Relevant website: http://www.stmochtasparish.ie/
St. Mochta's Church in Porterstown.
ST MOCHTA: THE MAN AND THE LEGEND
Born 445 died.circ. 535. Feastday August 19
St Mochta was born in Britain but was brought to Ireland as a child by his Christian parents. There he became a disciple of St. Patrick. Legend says that Mochta was educated and consecrated first bishop of Louth in Rome by Pope St. Leo I. However scholars say that it was St. Patrick who consecrated him. Legends also say that Mochta lived to be 300 years old and numbered 200 bishops among his disciples.
He first established a monastery at Kell Mor ydan (unidentified location) in County Meath and then moved north - because of local opposition - to Louth monastery with twelve companions where he founded a large monastery, which soon enjoyed a nationwide reputation. There is also a tradition that he founded a monastery in Kilmore Co. Armagh, but little is know of this and nothing remains
Legendary elements in his Life include a mutual agreement with Patrick that each would look after the others community after the founders death: that he lived for 300 years because he doubted the ages of the Old testament patriarchs, and even that he had 300 hundred bishops as his disciples.
St Mochta's Church
Porterstown/Clonsilla has had a church dedicated to St. Mochta for many centuries. The present church was built at the end of the 19th century as a chapel of ease to Blanchardstown Parish.
In 1984 the Parish of Porterstown was constituted. It was then one of the smallest parishes in the Archdiocese with about 480 homes. In the intervening twenty years the parish has grown to over 5000 homes. Twelve years ago one junior infants class was enrolled in St. Mochta’s NS. Last September ten junior infant’s classes were enrolled in the three parish schools!
Porterstown Park near by.
Church Micros
"The Church Micro IE series is open to everyone; if you have a church you would like to place a cache at then please contact THE_Chris through Geocaching.com. This is to keep track of the numbers of the churches and give you the general format for the cache page. In the UK there are ~3500 caches in the series so we have some catching up to do! Also, if you currently have a published cache at a church that you would like to include in the series, get in contact and we can add it."