Moylan, Francis (1735–1815) catholic bishop of Cork, was born in Cork on 17 September 1735, second son of John Moylan, merchant, and his wife Mary (née Doran). Following early schooling in Cork, he continued his education in France, first in Paris and then, for health reasons, in Montpellier. It soon became evident that family commercial pursuits were not his métier. His attraction to the Carthusian lifestyle was vetoed by his uncle, Patrick Doran, a Jesuit priest, who secured his enrolment in the Irish seminary in Toulouse. Having secured a doctorate in divinity, he was ordained priest in Toulouse on 11 June 1761. He served as curé of Chatou while simultaneously acting as secretary to Christophe de Beaumont, archbishop of Paris. While in France he became friendly with Henry Edgeworth (qv), later Louis XVI's confessor.
On his return to Cork in 1764, he was appointed curate in St Mary's North Parish by Bishop John Butler (qv), becoming protonotary apostolic in the same year, pastor of SS Peter and Paul's in 1766 and of St Finbarr's South in 1774. Following the death of Bishop Nicholas Madgett (qv) of Kerry, Moylan was nominated to the see of Ardfert on 10 April 1775. While in Kerry he established an understanding with Lord Kenmare (qv), the leading figure in the Catholic Committee. At a bishops’ meeting in Limerick on 1 May 1784 he put his signature to a joint statement condemning riotous and illegal societies (Whiteboys and Rightboys) and did likewise in Cork on 26 June 1786.
Following the departure to the established church of Bishop John Butler (qv) (Lord Dunboyne) in December 1786, Moylan was translated to Cork by a papal brief of 17 June 1787. As bishop his unwavering efforts to obtain the removal of restraints on catholics brought him into the vortex of contemporary politics. His views and the positions he took were close to those of Edmund Burke (qv), with whom he corresponded. While he attended the Catholic Convention of December 1792, generally in his political stances he set himself to win the confidence of government through expressions of gratitude for the catholic relief acts and denunciation of French revolutionary principles. Later in the decade he condemned the United Irishmen and the Defenders. In his pastoral letters he urged loyalty on the people of his diocese and won the admiration of both Chief Secretary Thomas Pelham (qv) and Lord Lieutenant Camden (qv), the latter ordering one of his pastorals to be distributed throughout Ireland. In 1796 the corporation of Cork conferred on him the freedom of the city. Although he supported the act of union, whose passing he warmly welcomed, he vigorously opposed a proposed government veto on the appointment of catholic bishops as the price to be paid for catholic emancipation (he had initially been prepared to consider a modified veto).
As bishop, Moylan's first care was the state of his diocese. He lost no time in having seventeen parish churches built and, as a priority, directed his attention to the education and welfare of the poor. Well before his appointment as a bishop his support for and encouragement of Nano Nagle (qv) and the Ursulines (and later the Presentation Sisters) had earned for him (as it would later for Archbishop Daniel Murray (qv) of Dublin) a permanent place in the history of female religious life in Ireland. As bishop he was responsible for bringing the Christian Brothers to Cork in 1811. He was responsible too for the foundation of a diocesan seminary and the building in 1808 of the catholic cathedral. From his early days to the final years of his episcopate he wielded considerable clout in the filling of episcopal vacancies.
In the Cork and Ross Diocesan Archives there is a fragment of one of Moylan's Lenten pastorals (presumably 1799), which stresses the importance of catechises and the encouragement of the family rosary, and announces the bishop's intention to undertake a special visitation of his diocese. His Relatio status of 20 December 1802 was his principal relatio for Cork. In it he deplored the decision, taken before his time, of uniting the small eleven-parish diocese of Ross with Cloyne, pointing out that its geographical situation made it more easily administered by the bishop of Cork; and that Cork had forty-one priests to Cloyne's forty-two. Moylan admitted having only once made a full visitation of his diocese, though he had made four or five visits to several areas and was now asking for a coadjutor. He was ‘ready to embark upon an arduous task, demanding at least £4,000 sterling for rebuilding my cathedral church’, now ruinous. Since he became bishop he had provided schools for poor boys and instructions for about 80 orphans. ‘Such is the general recognition of the values of these schools that several outstanding non-Catholics not only help in the collection, but provide an annual subscription as well.’
Despite the steady deterioration of his health from 1795 onwards and the growing demands on him to act as mediator throughout the troubled years of his episcopate, he remained the dedicated pastor whose solicitude for those entrusted to his care was second to no other commitment or involvement. He did not live to see the realisation of his many hopes. He died 10 February 1815 at his house in Chapel Lane and was interred in the crypt of his cathedral. The greater part of his forty-year episcopate had been spent in Cork and his was the first public funeral accorded to a catholic bishop since the protestant reformation. As a spokesman and intermediary for the hierarchy Moylan may not have been an unqualified success. He nevertheless won the admiration of his opponents and his influence in general was an important one. Dr Jeremiah Collins in his panegyric stressed Moylan's commitment to his pastoral office and his support for the interests of the state. In his quality as pastor and educator, Moylan overshadowed most of his contemporaries. As builder of churches, he surpassed them all.