MALACHY, St (c. 1094-1148), otherwise known as Maelmaedog Ua Morgair, for some time archbishop of Armagh, and afterwards papal legate in Ireland, was born of noble parentage at Armagh about the year 1094, early gained a high reputation for sanctity, and was ordained to the priesthood at the age of twenty-five (thirty being at that time, according to his biographer St Bernard, the canonical age). For some time he was employed as vicar by Archbishop Celsus or Ceallach of Armagh, and in this capacity was successful in effecting throughout the diocese many important reforms in the direction of increased conformity with the usage of the Church of Rome; afterwards he undertook the government of the decayed monastery of Bangor or Benchor, in what is now known as county Down, and made it a flourishing seminary of learning and piety. When thirty years of age he was chosen and consecrated bishop of Connor; after the sack of that place by the king of Ulster he withdrew into Munster and built the monastery of Ibrac. Meanwhile he had been designated by Celsus (in whose family the see of Armagh had been hereditary for many years) to succeed him in the archbishopric; reluctantly but dutifully in the interests of reform he accepted the dignity, and thus became involved for some years in a struggle with the so-called heirs. Having finally settled the diocese he, as had been previously stipulated by himself, was permitted to return to his former diocese, or rather, it having in the meanwhile been divided, to the smaller and poorer portion of it, the bishopric of Down, where he reorganized a house of regular clergy. In 1139 he set out from Ireland with the purpose of soliciting from the pope the pallium for the archbishop of Armagh; on his way to Rome he visited Clairvaux, and thus began ...