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Birth of Cahal Daly, Archbishop of Armagh

Cahal Brendan Daly KGCHS, a Roman Catholic cardinal, theologian and writer, is born Charles Brendan Daly on October 1, 1917, in Ballybraddin, Loughguile, a village near Ballymoney in County Antrim.

Daly serves as the Catholic Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh from late 1990 to 1996, the oldest man to take up this role in nearly 200 years. He is later created a Cardinal-Priest of San Patrizio by Pope John Paul II in the papal consistory of June 28, 1991.

Daly is the third child of seven born to Charles Daly and Susan Connolly. His father is a primary school teacher originally from Keadue, County Roscommon, and his mother a native of Antrim. He is educated at St. Patrick’s National School in Loughguile, and then as a boarder in St. Malachy’s College, Belfast, in 1930. The writer Brian Moore is a near contemporary.

Daly studies Classics at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). He earns his BA with Honours and also the Henry Medal in Latin Studies in 1937 and completes his MA the following year. He enters St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth and is ordained to the priesthood on June 22, 1941. He continues studies in theology in Maynooth, from where he obtains a doctorate in divinity (DD) in 1944. His first appointment is as Classics Master in St. Malachy’s College (1944–45).

In 1945, Daly is appointed Lecturer in Scholastic Philosophy at Queen’s University, Belfast, retaining the post for 21 years. In the academic year 1952–53 QUB grants him sabbatical leave, which he spends studying at the Catholic University of Paris where he receives a licentiate in philosophy. He returns to France at many points, particularly for holidays. He persists with his studies well into his retirement. He is a popular figure with the university and fondly remembered by his students. He is named a Canon of the Cathedral Chapter of Diocese of Down and Connor in 1966.

Daly is a peritus, or theological expert, at the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) to Bishop William Philbin during the first session of the Council and to Cardinal William Conway for the rest of the council. He dedicates himself to scholarship for 30 years, and publishes several books seeking to bring about understanding between the warring factions in Northern Ireland.

Daly is appointed Reader in Scholastic Philosophy at QUB in 1963, a post he holds until 1967, when he is appointed Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise on May 26.

Daly converts his forename Charles into Cahal ahead of his episcopal consecration in St. Mel’s Cathedral, Longford, on July 16, 1967, from Cardinal William Conway, with Archbishop Giuseppe Sensi and Bishop Neil Farren serving as co-consecrators.

Daly spends 15 years as bishop in Longford and is diligent about parish visitation and confirmations gradually assume a greater national profile. From 1974 onward, he devotes himself especially to ecumenical activities for the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. His pastoral letter to Protestants, written in 1979, pleads for Christian unity.

Daly succeeded William Philbin as the 30th Bishop of Down and Connor when he is installed as bishop of his native diocese at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Cathedral, Belfast, on October 17, 1982.

On November 6, 1990, Daly is appointed Archbishop of Armagh and, as such, Primate of All Ireland. His age makes him an unexpected occupant of the post. Despite this it is requested that he stay in the role for three years before usual age of episcopal retirement at 75. Cardinal Daly takes a notably harder line against the Irish Republican Army (IRA) than his predecessor, Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich.

Daly is respectful of Protestant rights and opposes integrated education of Catholics and Protestants. This policy is criticised by those who see segregated education as one of the causes of sectarianism in Northern Ireland, but is seen by the Catholic clergy as important for passing on their faith to future generations. He is utterly orthodox in opposing divorce, contraception, abortion, the ordination of women and any idea of dropping clerical celibacy.

Daly is heckled by the audience on live television during a broadcast of The Late Late Show on RTÉ One on the topic of pedophilia in the 1990s. After his retirement in 1996, he makes no public statement on the issue.

Daly retires as Archbishop of Armagh on his 79th birthday, October 1, 1996, and subsequently suffers ill health. Although it is announced that he will attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II, he stays home on the advice of his doctors. His age makes him ineligible to participate in the 2005 conclave that elects Pope Benedict XVI.

Daly is admitted to the coronary unit of Belfast City Hospital on December 28, 2009. His health has already been declining, leading to prayers being ordered for him. He dies in hospital in Belfast on December 31, 2009, aged 92. His family are at his bedside at the time. His death brings to an end a two-year period during which Ireland has, for the first time in its history, three living Cardinals.

