Mary Moylan

Mary Moylan (August 15, 1936 – April, 1995) was a nurse-midwife and political activist, primarily known for her participation with the Catonsville Nine.

Biography Mary Assumpta Moylan was the daughter of Mary Moylan, a homemaker, and Joseph Moylan, a well-known and liked stenographer in Baltimore's criminal court and sometime employee of The Baltimore Sun, and a member of the Knights of Columbus. One of three children, she had a younger sister, Ella, and a brother. She was given the middle name Assumpta because she was born on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. She did a second tour in Africa with the Women Volunteers Association. She remained in Uganda a few more months and then returned to Washington, DC, where she lived in an African missionary community run by the Archdiocese of Washington.

Catonsville Nine Moylan was one of two women on Catonsville Nine, the other being Marjorie Bradford Melville. They burned draft files with homemade napalm in the Knights of Columbus parking lot in Catonsville, Maryland. Morsberger claimed years later that the group screamed at her and called them all murderers, but others dispute that story. To show how voluntary their arrest was, Moylan was able to slip out of the handcuffs easily because of her slender wrists, but she slipped them back on and allowed herself to be taken. In court she wore a tinkling bell on a chain one day, "a mere tinkle against the thudding gavel, a whispered plea against the insane clamor of war." It was a pushback against what is still often seen as the "rampant clericalism and patriarchalism" of the whole Berrigan phenomenon and the narratives of what happened at actions. After friends appealed unsuccessfully to President Jimmy Carter to pardon her as he had Patty Hearst, she surrendered in Baltimore in June 1979, after which she served a year in the women's prison in Alderson, West Virginia. Afterward she returned to nursing, first at the People's Free Medical Clinic, eventually working in Queen Anne's Hospital. With Jim Keck she was a founder of the People's Community Health Center, that closed in 2015. She was also affiliated with secular radical antiwar groups, at was at the edges of SDS, RYMII and others though ultimately not aligning with them and instead embracing feminism over all else.

Personal She was portrayed by some friends as troubled because of her exile and the nature of her death, but George Mische objected to this image. Other friends remember her as argumentative, but a wit. Carl Schoettler of The Baltimore Sun reported that "Willa Bickham and Brendan Walsh, the couple who have devoted their lives to serving soup and love at their Viva House table, did keep in touch with Ms. Moylan during the years of her underground exile and afterward." In 2025, Viva House is part of the Baltimore Catholic Worker.

Death She was found dead in April 1995. It was unclear the exact day she died. Willa Bickham and Brendan Walsh of Viva House in Baltimore held a wake for her. She was said to have stayed at Viva House before going underground. George Mische wrote of her with deep respect, saying that sensationalist reports of her death were inaccurate and inappropriate.