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Biography

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Saint Moluag (also recorded as Moluoc, Lughaidh, Lua, Luan, Luanus, Molua, and Murlach) was an Irish missionary of the sixth century who worked among the Picts of northern Britain. He is believed to have been born in Ireland in the early or mid-sixth century; no contemporary record of his birthplace or exact year of birth survives. He entered monastic life at Bangor in what is now County Down, a leading Irish monastery founded by Saint Comgall. Bangor trained many missionaries who later worked in Britain and on the Continent, and Moluag belonged to this Bangor tradition rather than to the Iona community associated with Saint Columba.

Tradition holds that Moluag crossed to Scotland and established his principal monastery on the Isle of Lismore in the Firth of Lorn, in the territory of the Cenel Loairn, around the middle of the sixth century, a date often given as about 562. A later legend, not found in early sources, claims that he and Columba competed to occupy Lismore and that Moluag won the island by casting his severed little finger onto the shore. Whatever the origin of the story, Lismore became the centre of his mission and remained an important church site; in the later Middle Ages the cathedral of the Diocese of Argyll stood there. From Lismore his cult and foundations spread widely among the Picts. Dedications and later diocesan traditions associate him with Rosemarkie on the Black Isle, linked to the medieval see of Ross, with Mortlach in Banffshire, linked to the origins of the see of Aberdeen, and with other churches in the northeast of Scotland, including sites such as Clatt and Tarland. His work is generally understood as complementary to that of Columba, reaching Pictish areas beyond the Gaelic kingdom of Dal Riata.

Irish annalistic sources record the death of Moluag of Lismore in 592. Later tradition specifies the date as 25 June, which became his feast day in Scottish and Irish calendars. He is regarded as having died on Lismore and to have been buried at his monastery there. He was venerated as the patron saint of Argyll. Relics associated with him survived into the modern period: his crozier, known as the Bachall Mor, was kept by hereditary keepers of the Livingstone family on Lismore and is now in the National Museum of Scotland; a bell attributed to him was also long preserved. These objects, together with place-names and church dedications, are among the principal witnesses to his cult.

Little can be said with certainty about Moluag's inner life, writings, or precise chronology. No early vita survives that would compare with Adomnan's Life of Columba, and later medieval accounts mix local tradition with legend. He is sometimes styled bishop as well as abbot, reflecting the Irish monastic pattern in which the founder of a major church might exercise episcopal functions. His historical importance lies in the network of churches that claimed him as founder and in the lasting identification of Lismore and Argyll with his name. He remains commemorated on 25 June in the calendars of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, the Scottish Episcopal Church, and other Christian bodies that retain the older Scottish saints.

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