Daly lay in state in Belfast and then his remains are taken to Armagh. Pope Benedict XVI pays tribute at this stage. Large numbers of people travel from as far as County Westmeath to attend Mass at Armagh on January 4, at which Monsignor Liam McEntaggart, the former parish priest of Coalisland, says, “When the history of peace making in Ireland comes to be written, the contribution of Cardinal Daly will be accorded a high place.” Monsignor McEntaggart himself dies on August 22, 2010, aged 81, less than eight months after Cardinal Daly’s passing.

Daly’s funeral is held on January 5, 2010, and is attended by the president Mary McAleese and Taoiseach Brian Cowen. Daly is buried in the grounds of St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Armagh, next to his three predecessors in the see, Cardinals Ó Fiaich, Conway and D’Alton.


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Birth of George Simms, Archbishop in the Church of Ireland

George Otto Simms, an archbishop in the Church of Ireland, and a scholar, is born in Dublin on July 4, 1910.

AboutSimms is born to John Francis A. Simms and Ottilie Sophie Stange, who are both, according to his birth certificate, from Lifford, County Donegal. He attends the Prior School in Lifford for a time and later Cheltenham College, a public school in England. He goes on to study at Trinity College Dublin, where in 1930 he is elected a Scholar and graduates with a BA in Classics in 1932 and a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1936. He completes a PhD in 1950.

Simms is ordained a deacon in 1934 and a priest in 1936, beginning his ministry as a curate at St. Bartholomew’s Church, Clyde Road, Dublin, under Canon W. C. Simpson. In 1937, he takes a position in Lincoln Theological College but returns to Dublin in 1939 to become Dean of Residence in Trinity College Dublin and Chaplain Secretary of the Church of Ireland College of Education. 

He is appointed Dean of Cork in 1952. Consecrated a bishop, he serves as Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, between 1952 and 1956. At forty-two, he is the youngest Church of Ireland clergyman appointed to a bishopric since John Gregg in 1915. He serves as Archbishop of Dublin from 1956 to 1969. During this time, he maintains a courteous relationship with John Charles McQuaid, his Roman Catholic counterpart as Archbishop of Dublin. From 1969 to 1980, he serves as Archbishop of Armagh. 

Alongside Cardinal William Conway, Simms chairs the first official ecumenical meeting between the leaders of Ireland’s Protestant Churches and the Catholic Church in Ballymascanlon Hotel, Dundalk, County Louth, on September 26, 1973, an important meeting amidst the increasing violence in Northern Ireland. The meeting is protested by Ian Paisley.

Simms is a scholar, and publishes research on topics including the history of the Church of Ireland, and theological reflections on key texts including the Book of Kells, Saint Patrick’s Breastplate, and the Sarum Primer. He is also a fluent speaker of the Irish language.

Simms is also an accomplished journalist, and the author of many newspaper obituaries. His weekly Thinking Aloud column in The Irish Times is a popular reflection, and runs continuously for thirty-eight years. He also works on the research, preparation, and even performs the presentation, of a number of television programmes.

In 1978, Simms is made an honorary fellow of Trinity College Dublin.

Simms is the uncle of mathematician David J. Simms. In 1941, he marries Mercy Felicia Gwynn. They have five children. He dies in Dublin on November 15, 1991. He is interred with his wife in the cemetery attached to St. Maelruain’s Church, Tallaght, County Dublin.


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Birth of Patrick Coveney, Prelate of the Catholic Church

Patrick Coveney, Irish prelate of the Catholic Church who works in the diplomatic service of the Holy See from 1966 to 2009, is born in Tracton, County Cork, on July 29, 1934. He becomes an archbishop in 1985 and fulfills several assignments as Apostolic Nuncio, including stints in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, New Zealand, and Greece.

Coveney obtains the academic degree of Bachelor of Arts in classical languages and literature at Maynooth College, and the Licentiate of Sacred Theology at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome, Italy. He is ordained as a priest at the age of twenty-four on February 21, 1959, by the archbishop vicegerent (deputy vicar general of Rome) Luigi Traglia in the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran.

After doing parish work in Kidlington, England, Coveney teaches in St. Finbarr’s College, the minor seminary of the Diocese of Cork and Ross in Cork from 1960 to 1966. When use of the vernacular language is introduced into the celebration of the Roman Rite Mass, he edits a lectionary in English.

