Ó Mocháin, Muiris (Maurice Morall)
(c.
The Dominican reform or Observant movement, as vigorously promoted by Raymund de Vineis (or de Capua), master general of the order (1388–99), is first mentioned in an Irish context, with Drogheda designated a convent of regular observance (1390). While there is no proof that all Connacht houses accepted it, it is undeniable that the Observant movement sprang up principally in a Gaelic Irish environment in Connacht and later infiltrated Anglo-Irish houses. As the movement gained momentum it became the religious expression of a powerful Gaelic Irish religious and cultural revival. Ó Mocháin was almost certainly steeped in and committed to the reformed Observance tradition.
Maurice Ó Mocháin did most of his theological studies in English Dominican houses. He received the orders of acolyte and subdiaconate at Salisbury cathedral (20 September 1460), and the diaconate (21 March 1461) and priesthood at Worcester cathedral (18 December 1462). He was already a bachelor of theology in 1474 when he was instructed by the master general, Leonardus Mansueti, to study as bacchallarius extraordinarius, in order to qualify to take the doctorate of divinity at Oxford University, which he successfully did.
There had been a protracted movement away from Ireland's having the status of an English vicariate towards its being an autonomous Dominican province ever since the London general chapter of 1314, when Master General Berengar de Landora issued what amounted to a statute constituting an independent Irish province; but, owing to English intransigence, juridical recognition was withheld. Further initiatives to secure separation from the province of England took place at the order's chapters of Florence (1374), Bourges (1376), and Carcassonne (1378), but these were nullified by the interference of popes Urban VI (1379) and Boniface IX (1397) at the behest of Richard II (qv) of England. Finally at the general chapter of Rome (1484) the petition of the Irish representatives was approved and Master Maurice Ó Mocháin, the most outstanding Irish Dominican of his time, was appointed first provincial of the new province.
In 1488 a fresh reform drive was undertaken by Ó Mocháin, with the authority of Master General Ioachim Turriani, to reform the convents of Drogheda, Coleraine, Cork, Youghal, and others at his discretion. Unexpectedly the English Dominicans in 1491 invoked the papal bull of 1397 and for a second time the newly founded Irish province was reduced to the status of an English vicariate. Ó Mocháin was appointed vicar general of ‘the Irish nation’, but resigned the office. His reform of Youghal was approved in 1493, when he was also reappointed vicar general of a divided province and commissioned to proceed with the reform of whichever houses desired it. For the most part these houses were Gaelic Irish; others (Anglo-Norman houses) had become dilapidated and were in serious moral decline, but if they accepted and wished to persevere in the reform it was set down that the monks should remain in control of their houses.
Ó Mocháin was relieved of the government of the Irish vicariate in 1496, but remained vicar of the reformed houses until his death (c.1502), by which time the Observant houses of Ireland and those of the province of Scotland (f. 1481) had come into contact with the reformed congregation of Holland and its vicar John de Bauffremez. Not until 1536 would the Irish province be definitively established under David Brown (qv) by Paul III.
Thomas Bermingham and his wife Anabla gave 10 ounces of silver for the construction of a large window in a side chapel of the Dominican church at Athenry, in memory of Master Maurice Ó Mocháin, sacrae paginae doctoris, vicar of Ireland and founder and constructor of the chapel; it was to depict saints Catherine of Alexandria and Catherine of Siena OP (whose confessor was Raymund de Capua). ‘Though his career can be known to us only in the barest outline, he exemplifies that transcendence of the barriers between Gaelic and English traditions which was the characteristic strength of the Observant movement as a whole’ (Watt, 198).