Abbot of Bangor's Seal

From The Dublin Penny Journal, Volume 1, Number 26, December 22, 1832.

The ancient brazen Seal, of which an impression is represented in the annexed engraving, was found in the ruins of Saul Abbey, in the County of Down, and is now in the possession of Mr. James Underwood of Sandymount, who has an interesting collection of Irish antiquities.

It represents the statue of an Abbot—St. Comgall—standing in a niche of pointed or gothic architecture; his left hand holding the crozier or pastoral staff, and his right raised in the act of giving the benediction. On a shield or tablet below, are the arms of the Abbot to whom the seal belonged; and outside the device, the following abbreviated inscription, in the monkish letter of the 14th century:—

Sigillum Rev. Patris Johanis Kenedy, Abbatis de Bangor. —The Seal of the Rev. Father John Kenedy, Abbot of Bangor.

As our histories have not preserved the names of the Abbots of this great Monastery during the 14th and 15th centuries, we cannot accurately ascertain at what period this Abbot flourished, but the style of architecture, and the letters on the seal unquestionably belong to those ages; and this seal, like that of a Dean of Clonmacnoise, given in a former number, preserves a fact to our local histories which would otherwise have been lost.

The Abbey of Bangor was founded by St. Comgall in the 6th century, and was one of the most celebrated institutions of its kind in Ireland.

P.