In September 1966, Coveney goes to work in the English-language section of the Secretariat of State in the Vatican. This sometimes involves acting as interpreter at audiences of Pope Paul VI, as when the Pope receives the three astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission that first lands human beings on the Moon.

At the Pontifical Lateran University Coveney obtains the degree of Doctor of Canon Law in 1969.

To prepare for a diplomatic career Coveney enters the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in 1969 and enters the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1971.

Coveney serves with the rank of Secretary in the Apostolic Nunciature in Buenos Aires from 1972 to 1976, returning then to the Secretariat of State in the Vatican. He is counselor of the nunciatures in New Delhi (1982–1984) and Khartoum (1984–1985).

On July 27, 1985, Coveney is appointed titular Archbishop of Satrianum and Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to Zimbabwe and Apostolic Delegate to Mozambique. He is ordained to the episcopate on September 15, 1985, in the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne, Cork. The principal consecrator is the Cardinal Secretary of State Agostino Casaroli. The principal co-consecrators are Archbishop Gaetano Alibrandi, Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland, and Bishop Michael Murphy, Bishop of Cork and Ross. In Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, he represents the Holy See at the 8th Summit Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement on September 1–6, 1986.

On January 25, 1990, Coveney is appointed Nuncio to Ethiopia and also becomes Apostolic Delegate to Djibouti on March 26, 1992, and Nuncio to Eritrea on September 30, 1995.

Coveney becomes Apostolic Nuncio to New Zealand, Tonga, the Marshall Islands, and Samoa, and Apostolic Delegate for Oceania on hpril 27, 1996. His remit is expanded to include Apostolic Nuncio to Fiji, Kiribati, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Vanuatu on October 15, 1996, and Apostolic Nuncio to Nauru on December 7, 1996. He is also named Apostolic Nuncio to the Cook Islands and Palau on July 14, 2001. As the longest-serving resident diplomatic representative to New Zealand, Archbishop Coveney serves for a time as Dean of the Diplomatic Corps. While based in Wellington, he also represents the Holy See at the inauguration of Chen Shui-bian as president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) on May 18, 2004.

Coveney’s last diplomatic appointment is as Apostolic Nuncio to Greece on January 25, 2005. On November 5, 2008, he officiates at the presentation to the Acropolis Museum in Athens of a fragment of the Parthenon Frieze on loan from the Vatican Museums. He resides in Athens until his retirement in 2009.

Coveney returns to the Diocese of Cork and Ross to reside in Crosshaven Parish. He assists in Crosshaven parish and celebrates the Sacrament of Confirmation in many parishes throughout the Diocese of Cork and Ross. He dies at the age of 88 on October 22, 2022.


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The Banishment Act Goes into Effect

The Banishment Act or Bishops’ Banishment Act, which receives royal assent on September 25, 1697, requires most Catholic clergy to leave the kingdom by May 1, 1698, and bans Catholic clergy from entering the kingdom. The Act is never efficiently enforced.

The Banishment Act is a 1697 Act of the Parliament of Ireland which banishes all ordinaries and regular clergy of the Roman Catholic Church from Ireland. All “popish archbishops, bishops, vicars general, deans, jesuits, monks, friars, and other regular popish clergy” are required to be in one of several named ports awaiting a ship out of the country by May 1, 1698. Remaining or entering the country after this date would result in punishment as a first offence with twelve months imprisonment followed by expulsion. A second offence would constitute high treason.

The Act is one of the Penal Laws passed after the Williamite War to safeguard the Church of Ireland as the established church and from fears of Catholic clerical support for Jacobitism. It is foreshadowed by proclamations issued by the Dublin Castle administration in 1673 and 1678 with similar terms. The banishment is originally and most effectively applied to regular clergy, many of whom register under the Registration Act of 1704, as parish priests to be treated as secular clergy and avoid deportation. The ban on bishops may have been intended to prevent ordination of new priests, which, coupled with a ban on clerical immigration, would lead to their eventual extinction. Of the eight Catholic bishops in Ireland when the act is passed, two leave, one (John Sleyne)is arrested, and five go into hiding. The port authorities pay for the passage of 424 clerics who emigrate. Mary of Modena estimates that about 700 in total leave, of whom 400 settle in France. Priest hunters are active in subsequent decades. Maurice Donnellan, Bishop of Clonfert, is arrested in 1703 but rescued by an armed crowd.

