LALOR-SHIEL, Richard: Writing, Public Life: b. Drumdowney 1791. ed.
Stonyhurst (England) and Trinity College, Dublin; called to the Bar
1814; over a short period of less than five years, wrote three dramas
which achieved production and fame on the London stage: The Apostate
(1817), Bellamira (1818) and Evadne (1819). Becoming more active in
politics, he initially opposed Daniel O'Connell but was later
supportive and became prominent in the Catholic Association. In 1829
he was elected MP for Milborne, Somerset and later represented Louth,
Tipperary and Dungarvan. He became Master of the Mint in 1846 and was
appointed British Minister at the Court of Tuscany five years later;
he died in Florence in 1851 on his way to take up his post.
LANGRISHE, Sir Hercules: Public Life: b. 1731 at Knocktopher Hall,
where his family had been landlords of the area since ????; ed.
Trinity College, Dublin; elected MP for Knocktopher 1761 (a mere
fomality, since he owned practically the entire borough). Commissioner
of Revenue for Ireland 1774-1801 and of Excise from 1780; supported
the Catholic claims for the relaxation of the Penal Laws, attacking
the government in a major article in the Freeman's Journal. His friend
Edmund Burke published his Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe in 1792,
in response to which Sir Hercules introduced the Catholic Relief Bill
in the Irish Parliament. A supporter of the Union, he retired from
politics in 1801, and died at his house in St. Stephen's Green in
1811.
LANIGAN, James: Religion: B. about 1750, the son of a High St.
shopkeeper in Kilkenny City, he moved with his family to
Carick-on-Suir and received an education in the private school of Mr.
Jackson, eventually becoming a junior teacher there or on his own
account nearby. He was determined to study for the priesthood and
after a few years had saved enough to pursue his studies in Kilkenny.
In the custom of the time, he was ordained at the beginning of his
Philosophy and Theology course, which he took at Nantes in France. He
remained on there as Professor of Mathematics, returning to Ireland in
1782, when he became involved with Dr. John Dunne in the establishment
of a diocesan college at Burrell's Hall at the request of Bishop Troy.
When Dr. Troy became Archbishop of Dublin in 1787, Dr. Dunne succeeded
him but only lived for two years; Dr. Lanigan then assumed the
position at the age of 44. Within a decade, he had established a
school for the education of the poor in the charge of the Presentation
Sisters, put ecclesiatical studies on a firm footing at the Old
Academy near St. Canice's, and made plans for a new site for the
college at Maudlin St. He supported the Act of Union of 1800 ,
believing that it would ensure treatment for Catholics in Ireland
equal to that in Britain, and preserve Ireland from foreign invasion.
He died in 1812, aged 64.
LEDREDE, Richard: Religion: b. about 1280, this English Franciscan was
consecrated Bishop of Ossory in 1317 by Cardinal Nicholas of Ostia at
the Papal Court of Avignon. On his arrival in Kilkenny, he held a
synod of clergy and proclaimed his zeal to root out heresy and pagan
customs, especially witchcraft. His confontation with Dame Alice
Kytler (q.v.) and her followers led to his imprisonment at the hands
of her brother-in-law Roger Outlaw, Chancellor of Ireland. Popular
agitation forced his release but despite significant victories over
his enemies (the flight of Alice Kylter, the burning of her close
associate Petronilla as a witch, the humiliation of Alice's son
William and the imprisonment of the Senescal of Kilkenny) he was to
duffer continuing harrassment. This included further civil and
ecclesiastical trials and exile for nine years to the Papal Court at
Avignon. Even King Edward III turned against him, stripping him of his
temporal possessions. He eventually recovered the royal favour, and
was given freedom from the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Dublin by
the Pope. He spent his remaining years in relative peace, dying in
1360.
