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Nem Moccu Birn

Irish saint

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ4316832 ↗
Source-derived summary

Nem Moccu Birn (or Nennus, Nenus, Nehemias; died 14 June 654) was Abbot of Aran.

His feast day is 14 June.

Biography

Nem was one of the few known successors of Enda of Aran, and appears to be the first such abbot listed in the Irish annals after Enda himself.

The word moccu is actually a contracted form of "mac Ua Birn", indicating that St. Nem was a descendant of Loegaire Birn Buadach, and early king of Ossory and thus a scion of the Dál Birn lineage of Ossory. In the Félire Óengusso, he is recorded as being a relation of St. Ciarán of Saigir.

Annalistic references

From the Annals of the Four Masters:

M654.2. St Nem Mac Ua Birn, successor of Enne, of Ara, died on the 14th of June.

From the Félire Óengusso ("The Martyrology of Óengus"):

"14.

Editorial summary

“Nem Moccu Birn” enters the record as irish saint. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Moccu, Birn and Irish can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current 140-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Moccu, Birn and Irish.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Nem Moccu Birn” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Moccu, Birn and Irish provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4316832. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Nem Moccu Birn”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Nem Moccu Birn primary sources, Nem Moccu Birn archive and Moccu research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Nem Moccu Birn”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Nem Moccu Birn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.