Pilib mac Séamus Mac Mathghamhna was a famous canon

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....

 chorister of Clogher, parson

Parson

In the pre-Reformation church, a parson was the priest of an independent parish church, that is, a parish church not under the control of a larger ecclesiastical or monastic organization...

 of Dartry

Dartraighe

Dartraighe , anglicized as Dartree, Dartry or Dartrey, was a kingdom in ancient Ireland which stretched north to Clones and south to beyond the Dromore river, once belonging to the O'Boylans and McMahons....

 and coarb of Clones Abbey

Clones Abbey

Clones Abbey is a ruined monastery that later became an Augustinian abbey in the twelfth century, and its main sights are ecclesiastical. The Abbey was formerly known as St. Tighernach Abbey, and was referred to locally as the "wee abbey". Parochial and monastic settlements were separated, and it...

.

He was a successor of St. Tigernach

Tigernach of Clones

Tigernach was one of the saints of the territory ruled by the Uí Chremthainn dynasty, together with Mac Caírthinn of Clogher and Mo Laisse of Devenish. His principal foundation is Clones, which lay in the western part of Fernmag, an area ruled by the Uí Chremthainn branch Uí Nad Sluaig...

 in Clones

Clones

Clones is a small town in western County Monaghan, in the 'border area' of the Republic of Ireland. The area is part of the Border Region, earmarked for economic development by the Irish Government due to its currently below-average economic situation...

 and had for the greater part all the Fourths of the bishop of Oriel and the farming of the priors of Lughbadh and Fermanagh, he was bound for the annates of the rectory in 1477, which was to be united to his canonry for the term of his life. He died on the feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist Dec. 27 in 1486, when he is styled coarb, and son of the coarb Séamus mac Ruaidhri Mac Mathghamhna.

Family

He was related to the Kings of Oriel. His grandfather, Ruaidhri mac Ardghail Mor Mac Mathghamhna, was the King of Oriel from 1442–1446. The Annals of the Four Masters

Annals of the Four Masters

The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland or the Annals of the Four Masters are a chronicle of medieval Irish history...

 mention his son's Niall who died on his way from Rome in 1484 and Séamus mac Pilib Mac Mathghamhna

Séamus mac Pilib Mac Mathghamhna

Séamus mac Pilib Mac Mathghamhna was the Bishop of Derry.He was appointed Bishop-designate of Clogher on the 5 November 1494. John Edmund de Courcy was also Bishop of Clogher around this time and he did not renounce his claim to Clogher until 1502...

 who became Bishop of Derry

Bishop of Derry

The Bishop of Derry is an episcopal title which takes its name after the city of Derry in Northern Ireland. In the Roman Catholic Church it remains a separate title, but in the Church of Ireland it has been united with another bishopric.-History:...

 in 1502. Historians Peadar Livingstone

Peadar Livingstone

Rev. Peadar Livingstone was a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Clogher, Ireland.-Biography of Peadar Livingstone:Peadar Livingstone was born in 1932 and raised in Castleblayney, County Monaghan. His father was a jeweller. He entered St. Macartan's College, Monaghan in 1945...

, Robert Bell

Robert A. Bell

Robert A. Bell is a genealogist on Irish Scots surnames and the author of The Book of Ulster Surnames. His short stories have been published in the Belfast Telegraph, Passage 1 and The Blackstaff Book of Short Stories , and he has also contributed articles to the Belfast Review...

 and Padraig Ó Gallachair all claim the McPhillips

McPhillips (surname)

Although some historians claim the McPhillips surname is of Scottish origin, the surname is found predominantly in Ireland, in the counties of Cavan, Fermanagh and Monaghan. In Ulster, the McPhillips are in Gaelic MacPilib or MacPhilib...

 clan in Ulster are descendants of Pilib mac Séamus Mac Mathghamhna. The McArdle

McArdle

The surname McArdle or MacArdle was the twelfth most numerous in its homeland of County Monaghan in 1970. The surname in Irish is MacArdghail, from ardghal, meaning 'high valour'...

 surname owes its origin to his great-grandfather Ardghail Mór.