Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mochaei
MOCHAEI (d. 497), saint and bishop of Aendruim, is also known as Cailan or Caelan, from caol, i.e. slender, according to Bishop Reeves. His mother is said to have been Bronach, daughter of Miliuc, son of Buan, king of North Dalaradia, co. Antrim. With Miliuc St. Patrick was at one time in captivity. One day when journeying from Saul to Derlas, south of Downpatrick, Patrick met Mochaei, then 'a tender youth,' employed in herding swine. Observing his intelligence, Patrick instructed him in the holy scriptures, in due time baptised him, and eventually ordained him. This occurrence has been doubtfully dated in 433 by Bishop Reeves; it probably belongs to a later year. On his ordination St. Patrick presented Mochaei with a book of the gospels and menistir, apparently the case containing a chalice and paten. Another gift of the saint was the Eitech Mochaei, or Mochaei's winged crozier, which is said to have fallen from heaven while Mochaei and Patrick were conversing on sacred things. Mochaei seems to have been the first in Ireland to whom St. Patrick gave a gospel and a crozier. The gift appears to have been made on the occasion of the foundation of Mochaei's church of Aendruim. This church, called in the 'Acta Sanctorum' Nendrum, and in the 'Monasticon' Neddrum, was situate thirteen miles N.N.E. of Downpatrick, on an island in Strangford Lough—now known, after Mochaei's name, as Mahee Island. Mahee Island contains the remains of a round tower, about nine feet high, and the ruins of a church enclosed by three ramparts or cashels, evidently for the security of the community. The ruins are not those of the original church built by Mochaei, as that was of wattles plastered over. According to the 'Martyrology of Donegal,' Mochaei went into the forest with sevenscore young men to cut wattles, and a legend states that while thus engaged an angel in the shape of a bird sang so sweetly to him that 'three fifties' of years passed over like an hour. When the song ceased and he awoke from his trance, every one he knew was dead, and an oratory had been built to his memory. The 'Calendar of Oengus' says: 'Of the members of the saint's congregation, nothing remained but the skulls.' Bishop Reeves suggests that the legend may be explained by the fact that another Mochaei is recorded as having died in 664, a hundred and thirty-eight years later, with whom our saint has been confused. The elder Mochaei's monastery was also a school for the education of the clergy, and among the pupils received there were St. Finnian of Moville, and St. Colman of Dromore. 'A shaven pig' was annually presented by Mochaei's community, in commemoration of the saint's original occupation as a swineherd, to the church of Down, which was popularly associated with the name of St. Patrick. Mochaei died on 23 June 497.
[The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, by Whitley Stokes, D.C.L., Rolls Ser. i. 40; Reeves's Antiquities of Down, Connor, and Dromore, pp. 144, 187-97; Martyrology of Donegal, p. 177; Calendar of Oengus, p. cvii.]