The Act is gradually less stringently enforced as the eighteenth-century progresses. The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1782 provides that its provisions cannot apply to a priest who has registered and taken the oath of supremacy. The Act is explicitly repealed by the Statute Law Revision (Ireland) Act 1878.


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Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, Nuncio to Ireland, Returns to Rome

Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, an Italian Roman Catholic archbishop in the mid-seventeenth century, returns to Rome on February 23, 1649, after spending just over three years in Ireland supporting Catholics with arms, money, and diplomacy.

Rinuccini is born in Rome on September 15, 1592. He is educated by the Jesuits in Rome and studies law at the Universities of Bologna and Perugia. In due course, he is ordained a priest, having at the age of twenty-two obtained his doctor’s degree from the University of Pisa. He is named a camariere (chamberlain) by Pope Gregory XV and in 1625 becomes Archbishop of Fermo. In 1631 he carefully refuses an offer to be made Archbishop of Florence.

On September 15, 1644, a new pope, Pope Innocent X, is elected. He decides to step up the help for the Irish Catholic Confederates. He sends Rinuccini as nuncio to Ireland to replace the envoy Friar Pierfrancesco Scarampi, who had been sent to Ireland by his predecessor, Pope Urban VIII, in 1643.

Rinuccini departs France from Saint-Martin-de-Ré near La Rochelle on October 18, 1645, on the frigate San Pietro and arrives in Kenmare, County Kerry, on October 21, 1645, with a retinue of twenty-six Italians, several Irish officers, and the Confederation’s secretary, Richard Bellings. He proceeds to Kilkenny, the Confederate capital, where Richard Butler, 3rd Viscount Mountgarret, the president of the Confederation, receives him at the castle. He speaks Latin to Montgarret, but all the official business of the Confederates is done in English. He asserts in his discourse that the object of his mission is to sustain the King, but above all to help the Catholic people of Ireland in securing the free and public exercise of their religion, and the restoration of the churches and church property to the Catholic Church.

Rinuccini had sent ahead arms and ammunition: 1,000 braces of pistols, 4,000 cartridge belts, 2,000 swords, 500 muskets and 20,000 pounds of gunpowder. He arrives twelve days later with a further two thousand muskets and cartridge-belts, four thousand swords, four hundred braces of pistols, two thousand pike-heads, and twenty thousand pounds of gunpowder, fully equipped soldiers and sailors and 150,658 livres tournois to finance the Irish Catholic war effort. These supplies give him a huge input into the Confederate’s internal politics because he doles out the money and arms for specific military projects, rather than handing them over to the Confederate government, or Supreme Council.

Rinuccini hopes that by doing so he can influence the Confederates’ strategic policy away from making a deal with Charles I and the Royalists in the English Civil War and towards the foundation of an independent Catholic-ruled Ireland. In particular, he wants to ensure that churches and lands taken in the rebellion would remain in Catholic hands. This is consistent with what happened in Catholic-controlled areas during the Thirty Years’ War in Germany. His mission can be seen as part of the Counter-Reformation in Europe. He also has unrealistic hopes of using Ireland as a base to re-establish Catholicism in England. However, apart from some military successes such as the Battle of Benburb on June 5, 1646, the main result of his efforts is to aggravate the infighting between factions within the Confederates.

The Confederates’ Supreme Council is dominated by wealthy landed magnates, predominantly of “Old English” origin, who are anxious to come to a deal with the Stuart monarchy that will guarantee them their land ownership, full civil rights for Catholics, and toleration of Catholicism. They form the moderate faction, which is opposed by those within the Confederation, who want better terms, including self-government for Ireland, a reversal of the land confiscations of the plantations of Ireland and establishment of Catholicism as the state religion. A particularly sore point in the negotiations with the English Royalists is the insistence of some Irish Catholics on keeping in Catholic hands the churches taken in the war. Rinuccini accepts the assurances of the Supreme Council that such concerns will be addressed in the peace treaty negotiated with James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, negotiated in 1646, now known as the First Ormond Peace.

However, when the terms are published, they grant only the private practice of Catholicism. Alleging that he had been deliberately deceived, Rinuccini publicly backs the militant faction, which includes most of the Catholic clergy and some Irish military commanders such as Owen Roe O’Neill. On the other side there are the Franciscans Pierre Marchant, and later Raymond Caron. In 1646, when the Supreme Council tries to get the Ormond Peace ratified, Rinuccini excommunicates them and helps to get the Treaty voted down in the Confederate General Assembly. The Assembly has the members of the Supreme Council arrested for treason and elects a new Supreme Council.

