Malachias Hibernicus

Malachias Hibernicus (Malachy of Ireland), Archbishop of Tuam, fl. 1279-1300.

Malachias was a friar of the Franciscan convent of Limerick and was elected Archbishop of Tuam, not never officially installed. He was first mentioned in a letter of 1279 from Nicol Mac Máel Ísu, Archbishop of Armagh, to King Edward I, asking that Brother Malachy be appointed to Tuam. The king granted this in a letter of 22 April 1280. However, five of the seven canons of Tuam chosen as electors voted for Nicol Mac Flainn, a fellow canon. This resulted in Stephen de Fulbourn been transferred from Waterford to Tuam. Malachy had by then abandoned his claim, and his election was annulled.

Malachy wrote a treatise, De veneno, on the seven deadly sins which was published in Paris in 1518. The edition stated that he was a Franciscan preacher who was alive in 1300, "a doctor of theology, a strenous expounder of the scriptures and a most zealous rebuker of vices." Apparently he also wrote a book of sermons, now lost. John Bale recorded that he was well-received in Ireland, esteemed at Oxford, and preached before Edward II. Despite some later theories, nothing further is known for certain of him.

References

• Dictionary of Irish Biography from the Earliest Times to the Year 2002, p. 308, Cambridge, 2010.