The Gobán Saor was a highly skilled smith or architect in Irish history and legend. Gobban Saer (Gobban the Builder) is a figure regarded in Irish traditional lore as an architect of the seventh century, and popularly canonized as St. Gobban. The Catholic Encyclopedia considers him historical and born at Turvey, on the Donabate peninsula in North County Dublin, about 560.
In literary references, he was employed by many Irish saints to build churches, oratories, and bell towers, and he is alluded to in an eighth-century Irish poem, preserved in a monastery in Carinthia. In the "Life of St. Abban" it is said that "the fame of Gobban as a builder in wood as well as stone would exist in Ireland to the end of time."
The Goban Saor is described as the son of Tuirbe Tragmar ("thrower of axes"), a figure whose magical axe would hold back the sea after it was thrown on the strand.[3]
His supposed burial site is located next to Derrynaflan Church, County Tipperary.
^Blažek, Václav 2008, Celtic ‘smith’ and his colleagues, in Alexander Lubotsky, Jos Schaeken and Jeroen Wiedenhof (eds.) Evidence and counter-evidence: Festschrift for F. Kortlandt 1, Amsterdam–New York: Rodopi, 35-53.
^[1] n.125 Tráig Tuirbi, in The Rennes Dindshenchas, edited by Whitney Stokes, pages 76-77, Revue Celtiques 16 (1895)
Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Gobban Saer". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Gobban Saer". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
