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The cache is placed approximately 30m from this Shrine. It is a 15 minute walk from Killeavey old Church up a narrow and sometimes steep lane. You need to walk up a field to reach the cache. The cache itself is a small tad locked box with log, pencil and some swappables for the geokids.
St Moninna was born in 432. Her father was Machta, king of the territory stretching from Louth to Armagh. Her mother was Comwi, daughter of one of the northern kings. According to tradition, Moninna, when a child, was baptised and confirmed by St. Patrick. It is said that Patrick came to her parent's house, blessed the family and predicted that Moninna's name would be remembered throughout time. She founded a number of convents in Scotland and England and also monastery of nuns in Faughart, Co. Louth. She later moved to a place near Begerin in Co. Wexford to be under St Ibar, before coming to Killeavy where she died in the year 518.
On the northern side of the cemetery at Killeavy Old Church there is a very large granite stone measuring seven feet long, five feet wide and about one and a half feet thick. This stone covers the supposed grave of St Moninna.
That name has many different forms. It appears her pet name was “Blinne” or “Moblinne”. Baby but in later life she went as a missionary to England and Scotland, to places where various dialects were spoken, and people adapted her name to their own speech. Thus in Scotland her name became Edanna, Edan, Edin. A famous Scottish historian, F. Skene, about a century ago, stated that the city of Edinburgh grew from a settlement near the convent of the Irish nun Edin, or Modena. The old name of Dunedin was anglicised to Edinburgh.
Moninna had a younger brother, Ronan, also a missionary. He became a bishop and was the abbot of Luncarty, near Dundee in Scotland. When Moninna had worked for seven years in Staffordshire, Saint Patrick, directed her to Scotland. Here she paid a visit to her brother, and then, continued her work of spreading the Gospel, and founding communities of nuns, who tended to the sick and the poor. In Scotland she built churches in the name of Christ. A 12-century writer gives us a list and he writes: "She had also been to Albainn, that is Scotland, where she had built churches in the name of Christ. These are their names. One is in Chilnecase (now Whithorn) in Galloyway. Another is on the summit of the hill, which is called Dundeneval (now Dundonald, because it was always her custom as we have said earlier, to pray at night, with bare limbs on bare rock to God.... A third is on another hilltop, Dumbarton. A fourth is in a fortress called Stirling. Yet a fifth is in Dunedin. which in the language, of the English is called Edeneburg. A sixth is the hill of Dunpeleder, now Traplain Law and there she crossed the sea, into Albainn, to Saint Andrews. Then after this she went to Alyth, where there is now a fine church, which she built, with a very holy spring at Luncarty and she stayed there some time. She greatly loved that place- where at the end of her life, she breathed her last.
the northern side of the cemetery there is a very large granite stone measuring seven feet long, five feet wide and about one and a half feet thick. This stone covers the supposed grave of St. Monnina - who died in the year 518 and here in days when the Pattern (which was the anniversary of the day on which a church had been dedicated to a saint) was celebrated, prayers were said at this spot and the pilgrim continued to her Holy Well further up the mountain, returning to this gravestone for the final prayer. The Pattern Day of St. Moninna was 6th July, but with the coming of persecution to the Catholic faith, these religious ceremonies were banned by law. The Pattern was revived in the year 1928 and seems to have survived until 6th July 1934. The scene was an historical setting for the Holy Year Pilgrimage on 4th August 1974. After the suppression of the Pattern in 1825, the existence of the Holy Well was forgotten about but was re-discovered by Father James Donnelly C.C. Meigh in 1880. The inscription on the Shrine at the Well now reads "Tobar Naoimh Blathnaidh - A.D. 498 - 1829".
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ebpxf gb gur evtug bs gur fuevar. Ybbx sbe n oheag ybt!