LOCKE, John: Writing: b. Callan ... m. Mary Cooney... Songs included
Anthem of Callan, The Calm Avonree; poems, Dawn on the Irish Coast;
two novels published in Celtic Monthly New York 1879 - The Shamrock
and Palmetto and Ulick Grace: A Tale of the Tithes. D. 1889
LOUGHNAN, Peter: Business: Established a bank in Kilkenny City in
1800, issuing banknotes generously until 1820, when there was a
general collapse of both agricultural prices and banks. A run on
coinage during the spring cattle fair in the city caused Loughnan's
bankruptcy, and litigation that continued well into the 1840s resulted
in his creditors being paid 30% of the amount owed. Loughnan was also
a benefactor of the Presentation Convent established in the city in
1800, and a sister of his entered there (check): IR
MAC AMHLAIGH, Donal: Writing: b. Galway 1926, educated Kilkenny, with
which he became associated; entered Irish army, serving with an
Irish-speaking battalion: went to England 1951 to become a labourer on
building sites, an involvement he was to turn to good effect in his
books; contributed occasional journalism to Irish newspapers and then
produced Dialann Deorai in 1962, regarded as an accomplished evocation
of the life of an Irish building worker in Britain and translated as
An Irish Navvy by Valentin Iremonger in 1964; other books included
Saol Saighdiura (1962) about his life as a soldier; Diarmuid
O'Domhnaill (1965); Sweeney agus Scealta Eile (1970), Schnitzer O'Se
(1974) and Beoir Bhaile (1981). His play Saighdiuiri (1964) won the
Oireachtas Drama Prize and was broadcast on RTE in 1965. He continued
to live and work in Northampton until his death in 1989.
MAGRATH, Patrick: Religion, Education: b. 1766; ed. Irish College,
Paris; in 1792 established with Fr. Andrew Fitzgerald seminary courses
in Philosophy and Theology at the Old Academy, where lay students had
been receiving a Classical education in a school originally
established at Burrell's Hall; after Fr. Fitzgerald left in 1800, Fr.
Magrath continued in charge until 1827, when he was briefly Rector of
the Irish College in Paris; returning to Ireland in 1828, he became
P.P. Inistioge, where he died in 1840.
MAHER, James: Scholarship, Writing: b. Callan 1904 into a family that
later moved to Mullinahone; ed. St. Kieran's College, U.C.D. (B.A.,
H.D.E.) and Clonliffe College, where he studied for the priesthood;
left before ordination and taught in Halifax, Limerick, Roscrea and
Clonmel, where he was to spend much of his later life. He made a
life's work of the literary and historical heritage of the West
Kilkenny- East Tipperary border area, including Humphrey O'Sullivan,
John Locke and C. J. Tobin, but his greatest contribution was in
highlighting the achievement of Mullinahone-born Charles J. Kickham
(1828-1882) through collections of, and commentaries on, his work and
through membership of committees dedicated to promoting his memory.
Maher's publications included The Valley near Slievenamon (1942),
Romantic Slievenamon (1956) and Sing a Song of Kickham (1967). He also
published an edition of the letters of the Fenian chief John O'Mahony
(1819-1857) on the centenary of his death. James Maher died in Clonmel
in 1977.
MALVEISIN, Peter: Religion: b. about 1170 (believed illegitimate), he
was a Canon of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin when nominated as
Bishop of Ossory by William Earl Marshall in 1218 as successor to
Hugh de Rous and as part of the Norman network of clerics imposed on
the Irish church. Despite his high position, he had never received
holy orders. He was eventually allowed by Rome to be ordained priest
although expressly forbidden to be bishop. Put forward again by the
chapter of the diocese in 1220 he was approved by the Pope but took
some time to secure royal approval. He ruled the diocese for some
eight years, dying in 1230.
MARUM, Kieran: Religion: A native of Galmoy, he was born in 1773 into
a prominent North Kilkenny family who later settled in the Aharney
area. Educated at Burrell's Hall, the newly-established school that
would later develop into St. Kieran's College, he went on to study for
the priesthood at the Irish College in Salamanca in 1786 when he was
only 13, accompanied by his brother Pierce, who also became an Ossory
priest. His extended studies on the Continent were completed eleven
years later, and after his return to Ireland in 1797 he taught
philosophy and theology at the Old Academy, a sister institution of
the older Burrell's Hall establishment, where seminary studies had
been introduced in 1792. He then became Professor of Theology at the
newly-established Carlow College before being appointed parish priest
successively of Durrow and St. John's Kilkeny, where he combined his
pastoral duties with presidency of the ecclesiastical college, located
in Maudlin Street from 1811. Slthough then only 40, he was an obvious
and popular choice as bishop on the death of Bishop Lanigan in 1813
but his appointment was delayed for two years due to the imprisonment
of the Pope. Although his ability, zeal and dedication were never in
question, his episcopacy was troubled by controversy relating to
pastoral appointments in Templeorum and the Dominican friary, and the
aftermath of the murder of his brother John, for which seven men were
executed in 1824. He was only 52 when he died in 1827.
