January 17 is the feast of Saint Ultán of Cúl Corra, one of the many Irish saints about whom not much information has survived. There are at least half a dozen saints of this name found on the twelfth-century List of Homonymous Saints, seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, said he knew of twenty. We have both a place and a patronymic assoicated with this particular Saint Ultán. The Martyrology of Donegal records 'ULTAN, son of Etechdach of Cuilcorra' as its lead entry for the saints of the day. Canon O'Hanlon, as we shall see below, wondered if this saint may have been associated with the old church of Coolkerry in his native County Laois, but Father Colgan seems to have thought he belonged in Kera in County Mayo. In 2017 modern scholar Dr Elva Johnston posted on her social media account that 'Lough Derravarragh is more often associated with the legend of the Children of Lir than with the local saint, Ultán of Cúl Corra', which would place the saint in County Westmeath. Nothing more seems to have been recorded of Saint Ultán of Cúl Corra or of the period in which he flourished. Canon O'Hanlon in Volume I of his Lives of the Irish Saints mentions a reference to the Life of Saint Declan, but the Ultán who appears there as a close disciple of Declan of Ardmore is not identified as Saint Ultán of Cúl Corra:
Article II. St. Ultan, Son of Etechdach of Cuilcorra.
Owing to her admirable constitution, all in the Church is strong, because in her everything is divine and everything is in unity. As each part is divine, the bond also is divine, and the connection of parts is such, that each part acts with the force of a whole. The very life of one among her saints reveals this happy unison and strength. We read in the Martyrology of Donegal on this day about Ultan, a son to Etechdach of Cuilcorra. For further particulars regarding this saint, we are referred to the life of St. Declan, by a commentator, in the table, which has been placed after the text of this Martyrology. In the published Martyrology of Tallagh this saint's name is omitted, or wrongly inserted. Marianus O'Gorman informs us, likewise, that St. Ultan, the son of Etectac, was venerated in Cuilchorra, at this date. This church is placed in that part of Connaught, known as Kera, according to Colgan, and there too St. Patrick is said to have erected a church. However we cannot at all be certain that such was the exact place, with which St. Ultan's religious ministrations had been connected.
There is an old church of Coolkerry, in a parish of that name, within the barony of Clarmallagh and in the Queen's County. Measured from the interior, it is about 48 feet in length, by 20 in breadth, while the walls are nearly four feet in thickness. However, only an old gable, and quite a featureless one, stands in an imperfect shape, as several stones have been removed from its top and sides. Its limestone walls are covered with yellow lichens. Grass-covered side walls, with one end wall, or faint traces of it, over the foundations are visible. This church stands on a mound, near the road bridge, which crosses the River Erkina a considerable stream flowing beneath it. Several moss and lichen-covered rude head-stones are in the graveyard, which has long been used for purposes of burial. In an adjoining rich pasture field, and quite near the old church, there are very curious earth-mounds; and here the inhabitants say were and are the foundations of ancient religious erections. What is denominated a Monument Bush, and of large growth, may be seen at the entrance from the road to the graveyard, which is unenclosed. The bush was a fine flowering hawthorn, at a time when the writer visited this spot. Unbaptized infants were interred beneath the bush, and a pile of loose stones surrounded its gnarled trunk. It may be worthy of investigation, to find if this place could have been identical with the Cuilcorra and its St. Ultan here recorded.
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