Begnet

A holy well located near the martello tower on the island is also associated with her;[5] as the Irish playwright Hugh Leonard observed: A few yards away are the ruins of a church supposedly built by the town's patron saint, St. Begnet.

[9] According to one source on the history of the church in Dalkey, Begnet's father was Colman, the son of Aedh in the parish of Kilbegnatan (Kilbegnet or Cill Becnait).

[13] In 1795, the entry on Dalkey Island in W.W. Seward's Topographia Hibernica (Topography of Ireland) claimed that Dalki was so-called "on account of the Pagan altar there".

As is the case with many other early Celtic saints, aspects of Begnet's narratives and archaeology indicate that the traditional religions of ancient Ireland had been appropriated, rather than stamped out, by evangelizing Christianity.

The existence of several similarly named saints in the region may also suggest cross-identification among local Christian religious figures, perhaps in association with one or more deities from Celtic or other traditional religions, though this is no longer a fashionable view in the early 21st century.

[17] The interaction or sometimes reconciliation between Christian missionaries and representatives of traditional religious authority is expressed in Ireland by, for instance, narratives of St. Patrick and the druids, many of whom are oppositional but some of whom either convert or assume a welcoming, ecumenical attitude.

A 7th-century Irish homily describes three kinds of martyrdom: white (bloodless), a separation from all that one loves; blue (or green), the mortification of one's will through fasting and penitential labour; and red (bloody), undergoing physical torture or death.

The story of how she left behind her former life, carrying with her only the bracelet that marked her service to the cross, suggests a form of "white" martyrdom.

"[22] The rejection of marriage by the beautiful young Begnet would be categorized as castitas in iuventute, a form of martyrdom acquired by "chastity in youth" and in early Ireland not considered inferior to that brought about through violence.

[26] In the 19th century, it was speculated that the builders of the stone tombs on Dalkey Island, sometimes called kistvaens, were "Celtic, or Belgic, tribes of a very remote æra.