Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jarlath (fl.540)
JARLATH or IARLATH (fl. 540), Irish saint, was a native of Connaught, where both his father Lugh and his mother Mong-finn were well descended. In the reign of Tuathal Maolgarbh, king of Ireland 533–44, he started on a journey with the intention of founding a church and religious community in some suitable place. Before he reached the frontier of Connaught his chariot-wheels were broken, and he took the accident as a divine indication of the proper site for his church, which he built at Tuam-da-gualann. It was the first bishopric founded in Connaught, and still retains the primacy of that province. The town now known as Tuam, co. Galway, grew up around his church, and his relics were long preserved there in a chapel called Scrin. His obit is celebrated on 26 Dec., but no ancient life of him is extant.
This saint is sometimes confounded with the Jarlath (424–481) [q. v.], third archbishop of Armagh. Colgan is clear that they are distinct. O'Clery seems no less clear, but it is a suspicious circumstance that O'Clery derives the archbishop of Tuam from the Clan Rudhraighe, a family of Ulster closely allied, and in later times united, with the Dal Fiatach, from whom the Archbishop of Armagh was descended.
[Felire of Œngus, ed. Stokes, p. 184; Colgan's Acta Sanctorum Hib.; Martyrology of Donegal, Dublin ed., 1864, p. 349.]