Saint Mosiloc of Cloonatten, July 13

At July 13, Canon O'Hanlon has a notice for a County Wexford saint whose name appears on all of the calendars, but of whose life we otherwise have very few details. In the account below of Saint Mosiloc, I have transferred some of the original footnotes citing the calendar entries plus remarks by the Irish Ordnance Survey scholars, John O'Donovan and W. M. Hennessy, on the locality associated with the saint, into the text. There is a website dealing with the study of Wexford placenames here. Finally, please note that the Martyrology of Aengus records the saint at the 13th of July and not June as printed on page 224 of Volume 7 of The Lives of the Irish Saints:

St. Mosiloc or Mothiolog, of Cloonatten, Parish of Kilmichael Oge, County of Wexford.

The name of this holy man, as Siloc, is entered in the "Feilire" of St. Aengus, at the 13th of June. There he receives a high encomium. In the "Leabhar Breac" copy we have the following stanza, translated into English by Whitley Stokes, LL.D. :—

"Sweet the name with splendour
of Evangelus the sainted,
with my Siloc of the kings,
he went into the noble realm of peace."

In a commentary added, he is styled and identified as "my Siloc, i.e., of Cell Mo-siloc in Ui-Degad, in Ui-Cennseliag." Hence, it should seem, that Siloc was simply his name, and it is entered Silog in the Calendar of Cashel. Veneration was given to Mosiloc Cluana Daethcain, at the 13th of July, as appears in the Martyrology of Tallagh. In Rev. Dr. Kelly's edition of the Martyrology of Tallagh, this place is identified with Clonkeen, Queen's County. His name and place are elsewhere differently entered. At this same date, we find in the Martyrology of Donegal, Mothiolog, of Cill Mothiolog, in Ui-Ceinnsealaigh, or Mothiolog, of Cluain Aithghin. This place is Cloonatten, in the parish of Kilmichael Oge, in the barony of Gorey, and county of Wexford. A note by O'Donovan says, "Mothiolog now corrupted to Kilmichaelog," I find another note appended by William M. Hennessy to this ancient denomination, "Kilmokiloge or Kilmichaeloge, near Gorey, County Waterford,"(? Wexford). There is a curious old church in that locality. In the Kalendar of Drummond the feast of this saint is inserted, at the present date. Thus: "13 iii. Idus. In Hibernia Sancti Confessoris Mosiloc."—Bishop Forbes' "Kalendars of Scottish Saints", p. 18. There is an entry of Mosilocus, at the 13th of July, in the work of the Bollandists. Father O'Sheerin supplied them with the notice inserted.

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