Molag(g)a (Lóichín) , saint, of Áth Cros Molaga (Aghacross, near Mitchelstown, north Co. Cork), and Tech Molaga (Timoleague, west Co. Cork), among other churches, is the best documented of the several saints named Molag(g)a. He is attached to the Fir Maige Féine of the area corresponding to the present baronies of Fermoy and Condons and Clangibbon; his immediate family, according to his Life, was the clann or family of Luchta. His miraculous birth to parents of advanced years is said to have been foretold by Cummian Foto (qv), an Éoganacht saint with Limerick connections.
A vernacular Life of this saint, composed, very probably, in the fourteenth century, coincident with the general revival in fortune of the native Irish polity, has been edited from three manuscripts, including the Book of Fermoy, by J. G. O'Keeffe. Mention is made in it of Dún Duibhlinne (Dublin castle), which would have first become a topos after the arrival of the English. A Latin translation of the Life was published by John Colgan (qv) in 1645. An important feature of the Life is its list of the boundaries of Molaga's termann. Like several other Irish saints, Molaga is brought to David of Menevia in Wales, who is alleged to have given the saint his name. Molaga's churches in the Mitchelstown area included Aghacross and Labbamolaga, which now contains the remains of an early Christian church accompanied, in an adjoining field, by four orthostats marking the site of a pre-Christian cult centre. The physical evidence for transition from pre-Christian to Christian at Labbamolaga supports the view that Molaga originated as one of many Christian survivals of Lug, the foremost of the Celtic divinities (Ó Riain, ‘Traces of Lug’, 143–5). Molaga's name – characteristically hypocoristic in form, with a variant Molaig(g)e also attested (ibid., p. 143n) – derives from a radical form based on Lug. This is also true of the alternative form of his name, Lóch (diminutive Lóichín). The name of his immediate family, Luchta (Lug-ta), is also derived from Lug. The best-known church associated with Molaga outside the north Cork area is Tech Molaga (Timoleague), which became the site of a Franciscan friary, possibly as early as 1240. The saint had various feast-days, including 20 January in north Cork. Two days, 7 and 13, are also listed for August, Lug's month.