“A Place Built For God [ Locum Deo Construendum ]”: The Geographic Function in St. Finán Cam’s Hagiographic Tradition

St. Finán Cam’s vita tradition inflects medieval hagiographical tropes through a geographical logic that emphasizes place over biographical plot. This article reads the monastic settlement at Inis Úasal, thought to have been founded by Finán, as both hagiographical text and a lens for understanding the construction of narrational emphases in Finán’s vitae . This reading posits the imaginary “sacred core” of Inis Úasal as a site of creative adaptation and reimagining that characterized Irish hagiographic development in pre-Norman Munster.