St. Íte, like her more famous compatriots, St. Brigid and St. Patrick, is one of the great saints of early Irish Christianity. She lived around the same time as Brigid of Kildare and a little later than St. Patrick.

Íte was born and baptized Deirdre in the year 480. Later, when she became a religious sister, Deirdre received the name Íte, or Ida, which means “thirst for holiness” to reflect her fire for following God. Íte, like Brigid, encountered obstacles in her path to following God. She turned down an advantageous marriage with a powerful chieftain, despite her family’s objections. At the age of sixteen, Íte brought a group of women with her, including her sister, Fiona, and started a community at the small town that has ever since borne her patronage—Killeedy. Pious fable purports that Íte was led by three divine lights that guided her to her final destination.

Many of the legends about the saint paint Íte’s portrait as a fiery, independent personality. She believed in a joyful spirit, simplicity, and generous care for others. She never took gifts that she couldn’t care for herself, she farmed her own land, and she supported her community with her beautiful needlework.

Their community started a school for young boys to teach them the faith. One of their pupils was the great St. Brendan the Navigator. Íte cared for Brendan as a mother, and, throughout adulthood, the adventurous Brendan would return to Íte to rest and seek her wise counsel.

Íte is credited with many miracles and inspired many other men and women to seek holiness. Íte’s cause of death is an interesting relic of ancient medical reporting. She most likely died from cancer, but her contemporary biographers credited her death to a beetle that consumed her side until it grew to be the size of a pig—a grotesque, but comprehensible, metaphor for a cancerous tumor. Íte died around the year 570 and her grave in Killeedy is still venerated to this day.

Íte is the patron saint of Killeedy, a small town in County Limerick, in the Southwest of Ireland.

St. Íte of Killeedy, foster mother of the faith in Ireland—pray for us!

Image Credit: the image of St. Íte, in a stained glass window of St. Kieran’s Church in Ballylooby, is by Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0, and accessed via Wikimedia Commons.