# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fiacre

​FIACRE or FIACHRACH, Saint (d. 670?), was a native of Ireland, and of noble birth. Desirous of leading a solitary life he proceeded to France with some companions. From the entry in the ‘Martyrology of Donegal,’ ‘Fiachrach an Eremite, and he blessed also in France,’ it would appear that he had a previous career in Ireland, of which no record remains. Arriving at Meaux, near Paris, he visited Faro, bishop of that place, and sought from him ‘a little place in the woods remote from human converse’ to settle in. The bishop, learning that he was from ‘Ireland, the country of the Scots,’ granted his request, for he bore in memory a visit paid to his father by the famous Irish missionary, Columbanus, and was well ​disposed towards his countrymen. Fiachrach then proceeded to clear a spot at the place, Brodilium or Brogilium, now Breuil, where he erected a monastery, building a small house near, for the reception of guests and as a dwelling for himself. Here he was visited by a fellow-countryman named Cillen, who was on his way back from a pilgrimage to Rome. One of the rules of his monastery forbade women to enter it, and this having been kept up in after times when its origin was forgotten, a legend grew up as to its cause. The saint, it was said, wanted ground for a garden, and having asked St. Faro for it he consented to give him as much as he could enclose in one day by a trench dug with his own hands. Fiachrach drew his crozier along the ground and the earth opened before it, but a woman who saw him hastened to tell the bishop how his stipulation was evaded, in consequence of which the saint prayed that any woman who entered his monastery might be divinely punished. The rule, however, was evidently framed in accordance with the practice of the second order of Irish saints, who ‘refused the services of women and separated them from their monasteries’ (Todd). It was so strictly observed that Anne of Austria, when she visited Fiachrach's tomb in 1641 to pray there, did not venture to infringe it.
As far back as the ninth century his fame as a worker of miracles was widespread. He was believed to have effected cures by the mere laying on of his hands, and pilgrims from every quarter crowded to his shrine to invoke his aid. He was chiefly celebrated for the cure of a tumour since known as ‘le fic de St. Fiacre.’ He died on 18 Aug., but the year is not known. It was probably about 670. His festival is kept on 30 Aug. in the numerous oratories and churches dedicated to him throughout France. In 1234 his remains were placed in a shrine by Peter, bishop of Meaux, his arm being placed in a separate reliquary to be carried about and exhibited to the people, in the same manner no doubt as the arm of St. Lachtin, lately acquired by the government and deposited in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy. In 1479 the remains of saints Fiachrach and Cillen, enclosed in their wooden cases, were placed in a silver shrine. But in 1568 it was deemed advisable, in consequence of the religious troubles, to remove them from Breuil to the cathedral of Meaux. In 1617 the shrine was opened by the bishop of Meaux, and part of the body was given to the king of Etruria; and lastly, in 1637 it was again opened, and part of the vertebræ given to Cardinal Richelieu. Fiachrach's name is perpetuated in France in connection with the hackney-carriage called fiacre, which derived its name from the circumstance that the proprietor of the Hôtel de St. Fiacre, in the Rue St. Martin, in 1640 kept carriages on hire. Over the doorway was an image of the saint, and in course of time the carriages came to be called by the name of the saint who presided over the establishment.
T. O.