Máel Ruba
Irish monk and martyr
Feast: 27 August (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Maelrubha, of the line of Niall and a relative of St Comgall, was educated at Bangor. At about thirty he sailed to Scotland with a band of monks and founded churches in Argyll, then settled at Applecross among the Picts.
From there he travelled to Skye, Lewis and the far north. He was killed by Viking raiders at Strathnaver on 21 April 722.
The miracles
There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began. In 1898 Pope Leo XIII restored his feast for the Church in Scotland.
Why that counted as sanctity
An Irish missionary who died a martyr in the north of Scotland.
- Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), via New Advent - St. Maelrubha
- Wikidata Q4286288 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Máel Ruba (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.