Molaise is a pet name being otherwise known as Laisren. He founded the monastery on Devenish Island in Lower Lough Erne Co Fermanagh. His little ‘house’ or tombshrine can be seen on the island. His 11C Book Shrine is in the National Museum.
St Molaise also founded a monastery on the island of Inishmurray in Sligo Bay where St Muirtagh had lived as a hermit. The island is 7 miles from the mainland and is extremely rich in remains. It has an impressive (restored) wall of enclosure, a stone roofed ‘house’ built as a shrine to St Molaise, 2 churches, 3 clochans (beehive huts). The island has several outdoor altars and pillar stones around its perimeter.
The last monastic may have survived here for some time after the Reformation. The island was abandoned in 1948. The island can still be visited in fair weather. Pilgrimages have continued to the island right up to the present. A wooden statue of St Molaise in national Museum.