McAddoo, Henry: Religion, Scholarship: b. Cork 1916; ed. Cork Grammar
School, MOuntjoy School (Dublin) and Trinity College;: ordained 1940
and married Lesley Weir in the same year; for next twelve years served
as curate (Waterford) and rector (Castleventry and Kilmacomogue in
Cork) during which time he also produced The Structure of Caroline
Moral Theology (1949). He became Dean of Cork in 1952 and Canon of St.
Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin in 1959. In 1962 he was elected Bishop of
the united dioceses of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin, and for fifteen
years he lived in the city while pursuing an active academic
involvement as writer (The Spirit of Anglicanism 1965; Wheredo
Anglicans Stand and The Eucharistic Theology of Jeremy Taylor 1970)
and lecturer. Elected Archbishop of Dublin 1977, and appointed
Chairman of the first Anglo-Roman Catholic International Commission on
Ecumenism which published its report in 1982; retireed 1985, but
continued to produced scholarly works includingfFirst of its Kind:
Jeremy Taylor's Life of Christ (1994). D. 1995?
McCheane, Joseph: Religion: Descended from a Tipperary merchant
family, he was born in 1837 into an Anglican clerical family (his
father, Jeremiah, was rector of Kilmoganny in south Kilkenny for over
thirty years). Educated at ?? and at Trinity College, he was ordained
in 1865 and in 1876 was appointed rector of Freshford, where he was to
continue in office for fifty years (the parish only had two rectors in
the period 1824 to 1926). Described as 'full of anecdotes and a great
lover of animals, expecially horses', he cultivated a life of country
gentility, taking up residence at Wellbrook House. His son Tommy
(1878-1968), who left a career in the British Army to take up farming
at Wellbrook, was a major supplier of horses to the allied side in
World War 1, purchasing many in the Freshford area. Tommy married
Betty Purdon of the nearby Lodge Park estate, who was to survive him
by over thirty years; their son Des established a successful printing
business, Wellbrook Press, in parrtnership with his wife Bina at the
family home, eventually merging with the Kilkenny People Group in 1996
to form one of the largest specialist magazine publishing operations
in Ireland.
McCheane, Mabel: Arts (Music): b. Freshford 1883, daughter of Rev.
Joseph McCheane; had musical training as a young girl and in 1928,
when she was in her early forties, toured the United States as a
singer with the Russian artiste Nina Koshelz; married at the age of 69
a nephew of the author Edith Somerville (of Somerville and
Ross/Experiences of an Irish R.M. fame).
McDonald, Walter: Religion, Scholarship: b. Mooncoin 1854, educated
St. Kieran's College and Maynooth, where he was ordained for Ossory in
1876 at the age of 22; professor of English and Philosophy at St.
Kieran's 1876-1881; appointed Prefect of the Dunboyne (Post-Graduate)
Establishment at Maynooth 1881; author of Motion; its Origin and
Conservation, published 1898 and immediately condemned by Rome as
breaching Church orthodoxy re role, method and conculsions of
scientific investigation; produced five fuirther columes of theology
in the following five years, none of which secured
imprimatur;Principles of Moral Science published with required
permissions 1903. Founded Irish Theological Quarterly 1906 but was
forced to withdraw from the editorial committee under ecclesiatical
pressure. Under his direction, library and reading rooms at Maynooth
were improved, and encouraged professorial appointments on the basis
of learning and published work rather than ecclesiastical politics.
His last two books, Some Ethical Questions of Peace and War and
Ethical Aspects of the Social Question, were published with
imprimaturs from the Archdiocese of Westminster in 1919 and 1920. He
died, still only in his mid-sixties, in 1920 and his Reminiscences of
a Maynooth Professor was published posthumously, edited by Denis
Gwynn, in 1925. He was a brilliant and controversial scholar, well
ahead of his time, who promoted greater accessibility to knowledge and
power at all levels of church and society.
