MALACHY of Ireland (fl. 1310), Franciscan, is said by Wadding to have been B.D. of Oxford, and to have rebuked king Edward II to his face in his sermons. A book in sixteen chapters, called ‘Libellus septem peccatorum mortalium,’ or ‘Tractatus de Veneno,’ was printed at Paris in 1518 under his name. Of eight manuscripts of this work, two are anonymous, five are ascribed to Grostete, and one only to Malachy; but the mention of St. Francis, and the frequent references to Irish history and affairs, prove it to have been written by an Irish Franciscan. The treatise was intended ‘for the instruction of simple men who have to teach the people,’ and is chiefly remarkable for its denunciation of the government of Ireland at the time.
[Wadding's Annales Minorum, vol. vi.; Sbaralea's Supplementum ad Scriptores, p. 507; Brit. Museum, MS. Cotton Vitell. c. xiv. f. 57–65; Bale, De Script. Brit.; Ware, De Script. Hibern. p. 65.]