St. Dympna.

There are many examples of popular cults of saints which are not supported by a great deal of biographical information about the saint concerned, and Dympna is a case in point.  Allegedly Dympna lived in the 7th century and was the daughter of a Celtic or British king.  Her mother died in her childhood, and when her father fell in love with her and made incestuous advances to her, she fled with her spiritual confidant, Gerebernus, to Antwerp in the Low Countries, and then to Gheel, some 25 miles from Antwerp.  Dympna’s father pursued the couple and eventually found them living as hermits.  As they refused to return, the king’s attendants killed Gerebernus and the king himself killed his daughter.  The place of their martyrdom became a shrine, and when their bodies were moved to a new resting-place in the 13th century, many cures of epileptics and lunatics were recorded.  For this reason Dympna is patroness of the mentally disabled.  The town of Gheel has always had an exceptionally fine record of service for treatment of the mentally ill, including the much derided practice of ‘care in the community’ (which only works when ‘community’ can be a reality and not just a name).