McDonald, William: Religion, Scholarship: b. Mooncoin 1903; ed. St.
Kierans College, from where he was ordained for the diocese of San
Francisco in 1928. After a number of minor pastoral and academic
appointments he studied for his Ph.D. at the Catholic University of
America in Washington D.C. and was appointed lecturer in the
Department of Sociology under Monsignor Fulton Sheen, the famous media
priest. He suceeded Sheen as Professor on the latter's appointment as
Auxiliary Bishop of New York in 1951 and became Vice-Rector of the
University in 1955. He was appointed Rector in 1958 and in 1964 became
an auxiliary bishop of Washington, also being honoured as President of
the International Federation of Catholic Universities and Editor of
the New Catholic Encyclopaedia. In 1967 he returned to San Francisco
as auxiliary bishop, and served there until retirement in 1979 after
which he worked in various pastoral situations until his death in
1989.
MCLOUGHLIN, Isabella: Religion, Education: b. 1778 into an established
business family in Kilkenny city; succeeded to her father's estate on
his death in 1795, when she was 17, and continued to part in the
social life of the city, including dinner with Bishop Lanigan; at one
such dinner was struck with idea of involvement in service and
education of the poor, and under the bishop's guidance, presented
herself in 1797 with her friend Catherine Meighan at the Presentation
Institute in Cork, founded by Nano Nagle in 1777 (after an earlier
involvement in the 1754 establishment of a school network taken over
by the Ursuline order) and approved by Rome in 1791. After a three
years novitiate, Isabella returned to Kilkenny and, as Sr. Joseph,
established a Presentation convent and school in James's Street,
alongside Bishop Lanigan's house. Joined by Catherine Meighan (as Sr.
de Sales), the new foundation offered education to the poor of the
city and eventually branching out into care of orphans and small
textile enterprises. The numbers of religious in the house grew too,
and soon other foundations were established, including Carlow,
pioneered by Sr. de Sales in 1811, and Galway, established by
Isabella's widowed sister-in-law, Mary Scott McLoughlin (Sr. Jane de
Chantal). After seeing her community grow to over 50 nuns, serving
more than 300 children, Sr. Joseph died in 1838. Sr. de Sales guided
the fortunes of the order until her death in 1857 and in the following
100 years there was considerable expansion in the James's Street
premises to include a secondary and commercial school, a new primary
school at Parnell St., and subsidiary foundations at Durrow in Laois
and Kilmacow near Waterford, as well as other independent foundations.
In 1992 the convent premises at James's Street was disposed of, and a
new residence constructed at Parnell Street with the secondary school
re-locating to Loughboy.
McMANUS, Francis: Arts (Literature): b. Kilkenny City 1909; ed. St.
Patrick's College Drumcondra (where he qualified as a teacher) and
UCD; teacher, CBS Schools, Synge St., Dublin, 1930-48, during which
period he flowered as an author, producing nine novels at the rate of
almost a book a year – Stand and Give Challenge (1935), Candle for the
Proud (1936), The House was Mine (1937), Men Withering (1939), The
Wild Garden (1940), Flow On Lovely River (1941), Watergate (1942), The
Greatest of These (1943), Statue for a Square (1945); and a biography
of the Italian painter Boccaccio (1947); became Director of Talks and
Features in Radio Eireann 1948, where he fostered a refreshing
approach to the presentation of history and culture, developing the
Thomas Davis Lectures as models of their type, and providing
opportunities for impecunious writers and scholars to earn a modest
fee for broadcast work; continued to write fiction - The Fire in the
Dust (1950), American Son (1959) - as well as a biography of St.
Columban and hostorical works including The Irish Struggle 1916-26
(1966), The Years of the Great Test 1926-37 (ed., 1966) and The Yeats
We Knew (1965). He died, still in his mid-fifties, in 1965.
