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Saint Mochaemhog of Inis Caoin, April 13

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Michele Ainley

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A saint from the lakeland county of Fermanagh, Mochaemhog, is commemorated on April 13. He was an abbot of the island monastery of Inis Caoin, anglicized as Iniskeen, but we do not have many other details of his life, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

ST. MOCHAEMHOG, ABBOT OF INIS CAOIN, NOW INISHKEEN, COUNTY OF FERMANAGH.
[SEVENTH CENTURY]
THIS holy man is recorded in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the Ides or 13th of April, as Mocammoc Innsi Cain. There is an allusion to him, by Colgan, under the Acts of St. Mochoemog or Pulcharius [feastday March 13]. We are told there, that this holy man was the son of Endeus, son of Cormac, and belonging to the Colla Dachrich race. He flourished on Iniscaoin Island, about the middle of the seventh century. He was Abbot over Inishkeen, on Lough Erne, in the county of Fermanagh…A commemoration has been made of St. Mochaemog, by Marianus O’Gorman, at the present day. Likewise, at the same date, as we read in the Martyrology of Donegal Mochaemhog, of Inis Caoin, had veneration paid him. A similar notice is to be found, at the 13th of April, or at the Ides of this month, in that Irish Calendar, preserved in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy. However, these brief notices give us no particulars, that could afford us any light, regarding his personal history.
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4 responses to “Saint Mochaemhog of Inis Caoin, April 13”

  1. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Hello, fellow blogger:I do a lot of research on saints. I notice that all the Irish saints lived between the 5th and 9th centuries, but that, until the martyrdoms of the Protestant Revolt, Cromwell, etc., there aren't many in the intervening centuries, and there aren't many in modern times (other than Ven. Matt Talbot, Bl. Edmund Rice, St. Charles Houban, etc.). Why do you think that is?In Christ,~ Brian

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  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    The hundreds of saints who fill the early medieval Irish calendars all pre-date the official canonization process. In many cases their names and feast days are all we know of them. They were saints by popular acclamation and the majority would never have made it through a more rigorous evidence-based process. The cause of the Irish martyrs was only able to get going following Catholic Emancipation in 1829, many of our martyrs were put to death under the provision of martial law, so official evidence is harder to produce than for British martyrs who generally had some sort of documented due process. There are a number of worthy claimants whose causes appear to have stalled and it seems that the wheels of the canonization process grind exceedingly and frustratingly slow.

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  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Hi, we are trying to find some info on St. Mocammoc of Dromore. He was an abbot in the townland of Ballannay. There is an ancient monastic abbey, now lost to time, in the parish of Clonduff… We are looking at the year 655 AD

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    1. Michele Ainley Avatar
      Michele Ainley

      Thanks for your query. This saint has a feast day on December 26th. That is also the feast day of Saint Comán of Roscommon and in his 2011 Dictionary of Irish Saints, Pádraig Ó Riain argues that they are the same person. The name of the Clonduff saint, Mochomóg (Mocammoc), is a hypocoristic or pet form of the name Comán. In addition to sharing a name and a feast day the genealogies of the Roscommon saint also describe him as one of the Dál nAraidhe people of north-east Ulster. All of this leads Ó Riain to suggest that, although the calendars of the saints list Mochomóg of Clonduff and Comán of Roscommon as two distinct individuals, the Clonduff saint may well be a double of the Roscommon saint.

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