Note 219 — Chapter I

In other words he made him his vicar. This may well have been in 1120; for the Annals record that in that year Cellach made a visitation of Munster. It was quite natural that during a prolonged absence from his see he should leave its administration in the hands of one who had proved himself so capable as Malachy. And we shall see that this date harmonizes with other chronological data. If, then, we place the beginning of Malachy's vicariate in 1120, his ordination as priest, which appears to have been not much earlier, may be dated in 1119, when he was "about twenty-five years of age," i.e. probably soon after his twenty-fourth birthday. His admission to the diaconate may be placed at least a year earlier, i.e. in 1118. Indeed, if we could be sure that in Ireland the normal interval between admission to the diaconate and to the priesthood was at all as long as in other countries we might put it further back.