MacMahon, Ross Roe (Roche Roccho) (1698–1748), catholic archbishop, was born in Co. Monaghan. He studied at the Irish College in Rome, alongside Peter Creagh (1707–75), later bishop of Waterford and Lismore (1747–75). MacMahon had a distinguished academic career and was especially praised by Tamburini, the general of the Jesuits, at the Gregorian university. He was called ‘Scotinus’ by John Baptist Cenni, the prefect of studies, and this name was used by his friends. MacMahon refused positions in both Liège and in Paris offered by the archbishop, Cardinal de Bissy, in order to begin his Irish mission. In Ireland he was parish priest of Clontibret, a large parish southeast of the town of Monaghan. He subsequently became bishop of Clogher (1738–47) and archbishop of Armagh (1747–8). In both instances, MacMahon succeeded his brother Bernard MacMahon (qv), who had, in turn, followed their uncle Hugh MacMahon (qv). This reflected both the dominance of particular Gaelic families in the Ulster church and, bypassing local opposition, Rome's confidence in Ross MacMahon. He died 29 October 1748 and was buried in Edergole churchyard, Co. Monaghan, in the same tomb in which his brother had been buried the previous year. The inscription on their tomb, erected by their brother Roger MacMahon, reads in part: ‘Ambo pares virtute, pares et honoribus ambo’ (both equal in virtue and in honours).
Sources
W. Maziere Brady, The episcopal succession of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1876), i, 230, 258; Evelyn Phillip Shirley, History of Monaghan (1879), 204–5; James Stuart, Historical memoirs of the city of Armagh, revised by Ambrose Coleman (1900), 267, 278–9; Donal O'Sullivan, Carolan (1958), 55–7; NHI, ix, 337, 342; Maureen Wall, ‘The penal laws, 1691–1760’, George O'Brien (ed.), Catholic Ireland in the eighteenth century (1989), 36–7; Patrick Fagan, An Irish bishop in penal times (1993), 156, 191; Ireland in the Stuart papers (1995), esp. ii, 19