Names. Number. Year of Succession.
Gregory 1 1161
Laurence Toole 2 1172
John Comyn 3 1182
H. de Londres 4 1218
Luke 5 1255
Falk. de Saunford 6 1271
J. de Derlington 7 1284
John de Saundford 8 1294
W. de Hotham 9 1297
R. de Ferings 10 1306
John Leek 11 1313
A. de Bicknor 12 1349
John de St Paul 13 1362
Thomas Minot 14 1375
R. de Wikeford 15 1390
Richd. Northallis 16 1395
Thomas Cranley 17 1397
Richd. Talbot 18 1417
Nicholas Tregury 19 1449
John Walton 20 1473
Walter Fitzsimons 21 1484
William Rokeby 22 1581
Hugh Inge 23 1528
John Allen 24 1534
Geo. Brown, ap. 25 1554
Hugh Carwin, ap 26 1559
Mat. of Oviedo 27 1600
E. Matthews 28 1611
Thos. Fleming 29 1660
Pet. Talbot 30 1680
Patrick Russel 31 1692
Pet. Creagh 32 1700
Edwd. Byrne 33 1723
Edwd. Murphy 34 1728
Luke Fagan 35 1733
John Linegar 36 1757
Richard Lincoln 37 1763
Patrick Fitzsimons 38 1769
John Carpenter 39 1786
John Th. Troy 40 1787
D. Murray 41 1824
(1 A.) Saint Patrick, ten years after building the Metropolitan
church of Armagh, committed it to the care of Bineen, or Benignus,
his scholar, who resigned it soon after to Iarlath. He, dying in 482,
was succeeded by Cormack, so that St. Patrick saw three of his
successors in his see of Armagh, before his death, on the 17th of
March, 493.
(14 A.) To Thomian, or Tomian, and the other clergy of Ireland, was
written that epistle from the Roman clergy during the vacancy of the
Roman see, in 639, concerning the time of observing Easier, of which
a part is extant in Bede's Ecclesiastical History.
(20 A.) In Artruge, or Artry's primacy, the Ultonian territories were
much disturbed by the invasions of the Danes. Armagh was for a month
in their possession, in 830.
(36 A.) Maolbridy, the son of Tornan, or Dornan Comorban to St.
Patrick and Columbkille, was of the blood royal of Ireland. His
learning and virtues were so eminent as to obtain for him the
appellation of the ornament of Europe. In his time, Armagh was thrice
plundered by the Danes.
(52 A.) St. Malachy, called in Irish Maolmedoc ua Morgair, resigned
his see to Giolla-Iosa, or servant of Jesus, strangely metamorphosed
by Latin writers into the seemingly Greek name Gelasius, whereby the
Irish etymology is almost lost, as is the case with many other names
too. St. Malachy, after establishing a monastery of regular canons in
Down, undertook a journey to Rome, but died in the arms of St.
Bernard, his biographer, in the Abbey of Clairvaux, in France.
(1 D.) Of the bishops of Dublin, no regular succession can be at
present made out before the time of Donat, the Dane, in 1074.
Hestaunus, indeed, mentions the few that are above recorded, before
that time. Notwithstanding the silence of our records, it is very
probable that St. Patrick, after founding a church there, in 448,
established a form of ecclesiastical government for it, similar to
that which he instituted in other parts of the island.
(2 D.) The illustrious and patriotic St. Laurence O'Toole, was the
son of Martough O'Toole, prince of Imaly, by Inghean ee Bhrian, or
daughter of the royal house of O'Brien. In 1167, he assisted at a
convention of the clergy and princes of Leah-Cuin, or north of
Ireland, at Athboy, wherein many laws for the government of church
and state were made. St. Laurence animated the inhabitants of Dublin
to a vigorous defence against the Anglo-Norman invaders, under
Strongbow, until the city was forced to surrender. He next prevailed
on Roderic, and the princes of Ireland, to join in a conspiracy
against the invaders; but after investing Dublin by land and water
with 30,000 men, and 30 ships, the Irish princes were compelled to
raise the siege. He, with the rest of the clergy, assisted at a
national council, held in Cashel, by order of Henry II. "Having, out
of zeal," says Cambrensis, "for his country's service, fallen under
Henry the Second's displeasure, Laurence was a long time detained in
France and England, by that politic prince." In this latter place, at
Becket's shrine in Canterbury, our patriot was attacked by a villain,
who, perhaps, wishing, like the murderers of Thomas a Becket, to
ingratiate himself with Henry, by a similar act of assassination,
rushed on the archbishop as he was saying mass there, and knocked him
down with a blow which fractured his skull. He died at Auge, in
Normandy, in 1180, and was canonized by pope Honorius the III. in
1225.