McPhillips, Rory: Engineering: b. Co. Waterford 1923; ed. ?? and UCD
where he studied Civil Engineering and met Tom Mahon (q.v.), a
Kilkenny-born fellow-student, with whom he was to set up a partnership
in 1947, shortly after they had graduated. When the company became
prominent in the water engineering sector in Ireland, Rory McPhillips
began to investigate the possibility of manufacturing the mechanical
components for water treatment plants, hitherto fabricated overseas.
His success was immediate and sustained and Mahon & McPhillips (Water
Treatment) Ltd. was formed to carry out contracts in Ireland, England,
Greece, Africa, the Middle East and the Far East and employing up to
200 people. The company won the Bowmaker Award for Industry in 1977
and the RDS Astra Award for Innovation in 1984. Ill health forced him
to lessen his involvement in the management of the company towards the
mid-1980s and he set up a separate office in Kilkenny to carry out
research and development. The company he had founded went through a
number of changes in the wake of its purchase by the public Brooks
Watson Group and later traded variously as Bowen Water Technology and
USF Bowen, becoming a member of the French multinational Vivendi in
1999. Rory McPhillips died in 1992???
Michael of Exeter: Religion: A native of England, he was born about
1250 and advanced as a cleric under the patronage of King Edward I.
Appointed a Canon of St. Canice's Cathedral in Kilkenny in the early
1280s, he was elected Bishop of Ossory in 1289 and in 1292 became a
member of the King's Privy Council. He ruled Ossory for thirteen years
until his death about 1302, although he may actually have lived in the
diocese for only a quarter of that time.
Moran, Patrick Francis: Religion, Scholarship: b. Leighlinbridge, Co.
Carlow in 1830, he was orphaned at the age of 12 but about 1845 went
to Rome under the protection of his uncle Paul Cullen, then rector of
the Irish College there. Patrick was to spend most of the next 20
years in the Eternal City, studying Classics, Philosophy and Theology.
After ordination in 1853 he taught Hebrew at Propaganda College and
acted as pastoral and spiritual director at the Irish College, being
appointed Vice-Rector in 1857 at the age of 27. From the beginning of
his studies, he gathered material of Irish historical interest from
the Vatican archives, and published a number of works, including an
edition of the works of Archbishop Oliver Plunkett; essays on the
origins, doctrines and discipline of the early Irish church, a history
of the Catholic Archbishops of Dublin, and an account of the
Cromwellian persecutions. In 1866 he was appointed Professor of Hebrew
at Holy Cross College, Clonliffe, the diocesan seminary for Dublin,
where his uncle was now Archbishop (having previously served two years
as Archbishop of Armagh); Paul Cullen was appointed Cardinal in the
same year. Although Fr. Matthew O'Keeffe, one of the famed Callan
curates, obtained as many votes as him in the election of a co-adjutor
to Bishop Walsh of Ossory in 1871, Patrick was appointed to the
position and succeeded in the following year. For the next twelve
years he ruled Ossory with a firm hand, encouraging education and
scholarship, helping to establish the Ossory Archaeological Society,
and producing further scholarly works of his own, including editions
of Mervyn Archdall's Monasticon Hibernicum, David Rothe'a Analecta and
a compilation of historical documents relating to the diocese of
Ossory under the title Spicilegium Ossoriensis. He also wrote a
history of Irish saints in Britain. In 1884 he was appointed
Archbishop of Sydney in Australia at a time when the Irish church was
establishing itself as a source of power and control in the fledgling
Australian church. He took with him to Sydney a number of priests of
the Ossory diocese, and many others were to follow in later years
following clerical education at St. Kieran's College in Kilkenny and
at other Irish seminaries. For almost thirty years he was an active
leader in both church and civic affairs in Australia, expanding
diocesan facilities, setting up a seminary at Manley and supporting
the cause of Australian federation. Within a year of his arrival
there, he was created Australia's first cardinal, and when he returned
to Ireland in 1888 he was widely honoured, being accorded a formal
civic reception in the city of Kilkenny. He continued his scholarly
interests while in Australia, producing a history of the church there.
He died at the age of 81 in 1911.
NÁDAL, Saint: Religion: Sometimes referred to as Nádan, this saint
established a monastery at Kilmanagh, and St. Senan, who later
established a famous monastery at Scattery Island, off the coast of
Clare, is reputed to have studied there. He lived in the period
500-565??