Gerald of Mayo

Gerald of Mayo (died 13 March 731) is a saint of the Catholic Church. Born in Northumbria, the son of an Anglo-Saxon king, he was one of the English monks at Lindisfarne who accompanied Colmán of Lindisfarne to Iona and then to Ireland. This occurred after the Synod of Whitby 664AD which decided against the Irish method of calculating the date for Easter. Colman was an ardent supporter of the Irish traditions; after the synod decided to adopt the Roman computation, Colman and thirty English monks, St. Gerald among them, left Lindisfarne and eventually settled on Inishboffin off the coast of what is now County Mayo in 668. St. Gerald became the first abbot of the monastery of Mayo after disputes arose among the monks on the island. The English were disgruntled by the behaviour of the native monks, who would leave Inishboffin to preach around the rest of the country for the duration of the summer while the English monks were left to tend to the island. St. Colman resolved the dispute by founding the monastery at Mayo and settling them there with Gerald as abbot.

St. Gerald is reputed to have founded the abbeys of Tempul-Gerald and Teagh-na-Saxon and a convent which he placed under the care of his sister.

St. Gerald's College in Castlebar, County Mayo is named for Gerald. Taoiseach Enda Kenny is a former pupil.

His brother Balin is also a saint.