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Died 7th century. Saint Lua gave his name to the ancient town of Killaloe (Church of Lua). He is said to have been born of noble parents in Limerick, and educated at Bangor and Clonard. He founded a church and school on the River Shannon, where one of his pupils was the future Bishop Flannan, who succeeded Lua as abbot.

His refuge on Friar's Island, County Tipperary, was a pilgrim's destination even in the 20th century--until a power dam raised the level of the Shannon in 1929 and submerged the island. Lua's chapel had been removed, its stones numbered, and reassembled on the former site of Brian Boru's palace overlooking the Shannon.

A legend relates that the horse's hoof-prints in the rock of Friar's Island were those of Saint Patrick's beast -left when the apostle of Ireland was forced to leap one-eighth of a mile from one shore to the other to escape hostile pagans. His charger rose to the challenge and landed with such force on the island that his hoof prints sank deep into the rock (D'Arcy, Montague).


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