Blathmac

Who they were

Blathmac, of a noble Irish family, longed from youth to be a martyr. An exemplary monk and later abbot, he joined the Columban monks of Iona in 824.

When the Danes raided the island, they burst in while he was celebrating Mass and killed the monks. He refused to show them the shrine of St Columba, and was hacked to pieces. Walafrid Strabo, Abbot of Reichenau, wrote his life in verse.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

A monk who died at the altar rather than betray the relics of St Columba.