His promo tion. As titular periors, and procured him the appointment to the office of Prothonotary Apostolic, and afterwards that of vicar general of the titular primate of all Ireland. The diocese of Ossory having been for seventeen years without a titular prelate, from the death of THOMAS STRONG in 1601, "it was determined in a consistory held under Paul V. in 1618, that provision should be made for the see, and accordingly at the instence of Cardinal Verallo, Protector [Cromwell?] of the Church of Ireland, David bp. of Osso- Rothe was nominated, and promoted soon after, to the see of Ossory. He presided over that diocess and had possession of the ancient Cathedral of St. Canice in Kilkenny during the memorable period of the Supreme Council."* Of his acts during the great Rebellion we have no room to speak here. He published besides the Analecta various other productions of less notoriety, and ended his days in 1650, aged 87 years. ry, he gets possession of the Cathedral of S. Canice in the Great Rebellion. His death. Three other titulars of noticed. Three other prelates, belonging to the close of the period now under consideration, are distinguished by Mr. this period Brennan as having earned the crown of martyrdom under the persecution of Cromwell's followers, viz., TERENCE ALBERT O'BRIEN, titular bishop of Emly, said to have been tried with bribes and threats, which could not however shake his constancy, and ultimately strangled on the eve of All Saints, A.D 1651; BOETIUS EGAN, titular bishop of Ross, put to death about the same time, (of whom presently;) and EMER MATHEW, titular bishop of Clogher, who was taken prisoner by "Coote, one of Cromwell's most strenuous supporters," and condemned to death about the same time.† The mar tyrdom of Boetius Egan, To illustrate the veracious authenticity of the martyrdom stories with which writers of Mr. Brennan's class are in the habit of embellishing their works, take, gentle reader, an instructive lesson from the following two ways of telling the story of BOETIUS MAC EGAN, after perusal of which you will be somewhat better able to account for much that might otherwise puzzle and shock you more sericusly, in the " Analecta Sacra, nova et mira," (as they are truly called by their author,) and in other works of similar texture. The first account here given is Mr. Brennan's, the other that of an authority at least equally respectable, Mr. O'Brien, author of the well-known Irish Dictionary, (in voce Eagan.) According to Mr. BRENNAN. "About the same time Boetius Egan, Bishop of Ross, was tortured and put to death by the directions of Ludlow, who had been already engaged in storming that town. [Limerick.] This prelate, in the warmth of his charity, had ventured to make his way through the recesses of the neighbouring mountains, for the purpose of administering the sacraments to the dying. On his return to the lonely retreat in which he had for months lain concealed, he was overtaken by a troop of Ludlow's cavalry. The renunciation of his faith, he was told, would secure not only his pardon, but even the con VOL. III. According to Mr. O'BRIEN. dles. "A gentleman of this fa- a story with mily of the Mac Eagains, two hanby name Baotlaċ or Boejus Mac Eagan, [i.e. Billy (or Bully) Egan,] was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ross Carbury, in the reign of King Charles I. of England, who having engaged himself with a party of the confederated Roman Catholics, as their spiritual director, in an expedition tending to relieve the town of Clonmel, and being taken prisoner of war by Lord Orrery, was immediately, and without examination or trial, ordered to be hanged like a common malefactor; contrary to the laws of war, of nations, and of common humanity." 2 L A piece of new cloth, fidence of their General: [The reader will hardly require to be reminded of another specimen of the military daring of the reve rend ecclesiastics of the house of M'EGAN of Desmond, furnished in a preceding article of this Appendix, No. LV. sup.] So much for the more distinguished of the put unto an early titular prelates of Ireland. As for the old garment, rest of those who were the first occupants re only serves to expose a wide rent. spectively of the like new dignities created in each see of this island by the Roman bishop, it will suffice to enumerate their names, taken as they are set forth in a singular document, (and one certainly of singular effrontery,) published not long since in the work entitled the "Complete Catholic Directory," and purporting to be a tabular view of the succession in each of the sees of Ireland; in which however the new titular succession is oddly stuck on, as it were, to the body of the old Irish episcopacy. The place of this attempted junction, or suture, in each see, is indicated in what follows by a line drawn across where it occurs. It is hardly necessary here to repeat again our reason for rejecting such a view of the Irish episcopal succession as wholly impertinent and absurd; suffice it to refer to the fact, that the prelates of the latter portion of this new series did not receive their orders or authority from those, or any of those, who are here named as their predecessors; but from foreign powers to whom neither God nor man had ever given any rightful title to the exercise of such jurisdiction in this isle. TABULAR VIEW OF THE TITULAR EPISCOPACY OF IRELAND IN THE PERIOD FROM THEIR FIRST ORIGIN TO A.D. 1650, CIR. (From the "Complete Catholic Directory" for 1837, which quotes generally as its authorities, Ware's Bishops, Stuart's Armagh, &c. N.B. The dates here do not refer to the times of appointments.) "After Dowdall, [says the "C. C. D."] on the death of Queen Mary, Adam Loftus begun the Protestant line of bishops in this See, or as Erck says, thus: "Some place Patrick Fleming as successor to Dr. M'Coghwell; but Stuart, in his History of Armagh, p. 352, says he cannot discover any trace of his promotion to the primacy." +"In most lists Ross M'Mahon is omitted." The" C. C. D." has Bryan at p. 95, but in the corrections marked in the Introduction, p. v. substitutes Michael. One or two other trifling emendations are supplied from the same source. |