Died c. 650. Dympna is said to have been the daughter of a pagan Irish
(from Monaghan?), British, or Amorican king and a Christian princess who
died when she was very young, but who had baptized her daughter. As
Dympna grew into a young woman, her uncanny resemblance to her dead
mother aroused an incestuous passion in her father.
On the advice of her confessor,
Saint Gerebernus (f.d. today),
Dympna
fled from home. Accompanied by Gerebernus and attended by the court
jester and his wife, she took a ship to Antwerp. She then travelled
through wild forest country until she reached a small oratory dedicated
to Saint Martin on the site of the present-day town of Gheel (25 miles
from Antwerp). The group settled there to live as hermits and during
the several months before they were found, Dympna gained a reputation
for holiness because of her devotion to the poor and suffering.
Dympna's father had pursued her to Antwerp, and he sent spies who found
them by tracing their use of foreign coins. The king tried to persuade
her to return, but when she refused, the king ordered that she and
Gerebernus be killed. The king's men killed the priest and their
companions but hesitated to kill Dympna. The king himself struck off
her head with his sword. The bodies were left on the ground. They were
buried by angelic or human hands on the site where they had perished.
The whole story gripped the imagination of the entire countryside
especially because, according to tradition, lunatics were cured at her
grave. Great interest in her cultus was renewed and spread when the
translation of the relics of Dympna was followed by the cures of a
number of epileptics, lunatics, and persons under evil influences who
had visited the shrine.
Under her patronage, the inhabitants of Gheel have been known for the
care they have given to those with mental illnesses. By the close of
the 13th century, an infirmary was built. Today the town possesses a
first-class sanatorium, one of the largest and most efficient colonies
for the mentally ill in the world. It was one of the first to initiate
a program through which patients live normal and useful lives in the
homes of farmers or local residents, whom they assist in their labour
and whose family life they share. The strength of Dympna's cultus is
evidenced by this compassionate work of the people of Gheel for the
mentally ill at a time when they were universally neglected or treated
with hostility.
The body of Dympna is preserved in a silver reliquary in the church
bearing her name. Only the head of Gerebernus rests there, the remains
have been removed to Sonsbeck in the diocese of Muenster.
(
Attwater,
Benedictines,
D'Arcy,
Delaney,
Farmer,
Kenney,
Montague,
O'Hanlon,
White).
In art, Saint Dympna is a crowned maiden with a sword and the devil on a
chain. Many children in Belgium are called Dympna, but in Ireland she
is remembered under the form Damhnat, while in England Daphne is used.
Dympna is invoked against insanity, mental illness of all types, asylums
for the mentally ill, nurses of the mentally ill, sleepwalking,
epilepsy, and demoniac possession
(
Roeder).
Her feast day is kept in
Ireland and Gheel.