic: Kevin Of Glendalough
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