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Roderick
O'Flaher-

to have been intended as a kind of compromise of the controversy; whereby very large privileges were conceded to the English settlers, in connection with the church of their capital and seaport town of Galway; while, at the same time, the natives were saved the pain of seeing a body of alien immigrants possessed of the invidious distinction of occupying an episcopal dignity connected with an ancient cathedral site of their own, consecrated too in their affections, from association with the name of one famous among the early fathers of the Irish Church.

Of the founding of the College, the following account is given in Roderic O'Flaherty's Chorographical Description of West Connaught.*

"About the same time as aforementioned [1585] Donogh O'Murry, Archbishope of Tuam, instituted a Colty's account ledge (Ware, Henry VII. ad an. 1501) for St. Nicholas' of its origin. Church in Galway, of a Wardian and eight chorall

vicars, whereunto where appropriated nine parishes of the diocess; which had as many parish vicars, all under the Wardian, as well as the eight chorall vicars which served the high Church and the town. The Wardian is yearly elected by the common vote of the citizens, as the mayor is; but continued in one person for many years, according to the pleasure of the electors. Dominick Duffe Linche Fitz John, second mayor, and brother to the first, was chief founder of the Colledge. There was

* Hardiman, p. 34, ib.

but a small chappell soon before in this place. The Church was dedicated to S. Nicholas Bishope of Myra in Licia, worshipped the 6th of December; on which day Galway men invited to their table, such as they would have to keep Christmas next with them."

of the Gal

way men

Yet the hospitalities of the Galway men, Curious rule though extensive, were not in every sense unlimited, as appears from the following curious against the enactment (of the date A.D. 1518) recorded in Mac's. the Original Corporation Book of the city, viz.:

"That no man of this town shall oste or receive into their houses at Christmas, Easter, nor no feaste elles, any of the Burkes, McWilliams, the Kellies, nor no cepte elles, without license of the mayor and councill on payn to forfeit £5; that neither One Mac shall strutte ne swaggere through the streets of Gallway."*

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O's and

the mere

"As a curious instance of the prejudice of the Old Their prejuEnglish' inhabitants of that town, against the mere dices against Irish,' it has been observed" further, (as we read in Mr. Irish illusHardiman's notes on Iar-Connaught,) "that none of the trated in O'Flaherties ever held, or would be suffered to hold, any another inoffice therein, because they were of the mere Irish; but stance. their followers the Joyces were admitted to every civic employment, because they were of British extraction." For the Joyces are enumerated among the Welsh tribes, (i. e. the Seoaigh Iarthair Chonacht,) who came to Ireland in the time of D. Mac Murrough, K. of Leinster.†

property

The selection of the "walled or fortified The college town" of Galway for the residence of the prin- plundered

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by the native Irish;

against

whom the

cipal church dignitary connected with the English in Annadown diocese, might appear well adapted for affording that individual, and the subordinate ministers of the college, protection from the hostility and assaults of their "wild Irish" neighbours. Such a hope was however not realized. The College became inheritor of the injuries, as well as the honours, of the bishopric, and the property assigned for the use of its officers was embezzled and made away with from its proper object, as the revenues of the see had been. So that it became necessary for Pope Alexander VI. to write, in 1501, to the Archbishop of Tuam and other bishops, orderpope fulmi- ing them to have sentence of excommunication nates a bull published against all persons injuring or secretnication for ing the property in question, who did not, within a certain assigned period, make full and satisfactory discovery and restitution, of such portions of the same as they were liable for, to the warden and chapter of the church of St. Nicholas. Among the items of this property "rashly and maliciously embezzled, and clandestinely detained from the college," the pontiff enumerates generally in his letter, "tithes, fruits, rents, profits, chalices, church ornaments, oblations, lands, houses, possessions, watercourses, mills, quantities of wine, provender, corn, gold, silver coined and uncoined, oil, and

of excom

their offences.

other substances, vessels of silver, brass, copper, tin, pieces of linen, woollen, and silken texture, clothes, jewels, household furniture, books, public and private writings, testamentary and other documents, horses, oxen, sheep, and other animals, debts, trusts, legacies, loans, sums of money, privileges, jurisdictions, and certain other goods, moveable and immoveable, legally belonging to the capitular table of the church aforesaid."*

Enaghdun

Concerning the state of Enaghdun in the State of middle of the 16th century, (under Henry VIII.,) in the reign some information is furnished in the following letter from "the Earl of Ossorie to Thomas Cromwell, his Majesty's secretary :"+

of Henry VIII.

nected with

"It may please yr good mastership to be advertized Letter of that this bearer [Thomas O'Mullaly, who was made the Earl of Abp. of Tuam in 1513 and died 1536] hath made Peti- Ossory contion to mee to ascertain yr mastershipp of the value of a it. bishopricke in Conaughte neere Galway. . . ye same bishopricke is called Enaghdune, distancing farre from the English pale, amongs the inordinate wild Irishry, not meete for any stranger of reputation, and exceedeth not xxli. yearly by my estimacon. The clergy whereof be farre out of order and the see church in ruine: for the reformation thereof it should be very necessary yt there were a head provided there, who must have

p. 167 ib., where the document here cited is given in full. From Ware's MSS. ex coll. D. Geo. Carew, vol. lxxv., p. 38. Lambeth Library.

Motives influencing the English government in their dis

frendshipp and favor of the country, er else little mighte
prevail. And thus Jesu preserve your mastershipp.
Yours.
"P. Oss;

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"To the Right worshippful Mr. Cromwell of
the King's most Honorable Council."

"This letter illustrates the discreditable motives which were likely to prevail with the English government to induce them to appoint an Irishman to an Irish bishopric at the beginning of the Reformation; they are, first, that the bishopric was worth little; second, that Irish Church it was so far from the court as not to be meet for any stranger of reputation; third, that being among the wild Irish, none but an Irishman would be safe there."

posal of

patronage.

English influence had, therefore, declined much at this time in the part of Ireland in question, so as to cause Annadown to be regarded as "farre from the English pale."

The advice given in this letter appears to have been followed, as we find mention in A.D. 1553 of a "John, Bp. of Enaghdun." See Art. XXV. inf. under Cashel.

Irish Ecclesiastical Journal, for Seplember, 1849, (No. 110. p. 327.)

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