Gerald of Mayo (died 13 March 732 AD) is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church.
Biography
Gerald was born in Northumbria. Little reliable information is known of his early life, and his date of birth is unknown. This occurred after the Synod of Whitby in 664 AD. The Northumbrian King Oswy ruled in favour of the Easter date then current in the rest of the Catholic Church, which meant he ruled against the Irish method of calculating the date for Easter. Though Colmán was an ardent supporter of the Irish traditions, he decided after the synod to go along with the Alexandrian computus, which by that time had become essentially universal in 9th century western christianity.thumb|Old St. Colmán's Church, InishbofinGerald was among thirty Northumbrian monks who left Lindisfarne with Colmán and eventually settled in 668 on Inishbofin [island of the white cow] in what is now Galway, 8 km off the coast of Connemara in Connacht. Angles of Northumbria would have originally been influenced by teachers of Irish descent. The newcomers would have therefore experienced at first hand Irish teachings and a monastic life to which they had been formed in Lindisfarne.
Upset at Inishbofin
Dissensions arose, almost immediately, between the Irish and the Northumbrian monks. The Northumbrian contingent were disgruntled by the others leaving Inishbofin for the summer to preach around the mainland, while they were left to tend to the island. This falling-out, it has been suggested, might simply have arisen from a difference between Northumbrian and Irish agricultural traditions, the latter incorporating Transhumance. Vera Orschel (Magh Eo, the yew plain), 74 km away from Inishbofin. Gerald was fairly young to hold such a prominent position but led wisely.
The monastery flourished and became a popular destination. To judge merely from the size of its enclosure (traces still discernable at Mayo Abbey of diameter 400 metres), the monastery at some time in its early history must have been comparable in influence and relevance with sites like Armagh, Kildare, Glendalough, and Clonmacnoise. Mayo seems to have been considered amongst the larger monasteries in the Irish annals of the time. Under its youthful abbott, the School of Mayo gained greatly in fame for sanctity and learning. It was sufficiently on the map for Alcuin in York and Aachen to have corresponded with its abbott and monks. Emanating from Mayo as far as England and France was a ‘great light of knowledge’, according to Alcuin. This suggests Mayo had developed a reputation as a monastic or cathedral school. The economic base appears to have been present to have permitted development of a good scriptorium and library.
The Life of Saint Gerald tells how Gerald and others were involved with the course of events during a large plague in the 660s that ended up killing half of Ireland's population. Saint Gerald and Saint Fechin were invited to a meeting by the joint kings in Tara to determine what to do about the plague and a concurrent famine. Fechin believed the plague was sent by God to stop people from continuing to starve, while Gerald advocated to pray for an end to the plague and the problems of starvation. Gerald's sister and many from her convent reportedly died during the plague.
Family and death
Though there has been mention of Gerald's having had a sister, and a brother (supposedly Balin, also a disciple of Colmán, and residing in Connaught), the historic reliability of these accounts has been questioned. Likewise, Beretchert and Huildbriti are also Irish saints, which seems too unlikely to modern scholars.
Legacy
St Gerald's College, Castlebar is named after Gerald. Taoiseach Enda Kenny is an alumnus.
Sources
There are several sources for the life and legend of Saint Gerald, with some more reliable than others.
Many of the documentary sources on Gerald come from The Life of Saint Gerald, but this is also viewed today as an unreliable source, with some blatant anachronisms. This source was shared by Colgan on Gerald's festival day, March 13, many centuries after his death, and likely compiled by the scribe Augustin Magraidin.