Martin Clan History

The Martin family arrived in Ireland with Strongbow, becoming important merchants and one of the Tribes of Galway. They subsequently moved into the County, leaving fine seats at Ballinahinch, Dangan, Ross, Spiddal and Tulira.

     Patron Saint of the Martin Family Also known as Martin the Merciful; The Glory of Gaul -Memorial 11 November

Saint Martin of Tours (Latin: Martinus), (316/317 – November 11, 397 in Candes) was a bishop of Tours whose shrine became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela. Around his name much legendary material accrued and he has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Roman Catholic saints. Some of the accounts of his travels may have been interpolated into his vita to give credence to early sites of his cult. His life was recorded by a contemporary, the hagiographer Sulpitius Severus. He is the patron saint of soldiers.

When the bishop of Tours died in 371, Martin was the immediate choice to replace him. Martin declined, citing unworthiness Rusticus, a wealthy citizen of Tours, claimed his wife was ill and asking for Martin; when he arrived in the city, he was declared bishop by popular acclamation, consecrated on 4 July 372.

Moved to a hermit's cell near Tours. Other monks joined him, and a new house, Marmoutier, soon formed. He rarely left his monastery or see city, but sometimes went to Trier to plead with the emperor for his city, his church, or his parishioners. Once when he went to ask for lenience for a condemned prisoner, an angel woke the emperor to tell him that Martin was waiting to see him; the prisoner was reprieved.

Martin himself was given to visions, but even his contemporaries sometimes ascribed them to his habit of lengthy fasts. An extensive biography of Martin was written by Sulpicius Severus. He was the first non-martyr to receive the cultus of a saint. Born c.316 at Upper Pannonia (in modern Hungary)

Died 8 November 397 at Candes, Tours, France of natural causes; by his request, he was buried in the Cemetery of the Poor on 11 November 397; his relics rested in the basilica of Tours, a scene of pilgrimages and miracles, until 1562 when the catheral and relics were destroyed by militant Protestants; some small fragments on his tomb were found during construction excavation in 1860 Born to pagan parents; his father was a Roman military officer and tribune. Martin was raised in Pavia, Italy. Discovered Christianity, and became a catechumen in his early teens. Joined the Roman imperial army at age 15, serving in a ceremonial unit that acted as the emperor's bodyguard, rarely exposed to combat. Cavalry officer, and assigned to garrison duty in Gaul.

Trying to live his faith, he refused to let his servant to wait on him. Once, while on horseback in Amiens in Gaul (modern France), he encountered a beggar. Having nothing to give but the clothes on his back, he cut his heavy officer's cloak in half, and gave it to the beggar. Later he had a vision of Christ wearing the cloak.

                                                                                   Saint Richard Martin (died 1588) was an English martyr. Born in Shropshire, he studied at Oxford. A devout Catholic, he was arrested for giving shelter to priests, and was hanged, drawn, and quartered August 30, 1588 at Tyburn, along with Blesseds Richard Leigh, Edward Shelley, John Roche, Richard Flowers, and St. Margaret Ward. He was beatified in 1929. His feast day is August 30.