SHE was a native of Nandesi, now the barony of Dessee in the county of Waterford, and descended from the royal family. Having consecrated her virginity to God, she led an austere retired life at the foot of the mountain Luach, in the diocese of Limerick, and founded there a famous monastery of holy virgins, called Cluain-cred-hail. By the mortification of her senses and passions, and by her constant attention to God and his divine love, she was enriched with many extraordinary graces. The lesson she principally inculcated to others was, that to be perpetually recollected in God is the great means of attaining to perfection. She died January 15, in 569. Her feast was solemnized in her church of Cluain-cred-hail; in the whole territory of Hua-Conail, and at Rosmide, in the territory of Nandesi. See her ancient life in Bollandus, Jan. xvi., and Colgan, t. 1, p. 72, who calls her the second St. Bridget of Ireland.
See the epitaph of eight verses, composed for this Pope, by St. Damasus, carm. 48, and Tillemont, t. 5.
ST. MARCELLUS was priest under pope Marcellinus. whom he succeeded in 308, after that see had been vacant for three years and a half. An epitaph written on him by pope Damasus, who also mentions himself in it, says, that by enforcing the canons of holy penance, he drew upon himself the contradictions and persecutions of many tepid and refractory Christians, and that for his severity against a certain apostate, he was banished by the tyrant Maxentius.[1] He died in 310, having sat one year, seven months, and twenty days. Anastatius writes, that Lucina, a devout widow of one Pinianus, who lodged St. Marcellus when he lived in Rome, after his death converted her house into a church, which she called by his name. His false acts relate, that among his other sufferings, he was condemned by the tyrant to keep cattle in this place. He is styled a martyr in the sacramentaries of Gelasius I. and St. Gregory, and in the Martyrologies ascribed to St. Jerom and Bede, which, with the rest of the Western calendars, mention his feast on the sixteenth of January. His body lies under the high altar in the ancient church, which bears his name, and gives title to a cardinal in Rome; but certain portions of his relics are honored at Cluni, Namur, Mons, &c.