O'BEIRNE, Thomas Louis: Religion: b. 1745?: Trained for theCatholic

priesthood in France but was induced by the Duke opf Portland to

change his religion and developed his skills as a preacher in the

Anglican church; appointed to the diocese of Ossory in 1794, he spent

four years in the city before being appointed Bishop of Meath ...

 

O'BRIEN, James: Religion: b. New Ross 1792, ed. Trinity College Dublin

from where he was ordained as a minister of the Anglican church, where

he advanced to the position of Dean of Cork; an accomplished scholar,

he wrote and preached against the Oxford Movement and the

disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, and also completed a

theological work An Attempt to Explain the Doctrine of Justification

(1833); he was appointed Bishop of Ossory in 1842 and continued in

office until his death in London in 1874; during this time he wrote

books on The Irish Education Question (1855), and The Disestablishment

and Disendowment of the Irish Branch of United Church (1869)

 

O'CARROLL, Thomas: Religion: Born about 1300, his ecclesiastical

career was based mainly in Kilkenny, where he was a senior member of

the clergy during the time of Bishop ? and was promoted to the

position of Prebendary of Blackrath about 1345. In 1349 he was elected

Archbishop of Tuam, moving after seven years to Cashel, where he

served for almost twenty years. He died in 1374.

 

O'DONOVAN, John (1806-1861): Scholarship (History, Topography):

see under Featured Bios

 

O'DULANY, Felix: Religion: born about 1130, he came from a

distinguished Upper Ossory family. He became a member of the

newly-formed Irish province of the Cistercians, established in 1142,

twenty years after the original foundation of the order by St. Bernard

at Clairvaux in France. He studied at the first Irish Cistercian

monastery at Mellifont and was sent from there to found what was to

become the great Cistercian abbey of Jerpoint, near Thomastown about

1158. Within six years he had completed the abbey buildings and

established a daughter house at Kilenny, near Goresbridge. Less than

ten years after the Norman invasion of Leinster (1169), O'Dulany was

chosen to lead the church of Ossory in turbulent times, succeeding

Donal O'Fogarty. He moved the diocesan seat from Aghaboe to Kilkenny,

where he began the planning of a cathedral church dedicated to St.

Canice. Although he showed no favouritism to native or Norman, he

handled the latter firmly, excommunicating Theobald Fitzwalter for

seizing church lands. He died in 1202 and is buried at Jerpoint Abbey.

 

O'FOGARTY, Donal: Religion: The first known bishop of Ossory in the

twelfth century (the records of the period from 1079 to 1150 have been

lost), he was vicar general (and possibly an auxiliary or co-adjutor

bishop) of Ossory at the time of the Synod of Kells in 1152 when the

boundaries of the diocese were fixed. When he succeeded Bishop

Donaldus, he moved the seat of the diocese from Saighir (Seir Kieran)

to Aghaboe. He died at Rathkieran, Mooncoin in 1178.

 

O'GORMAN, Thomas (1840?-1921): Religion: b. Kilkenny; emigrated to

Canada, then United States with small group of local families,

including family of John Ireland (q.v.); sent to seminary in France,

ordained 1865; faithful follower of Bishop Ireland in his leading role

in U.S. church; appointed Bishop of Sioux Falls 1896 when this diocese

was formed from Mineapolis/St. Paul; died 1921.