Gobnait (Gobbonet, Gobinet, Gobnat, Gobnata, Gobnet, Gopnat), Virgin, commemorated Feb. 11.  Though her fame is great in Munster, remarkably little is known of her history.  Colgan (Acta SS. Feb. 11, p. 315) has been able to draw together but a few details from the ancient Irish authorities, and the Bollandists (Acta SS. 11 Feb. ii. 507) place her name among their praetermissi.  In the Mart. Doneg. (by Todd and Reeves, 47) she is entered at Feb. 11 as both Gobnat and Cognat.  St. Gobnait was of the race of Conaire, son of Modh-Lamha, monarch of Ireland, of the race of Heremon; she was born at Boirenn (called also Burneach, Baile Mhuirnè, and now Ballyvourney, in the barony of West Muskerry, co. Cork), and is said to have been made abbess of the monastery there by St. Abban (March 16): (for the remains there, see Proc. Roy. Irsh Acad. viii. 283.)  She also had dedications at Ernuidhe (unidentified) and at Moinmor, now perhaps Moanmore, co. Clare, or more probably Moinmore, near Mallow, as it is specially said (Mart. Doneg.); "At Móin-mor, in the south of Erinn, is her church."  She had also a dedication on Insheer, in Galway Bay, and seems to have flourished in the beginning of the 6th century, but her date is very uncertain.  (Lanigan, Eccl. Hist. Ir. iii. c. 17, § 4; Colgan, Acta SS. 315, 714; Kelly, Cal. Ir. SS. pp. xv. 73; Mart. Doneg. by Todd and Reeves, 47; O'Hanlon, Irish Saints, ii. 462-70, giving a full account of St. Gobnata, her ancient and modern legends and antiquities.) [J. G.] (A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, &c., Smith, 1880)