Heber MacMahon
{{Short description|Irish bishop (1600–1650)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2019}}
{{Use Irish English|date=November 2019}}
{{Infobox Christian leader
| type = Bishop
| name = Heber MacMahon
| title = Bishop of Clogher
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| church = Roman Catholic Church
| archdiocese =
| diocese =
| see = Clogher
| term = 1643–1650
| predecessor = Eugene Matthews
| successor = Patrick Duffy
| ordination =
| ordinated_by =
| consecration =
| consecrated_by =
| rank =
| birth_date = 1600
| birth_place = Inniskeen
| death_date = July or September 1650
| death_place =
| previous_post = Bishop of Down and Connor
}}
Heber MacMahon (Irish Éimhear Mac Mathúna) (1600 – 1650) was bishop of Clogher and general in Ulster.Also known as Ever MacMahon and Emer MacMahon and also latinised as Emerus Matthaeus. (Lee p. 822) He was educated at the Irish college, Douay, and at Louvain, and ordained a Roman Catholic priest 1625. He became bishop of Clogher in 1643 and a leader among the confederate Catholics. As a general of the Ulster army, he fought Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Scarrifholis in 1650. He was defeated, taken prisoner and executed the same year.Lee p. 822
Biography
MacMahon was born in 1600 on the island of Inniskeen in what is now County Monaghan. He received his early education at the Franciscan Monastery in Kiltybegs, Monaghan. He went to the Irish College at Douai in 1617 and later to Leuven.{{CathEncy|wstitle=Heber MacMahon}} He was ordained a priest in 1625 and appointed as Vicar apostolic of the Diocese of Clogher by a papal brief on 17 November 1627.{{cite book |author=Fryde, E. B. |author2=Greenway, D. E. |author3=Porter, S. |author4= Roy, I. |title=Handbook of British Chronology |edition=Third |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |year=1986 |isbn=0-521-56350-X |page=418}} Fifteen years later, he was appointed Bishop of Down and Connor on 10 March 1642. He played a prominent part in the Irish Catholic Confederation in Kilkenny.
He was appointed Bishop of Clogher in June 1643. He worked closely with Owen Roe O'Neill throughout the 1640s and liaised with Giovanni Battista Rinuccini after his arrival in 1645. Following the mysterious death of Owen Roe O'Neill on 6 November 1649, the leadership of the Ulster army of 5,000 foot soldiers and 600 cavalry was entrusted to Bishop McMahon by the Earl of Ormonde. In 1650 McMahon took Dungiven and massacred the Protestant inhabitants, but the Irish forces were then routed by Cromwell’s army at the battle of Scarrifholis, near Letterkenny, in June of that same year. Although he escaped, he was captured, hanged and beheaded by Sir Charles Coote in Enniskillen. He died in office in July{{cite web|title=Bishop Heber MacMahon (McMahon)|url=http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bmcma.html|work=Catholic-Hierarchy}} or 17 September 1650.
After his death, Philip Crolly was appointed vicar apostolic to administer the diocese of Clogher in 1651, and the next bishop was Patrick Duffy who was appointed in 1671.
See also
Notes
{{Reflist}}
References
- Lee, Sidney (1903), Dictionary of National Biography [https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofnati00leesuoft Index and Epitome], [https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofnati00leesuoft#page/822/mode/1up p. 882] (also main entry DNB xxxv. 225).
External links
- https://archive.org/stream/irishecclesiast02unkngoog#page/n498/mode/2up
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{{Subject bar |portal1= Biography |portal2= Catholicism |portal3= Ireland|portal4= History}}
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{{succession box | title=Bishop of Clogher | before=Eugene Matthews (1609–1611)
Patrick Quinn (vicar apostolic, appointed 1622) | after=Philip Crolly (vicar apostolic, appointed 1651)
Patrick Duffy (1671–1675) | years=1643–1650
(vicar apostolic, 1627–1642)}}
{{s-end}}
{{Roman Catholic Bishops of Down and Connor}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macmahon, Heber}}
Category:Roman Catholic bishops of Clogher
Category:Christian clergy from County Monaghan
Category:17th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland
Category:People of the Irish Confederate Wars
Category:Roman Catholic bishops of Down and Connor
Category:Executed Irish people
Category:People executed under the Interregnum (England) by hanging
Category:People from Inniskeen