Naomh An Lae - Saint Of The Day

St Fiacre (7th century) patron of gardeners and taxi-drivers

St
Fiacre had a monastery in Ireland at Cill Fiachra (Kilferagh), Co
Kilkenny, and later in France. He is often invoked for healing of
cancers and venereal diseases. He is also the patron saint of gardeners
and taxi-drivers. 

 

Irish monk with the power of healing

Though not
mentioned in the earlier Irish calendars, Fiacre was born in Ireland at
the end of the sixth century. He was raised in a monastery where he
became a monk and imbibed knowledge of herbal medicine. In time he had
his own hermitage and perhaps a monastery, possibly near St. Fiachra's
Well  at Cill Fiachra (Kilferagh), Sheastown, in the barony of
Shillelogher near Bennetsbridge, Co Kilkenny. As crowds flocked to him
because of his reputation for his holiness and cures, he sailed to
France in search of greater solitude.

Monastic site of Saint-Fiacre in France

When he
arrived at Meaux in 628, the bishop St Faro, well-disposed to him due to
kindnesses he and his father's house had received from the Irish
missionary Columbanus, granted him a site at Brogillum (Breuil), in the
province of Brie.

Faro offered Fiacre as much land as he could turn up in a day.
Fiacre, instead of using a plough, turned the top of the soil with the
point of his staff. He then cleared the ground of trees and briers, made
a cell for himself, a garden for herbs and vegetables, a chapel and a
hospice for travellers. 

All this developed into the village of
Saint-Fiacre. It is situated in Seine-et-Marne départment of the
Île-de-France region. Again in time the crowds flocked to him in search
of cures. He died around 670.

Healer: patron of gardeners and taxi-drivers

Fiacre gained a reputation and is invoked for the healing of fevers, tumours, cancers, as well as fistula and venereal diseases.

He has become the patron saint of gardeners. In 1999 a garden in his
honour was made at the National Stud in Kildare. It has become a major
tourist attraction.

Fiacre is also the patron of taxi-drivers. The Hôtel de St-Fiacre, in
the Rue St-Martin, Paris, in the middle of the seventeenth century was
the first to hire out coaches. 

The sign of the inn was an image of the
saint, and the coaches in time came to be called fiacres.