Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Fihely, Maurice
O'FIHELY, MAURICE (d. 1513), archbishop of Tuam, is generally known as Mauritius de Portu. He was a native of co. Cork, a Franciscan friar, and Wood and others say that he studied at Oxford. As he describe himself as 'Master of Arts,' he may have taken that degree at Oxford before entering the Minorite order. He became regent of the Franciscan schools at Milan in 1488, and regent doctor of theology in 1491 at Padua, where he was still lecturing publicly on theology in 1499, 1504, and 1506. He is said to have acted for some years as principal superintendent of the press set up by Ottaviano Scot to at Venice, but of this no satisfactory evidence is forthcoming. He was minister in Ireland in 1506, and took part in deposing the general minister, Ægidius Delphmus, in the first capitulum generalissimum at Rome in that year. In 1506 also he was made archbishop of Tuam by Julius H. He continued to reside in Italy, and was present at the Lateran council in 1612. He at length departed to Ireland, but died at Galway in 1513, and was buried among the Grey friars there. He is chiefly known as the editor of many of the works of Duns Scotus. He edited with omissions, expansions, and explanatory notes, the following treatisee of the subtle doctor: 'De primo principio,' 'Theoremata,' 'Expositio in XII libros Metaphysicorum,' 'Quæstiones in metaphysicam Aristotelis,' Venice, 1497, and elsewhere; 'Comment, in lib. i. Sententiarum,' Venice, 1506; 'Comment. in lib. i. et ii. Sententiarum,' Paris, 1513; 'De Formalitatibus,' Venice, 1506, 1517; 'Collationes,' Paris, 1513. He was the author of an 'Expositio quæstionum Doctoris Subtilis in quinque universalia Porphyrii,' or 'Expositio in quæstiones dialecticas J. Duns Scoti,' begun at Padua and finished at Ferrara, 1499 (Venice, 1500, 1519); of critical treatises on the same doctor's 'Quæstiones in Metaphysicam,' 'De Primo Principio,' and 'Theoremata' (Venice, 1497; Paris, 1513), and of a short treatise entitled 'Enchyridion fidei,' or 'De rerum contingentia et divina predestinatione,' dedicated to Gerald Fitzgerald, the 'great earl' of Kildare (Venice, 1505). He also edited, while lecturing at Padua, a version of the four books of the sentences in hexameters called 'Compendium Veritatum' (Venice, 1505), and began an edition of the works of Francis de Mayronis (Venice, 1520). The 'Distinctiones ordine alphabetico' sometimes attributed to him were the work of a Friar Maurice of the thirteenth century.
A relative, Domunall O'Fihely (fl. 1506), wrote 'Irish Annals,' in Irish, dedicated to Florence O'Mahony, which were seen in manuscript in London in 1626 by Sir James Ware, but are now lost (O'Doxovan, The Genealogy of Corca Laidhe; Ware, Irish Writers, 1704, p. 23).
[Wadding's Annales and Scriptores; Sbaralea, Supplementum ad Scriptores; J. Duns Scoti Opera Omnia, Lyons, 1639; Wood's Athenæ Oxon.; Tanner's Bibliotheca; Cotton's Fasti Eccles. Hibern.; The Grey Friars in Oxford (Oxford Hist. Soc.); Brady's Episcopal Succession; Gams's Series Epicoporum; Hardiman's Hist. of Galway, p. 265 ii.]