MALACHY, ST. (c. 1094-1148), otherwise known as Maol Maodhog (or Maelmaedhog) Ua Morgair, archbishop of Armagh and papal legate in Ireland, was born at Armagh. His father, an Irish clergyman, the Fearleighlinn, or lector, at the university, was said to have been of noble family. He was vicar of Arch bishop Celsus or Ceallach of Armagh, and carried out many reforms tending to increase conformity with the usage of the Church of Rome. He spent four years with Malchus, bishop of Lismore (in Munster), a strong advocate of Romanism. On his return from Lismore, Malachy undertook the government of the decayed monastery of Bangor (in Co. Down), but very soon after wards he was elected bishop of Connor (now a small village near Ballymena). After the sack of that place by the king of Ulster he withdrew into Munster; here he was kindly received by Cormac MacCarthy, with whose assistance he built the monastery of Ibrach (in Kerry). Meanwhile he had been designated by Celsus to succeed him in the archbishopric but eventually returned, at his own desire, to the smaller and poorer portion of it, the bishopric of Down.
In 1139, Malachy set out from Ireland with the purpose of soliciting from the pope the pallium for the archbishop of Armagh. On his way to Rome he visited Clairvaux, and thus began his friendship with St. Bernard. Malachy was received by Innocent II. with great honour, and made papal legate in Ireland, though the pope refused to grant the pallium until it had been unani mously applied for "by a general council of the bishops, clergy and nobles." Nine years later (1148), at a synod of bishops and
clergy held at Inis-Patrick (St. Patrick's island, near Skerries, Co. Dublin), Malachy was commissioned to return to Rome and make fresh application for the pallium ; he did not, however, get beyond Clairvaux, where he died in the arms of St. Bernard, on Nov. 2, 1148. The object of his life was realized four years afterwards, in 1152, during the legateship of his successor. Malachy was canonized by Clement III. in I190.
Malachy reformed and reorganized the Irish Church and brought it into subjection to Rome; like Boniface, he was a zealous reformer and a promoter of monasticism. He opened the first Cistercian monastery in Ireland, five more being soon afterwards established. Several works are attributed to him, but are all probably spurious.
St. Bernard's Life of Malachy, and two sermons on his death will be found in J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, clxxxii., clxxxiii. ; see also the ecclesiastical histories of Ireland by J. Lanigan (1829) and W. D. Killen (1875) ; A. Bellesheim, Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in Irland, Bd. I. (Mainz, 189o) ; G. T. Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church (6th ed., 1907) ; J. O'Hanlon, Life of Saint Malachy (Dublin, 1859) ; articles in Dict. Nat. Biog. and Herzog-Hauck's Realency klophdie fur protestantische Theologie.