Conor O'Mahony (Irish: Conchobhar Ó Mathghamhna; 1594–28 February 1656) was an Irish Catholic priest, academic and author who belonged to the Society of Jesus. He was educated in Spain and Portugal, spending much of his life in the latter country. O'Mahony is best known for his 1645 work Disputatio apologetica de iure regni Hiberniae pro catholicis Hibernis adversus haereticos Anglos ("An Argument Defending the Right of the Kingdom of Ireland for Irish Catholics against English Heretics"), which, in the context of the Irish Confederate Wars was one of the most radical Irish nationalist arguments for full national sovereignty, calling for the restoration of the Gaelic kingship and creation of an explicitly Catholic state. Under the name "Mercurius Ibernicus" he is also the most likely candidate for having authored an anonymous news pamphlet in Lisbon.
Biography
Early life and education
O'Mahony was born in Muskerry, in what is today western County Cork. He was born during the last days of the Gaelic Kingdom of Desmond, which was under the rule of the MacCarthy dynasty. The O'Mahony (Ó Mathghamhna) clan were their kinsmen, as fellow members of the Eóganachta. His childhood was thus during the years of the Tudor conquest of Ireland and harsh suppression of the native Irish Catholic population.
He travelled to Habsburg Spain in 1614 for his education, attending Theobald Stapleton's Irish College in Seville. Here he graduated as a Master of Arts and a Doctor of Divinity, having studied philosophy and theology. He decided on a vocation of consecrated life and was admitted to minor orders in June 1618, before becoming ordained to the Catholic priesthood the following year in December. He moved to the Kingdom of Portugal, where there was also an active Irish diaspora community at Lisbon. Here, as Cornelius a Sancto Patricio, in 1621, he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). He served as prefect of studies at the Irish College at Lisbon. He was a Professor of Moral Theology at São Miguel Island's College in the Azores from 1626—1633. There was a large eruption at Furnas in 1630, in what is known as the "Year of the Ashtray", O'Mahony was involved in relief efforts at Ponta Delgada. Following this, he held the Chair of Moral Theology at the Jesuit-ran University of Évora back on the Portuguese mainland, from 1633—1635. After this, he was transferred to the capital city, where he was Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the University of Lisbon from 1636—1641.
Disputatio and Irish nationalism
Though careful not to offend his Habsburg hosts, O'Mahony lived in Portugal during the Iberian Union and the subsequent Portuguese Restoration War, whereby the Portuguese patriots wanted to restore their native House of Braganza to the throne in place of the Spanish Habsburgs and thus their national sovereignty. The year after the Portuguese Revolt began, in his homeland the Irish Rebellion of 1641 was taking place. Observing the apologetics of his Portuguese Jesuit colleagues, he took note and formed his own intellectual framework for justifying a similar position for the Irish Catholic provisional government of the Kingdom of Ireland formed by the Confederate Catholic Association of Ireland. After standing down from public teaching in universities, he authored and published his most notable text at Lisbon in 1645: Disputatio apologetica de iure regni Hiberniae pro catholicis Hibernis adversus haereticos Anglos ("An Argument Defending the Right of the Kingdom of Ireland for Irish Catholics against English Heretics"). It has two parts within it, an apology for the right of the Irish Catholics to revolt against the King of England and secondly the suggested path they should take next. To conceal his identity he published it under the name "C.M. Hiberno" and its publishing place as "Frankfurt."