OENGUS (AENGUS, Latinized Aengussius, Aeneas), saint. – An Irish monk called “the Culdee” (v. CULDEI), b. at Clúain-Ednéch (Clonenagh, in Leix), d. there on 11 March 824. Educated at the local monastic school, after a period of eremitical life he went to Tamlachta (Tallaght), becoming a disciple of its founder, St. Maelruan, with whom he collaborated on the Martirologio di Tallaght (of the Irish saints), completed ca. 790. After the death of his master (792), he returned to his original retreat at Dísert-Oengusa. Ancient writers call him abbot and bishop of Clonenagh, where he was buried.
O. is famous for his Martyrology, called Félire (“Quatrain Calendar”) Oengusso, in Celtic verse of six syllables, grouped into quatrains. In addition to the martyrology proper, the poem has a prologue of 340 verses and an epilogue of 566, in which the method followed is explained, praise is offered to the saints in general, and the triumph of the people of God in Ireland is proclaimed. The Félire was completed around the year 800. The saints commemorated in it, although some are foreigners, especially among the martyrs, are predominantly from the country (the last, on 7 July, being St. Maelruan), so that “the work is truly a testimony to the unified national character of the old Irish Church” (Kenney). O. is also credited with the Saltair na Rann (“Psalter of the Quatrains”), the longest Irish religious poem (more than two thousand quatrains, in 162 compositions), with themes drawn from the Old and New Testaments; but verse 8009, containing the author’s name (O. cèle Dé), seems to be an interpolation; in any case, the poem contains at least additions extending into the tenth century.