The author of the Martyrology now published was Mael-Maire hua Gormain, otherwise called Marianus Gorman, abbot of Cnoc na n-Apstol ‘ the Hill of the Apostles,’ a monastery of Canons Regular of St. Augustine at Knock close to the town of Louth. All that is really known of him is derived from the preface to his Martyrology, which uses the first person (rodherbsamar fuaramar, tuccsamar) when referring to the author,and may well have been written by Gorman himself, though Colgan ascribes it to an ancient scholiast.
Hence it appears that Gorman was abbot of Cnoc na n-Apstol (otherwise called Cnoc na Sengán, ‘ the Hill of the Pismires ‘), and that he composed his Martyrology while Ruaidre hua Conchobair was King of Ireland, while Gelasius or Gilla mac Liac was archbishop of Armagh, and while Aed hua Cáillaidhi was bishop of Oriel, i.e., the present counties of Louth, Armagh, and Monaghan. Ruaidre began to reign as monarch of Ireland about the year 1166 and retired in 1183 to the monastery of Cong, where he died in 1199. Gilla mac Liac was archbishop of Armagh from 1137 to 1173, when he died. Aed hua Cáillaidhi was bishop of Oriel from 1139 to 1182. The result is, if the statements in the preface are true, that Gorman must have composed his Martyrology at some time between 1166 and 1174, ‘circa annum 1167,’ says Colgan.
It must, however, be admitted that the Martyrology commemorates two saints—Gilla mac Liacc at March 27, and Gilla mo Chaidbeo at March 31, of whom the former died in 1 173, the latter in 1174. We are therefore driven to one of two hypotheses—either the statements in the preface are not true, and the Martyrology was composed after 1174, or the commemorations just mentioned were added after the completion of the poem. The latter hypothesis seems the more probable. The tradition of the Irish literati agrees with the preface, and the commemorations in question are at the ends of the stanzas in which they respectively occur, and may well have been inserted in accordance with the suggestion in the preface: ‘If defects are found therein, let the erudite . . . add; but let them not spoil the course of the poem.’ Who made these insertions does not appear. In 1181, according to the Four Masters, Maelmuire Hua Dunain, Abbot of Cnoc na Sengán in Louth, died. Of him Colgan, Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae, p. 737, says :
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