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Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ibhar

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585078Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 28 — Ibhar1891William Arthur Jobson Archbold

IBHAR or IBERIUS, Saint (d. 500?), bishop of Begery or Begerin, born early in the fifth century, may have belonged to the tribe of the Ui-Eachach Uladh in Iveagh, co. Down. He was probably a pupil of St. Patrick, and received the name Ibhar on becoming a Christian. He lived at first in the Arran Islands in Galway Bay, afterwards on Geshille Plain, King's County, then in the island of Begerin in Wexford Haven. He kept a school, and soon gathered monks around him, and his memory is preserved in various local traditions. He died at Begerin about A.D. 500. He is locally known as St. Ivory, and is commemorated on 23 April.

[All the authorities are collected in Smith's Dict. of Christian Biog. iii. 197; cf. also Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography, and Notes and Queries, 5th ser. i. 469.]