70. SAINT MAUGHOLD, BISHOP OF THE ISLE OF MAN
and those with him
In the seventh-century Life of St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, by Muirchu, we read that in the territory of County Down, Ireland, there was a man by the name of Macc Cuill moccu Greccaem [usually known as Maughold or Maccald]. He was a fierce and wicked leader of a band of robbers. One day they came upon St. Patrick as he was travelling and decided to set a trap for him. Maughold said: «This is the imposter that is leading the people astray, let us see whether his God is strong or not.» One of the robbers was ordered to lie in the middle of the road, covered with a cloak, pretending to be dead. The others then called the holy man and asked him to heal their comrade. Patrick came up and removed the cloak – and the man was found to be truly dead. ... Seized with fear, the robbers begged forgiveness of the saint. Maughold was then baptised.
After this, Maughold said: «I confess to you my holy lord Patrick that I had planned to kill you.» And Patrick decided to give him a penance. He was told to go down to the Lecale peninsula on the east coast of Ireland and sit in a little boat with his hands chained and wearing only a single garment, and entrust himself to the Providence of God. A north wind began to blow and pushed the little boat to the north-east part of the Isle of Man, between Ireland and England, at the place which is now known as St. Maughold's head. Immediately the boat touched land, the chains fell off St. Maughold. He clambered onto the shore, and a spring of water appeared to quench his thirst. That spring still bubbles with clear water to the present day.
«There he found two admirable men. who had been the first to preach the word of God and baptism in the Isle of Man, and by their teaching, the inhabitants of the island had been converted to the Catholic Faith. The names of the two men are Conindrus and Rumilus. Having found spiritual fathers in the place given to him by God, he trained his body and soul according to their rule and spent all the time of his life there with those two holy bishops until he became their successor in the episcopate.»
The monk Jocelin, writing late in the 12th century, adds some more details: that Maughold was a heathen originally, that Bishops Conindrus and Romulus had been consecrated by St. Patrick, who had appointed them «to rule over the people of that island and to instruct them in the faith of Christ after the death of Germanus the first Bishop».
St. Maughold died, according to some sources, in the year 498, and according to others – in 518. He is described in the Martyrology ofOengus as «a rod of gold, a vast ingot, the great bishop MacCaille». William Worcestere said that he was a native of the Orkney islands.
The Chronicle of Man, written in about 1250, relates that in 1158, Somerled of Argyll landed at Ramsey with the intention of taking control of the Isle of Man. «One of the principal chiefs called Gilcolum maintained that it would be no violation of the asylum of St. Maughold to drive off, for the supply of the army, the cattle that were grazing outside the precincts of the cemetery. A rumour in the meantime reached the church... The weaker sex, with dishevelled hair and mournful accents wandered around the walls of the church, loudly crying 'Where are thou now, O Maughold? Where are thy miracles which till now thou has worked in this place?' Moved, as we believe, by these and similar supplications., St. Maughold delivered them from imminent danger.
«For when the aforesaid Gilcolum had fallen asleep in his tent, St. Maughold appeared to him clothed in a white garment and carrying his pastoral staff. he raised on high the staff that was in his hand and drove the point through Gilcolum's heart. His sons and followers. hastened to him, inquiring what had happened. He answered. 'Go quickly to the church and bring the staff with the priests and clerk that they may interceded for me with St. Maughold'. Thus did he expire in great torture.»
Mrs. Olga Moss writes: «In about 1990, an Anglican bishop went to the Isle of Man and stopped at a garage near the place where St. Maughold landed. He asked the garage attendant to show him the spot where the saint had landed. The garage owner or attendant happened to be free that day, and offered to go with the bishop to show him the exact spot. They parked their car and walked down the side of the hill to the spring of sweet water that had appeared when St. Maughold landed. The bishop drank of the water and suddenly got very excited because at the bottom of the steep slope he saw a toy boat with the name of his grandson on it. He and the garage man reached down to fish the boat out of the sea. The bishop told the man that a year before he had been in Ireland with his grandson for a holiday. He had given this grandson a boat with his name on it, but the boy lost it in the waves. Now, a year later, the bishop found it at the spot where St. Maughold landed, proving that it had been possible for him to land there against all the experts' theories that it was not possible for St. Maughold to have left Ireland and landed on the Isle of Man.»
St. Maughold is commemorated on April 25 or 27.
Holy Father Maughold, pray to God for us!
(Sources: Muirchu, Life of Patrick; D.S. Dugdale, Manx Church Origins, Llanerch publishers, Felinfach, 1998; C.W. Airne, The Story of the Isle of Man, Douglas: Norris Modern Press, 1949, vol. I; Mrs. Olga Moss; David Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford: Clarendon, 1978, p. 254)