[We feel much obliged to our learned and reverend correspondent for the
interest he takes in the success and the accuracy of the _Record_, and
we beg to assure him that the greatest attention will be paid to every
communication and suggestion from him, or from any other promoter of the
study of Irish ecclesiastical literature or antiquities. In publishing
the _Record_, our only desire is to illustrate and uphold truth, and
thus to promote the interests of religion.
We regret that, our colleague who treated of the See of Clonmacnoise
in the January number being at present absent, we have not been able
to communicate to him the remarks contained in the above letter; we
can therefore only state that, as he was not treating of the fourteenth
century, he referred only incidentally to the appointment of Bishop
Symon in order to fix the period at which a change had been "_probably_"
effected in a matter of ecclesiastical jurisdiction connected with the
See of Clonmacnoise, and that he had no intention of giving the history
of the bishops of that diocese, or of entering into a question which
was not connected with his subject; so that, having fixed the date in
question with accuracy--as he does by referring to the appointment of
Bishop Symon to Clonmacnoise, as given by Theiner--it did not appear
necessary for him to proceed farther.
However that may be, we can safely promise in the name of our colleague,
that he will be happy to correct any mistake into which he may have
fallen. He will be able to do so the more readily because he has been
requested to publish in a separate volume all he has written on the
succession of the Bishops in the various Sees of Ireland. When corrected
and completed, these articles will be a valuable accession to our
ecclesiastical history, whilst they will supply a triumphant answer to
an assertion of the learned Dr. Todd in the preface to his _Life of St.
Patrick_, viz.: that the original Irish Church, having merged into the
Church of the English Pale, adopted the Reformation in the sixteenth
century. That assertion undoubtedly was made hastily and without
sufficient reflection. Any one who reads the articles of the _Record_
will find that it has no foundation in fact. Penal laws, indeed, and
brute force were employed to propagate the Reformation in Ireland, but
the true faith was so deeply rooted in the minds of the clergy and laity
of the "original Irish Church" that all the powers of Hell could not
exterminate it.
As to Bishop Symon, mentioned by our correspondent, it appears that he
was appointed in 1349 by Clement VI. to Derry, not to Kildare. According
to Ware, there was no vacancy in that year in this last see, as it was
occupied from 1334 to 1365 by Richard Hulot and Thomas Giffard. But in
the list of the Bishops of Derry given by Ware, a Bishop Symon, of some
order of friars, is mentioned as filling that see in 1367 and 1369. The
historian states that he could not discover to what religious order that
prelate belonged, or what was the date of his consecration. The valuable
documents published by the Archivist of the Vatican, F. Theiner, show that
Bishop Symon was of the Order of St. Dominick, that he was consecrated
by Talleyrand, Bishop of Albano, that he was appointed to Derry in 1349,
and that he succeeded a Bishop Maurice who was unknown to Ware. A copy
of the brief appointing Bishop Symon to Derry, was sent to the Archbishop
of Armagh, as appears from Theiner, p. 292. This shows that the
_Ecclesia Darensis_ conferred on Bishop Symon belonged to the province
of Armagh. Kildare, indeed, was called by the same name, but it belonged
to a different province. Theiner gives the appointment of a Bishop of
Kildare at page 261, in which reference is made to his metropolitan of
Dublin. At page 64 _Ecclesia Darensis_ is mentioned again, but it is
stated to belong to the metropolitan of Armagh. Thus, although Derry and
Kildare went by the same name, it is not difficult to determine to which
see the papal Bulls regarding them belong, because mention is generally
made of the metropolitan to whose suffragan the document is addressed.]