(80 A.) Archbishop Dowdall strenuously opposed the innovations of
Henry VIII. and of his complaisant servant, then the archbishop of
Dublin, the well known apostate George Brown. Brown was originally an
Augustinian friar, of London, and provincial of that order in
England. He was advanced to the see of Dublin, by Henry VIII. in
1535. He was the first Roman Catholic prelate who embraced the
reformation in Ireland. Miles M'Grath, archbishop of Cashell,
Staples, bishop of Meath, Lancaster, bishop of Kildare, Travers,
bishop of Laughlin, and Coyne, bishop of Limerick, afterwards
apostatized, and abjured the Catholic religion; Lancaster and Travers
were, in turn, ejected from their sees, in Queen Mary's reign; as
they, like the other apostles of the _Reformation_, took wives to
themselves. Coyne, or Quin, was originally a Dominican friar; M'Grath
was a Franciscan before his perversion.
(87 A.) Richard Creagh was poisoned in the tower of London in 1585,
and his successor, Edward M'Gauron, was murdered in his confessional,
by a soldier, in 1598, as is asserted by David Roth, the learned
bishop of Ossory, in his "_Processus Martyrialis_." To these
illustrious martyrs, we may add the (92. A.) fourth in succession
after M'Gauran; viz. the learned and holy martyr, Oliver Plunket,
who, in 1679, was taken to Dublin, detained as a close prisoner
there, and after being transmitted from thence to Newgate in London,
was ultimately drawn on a sledge to Tyburn, that theatre of Catholic
martyrdom since the _holy_ Reformation, and hanged, beheaded, and
quartered, on the 1st of July, 1681, as may be seen more at large, in
the Tripartite Theology of Richard Archdeakin, an erudite Jesuit of
Kilkenny, printed at Antwerp, in 1682.
(101 A.) Doctor R. O'Reilly, having completed his studies at Rome,
returned to his native country, and, in 1780, was consecrated
coadjutor bishop to Doctor O'Keefe, the predecessor of the present
learned and pious Doctor Delany, in the diocess of Kildare and
Leighlin. In 1782, Doctor O'Reilly was made administrator of the
arch-diocess of Armagh; and on the death of the late Doctor Blake, in
1787, was promoted to the metropolitan chair of that primatial see.
(40 D.) Doctor J. T. Troy was born in the city of Dublin, and was, at
an early age, affiliated into the order of St. Dominic, an order
which has rendered itself eminently illustrious for adorning the
Christian Church with a brilliant galaxy of popes, prelates, and
preachers, equally distinguished for their pious zeal in cultivating
the Lord's vinevards, as for the purity of their principles and
edifying sanctity of their lives. In order to qualify himself for the
mission, he went to Rome. There, in the college of SS. PP. Sixtus and
Clement de Urbe, he spent twenty-one years. That he attained to
literary pre-eminence in the various departments of his under
graduate course, is fully evinced by his being twice dignified with
the honour of filling the rectorial chair of that celebrated
seminary. From this academic retreat he was at last called forth to
the active labours of the Irish mission. In 1776, Doctor Troy was
promoted to the see of Ossory, then vacant by the death of Doctor
Thomas Burke, also a native of Dublin, a member of the Dominican
order, and author of the celebrated work called "Hibernia
Dominicana." Doctor Troy, in 1786, was translated to the archdiocess
of Leinster, and took possession of the metropolitan and primatial
chair, in his native city of Dublin, on the 15th February, 1787,
leaving the vacated see of Ossory to Doctor John Dunne, who, dying in
1789, was succeeded by Doctor James Lanigan, the present truly
religious, learned, and laborious bishop of that diocess.