However, the following year, the Confederates’ attempts to drive the remaining English (mainly Parliamentarian) armies from Ireland meets with disaster at the battles of Dungan’s Hill on August 8, 1647 and Knocknanuss on November 13, 1647. As a result, the chastened Confederates hastily conclude a new deal with the English Royalists to try to prevent a Parliamentarian conquest of Ireland in 1648. Although the terms of this second deal are better than those of the first one, Rinuccini again tries to overturn the treaty. However, on this occasion, the Catholic clergy are split on whether to accept the deal, as are the Confederate military commanders and the General Assembly. Ultimately, the treaty is accepted by the Confederacy, which then dissolves itself and joins a Royalist coalition. Rinuccini backs Owen Roe O’Neill, who used his Ulster army to fight against his former comrades who had accepted the deal. He tries in vain to repeat his success of 1646 by excommunicating those who support the peace. However, the Irish bishops are split on the issue and so his authority is diluted. Militarily, Owen Roe O’Neill is unable to reverse the political balance.

Despairing of the Catholic cause in Ireland, Rinnuccini leaves the country on February 23, 1649, embarking at Galway on the ship that had brought him to Ireland, the frigate San Pietro. In the same year, Oliver Cromwell leads a Parliamentarian re-conquest of the country, after which Catholicism is thoroughly repressed. Roman Catholic worship is banned, Irish Catholic-owned land is widely confiscated east of the River Shannon, and captured Catholic clergy are executed.

Rinuccini returns to Rome, where he writes an extensive account of his time in Ireland, the Commentarius Rinuccinanus. His account blames personal vainglory and tribal divisions for the Catholic disunity in Ireland. In particular, he blames the Old English for the eventual Catholic defeat. The Gaelic Irish, he writes, despite being less civilised, are more sincere Catholics.

Rinuccini returns to his diocese in Fermo in June 1650 and dies there on December 13, 1653.


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Birth of Richard Chenevix Trench, Anglican Archbishop & Poet

Richard Chenevix Trench, Anglican archbishop and poet, is born in Dublin on September 9, 1807.

Trench is the son of Richard Trench (1774–1860), barrister-at-law, and the Dublin writer Melesina Chenevix (1768–1827). His elder brother is Francis Chenevix Trench. He is educated at Harrow School, and graduates from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1829. In 1830 he visits Spain. While incumbent of Curdridge Chapel near Bishop’s Waltham in Hampshire, he publishes The Story of Justin Martyr and Other Poems (1835), which is favourably received, and is followed by Sabbation, Honor Neale, and other Poems (1838), and Poems from Eastern Sources (1842). These volumes reveal the author as the most gifted of the immediate disciples of William Wordsworth, with a warmer colouring and more pronounced ecclesiastical sympathies than the master, and strong affinities to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, John Keble and Richard Monckton Milnes.

In 1841 Trench resigns his living to become curate to Samuel Wilberforce, then rector of Alverstoke, and upon Wilberforce’s promotion to the deanery of Westminster Abbey in 1845 he is presented to the rectory of Itchen Stoke. In 1845 and 1846 he preaches the Hulsean Lectures, and in the former year is made examining chaplain to Wilberforce, now Bishop of Oxford. He is shortly afterwards appointed to a theological chair at King’s College London.

Trench joins the Canterbury Association on March 27, 1848, on the same day as Samuel Wilberforce and Wilberforce’s brother Robert.

In 1851 Trench establishes his fame as a philologist by The Study of Words, originally delivered as lectures to the pupils of the Diocesan Training School, Winchester. His stated purpose is to demonstrate that in words, even taken singly, “there are boundless stores of moral and historic truth, and no less of passion and imagination laid up” — an argument which he supports by a number of apposite illustrations. It is followed by two little volumes of similar character — English Past and Present (1855) and A Select Glossary of English Words (1859). All have gone through numerous editions and have contributed much to promote the historical study of the English tongue. Another great service to English philology is rendered by his paper, read before the Philological Society, On some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries (1857), which gives the first impulse to the great Oxford English Dictionary. He envisages a totally new dictionary that is a “lexicon totius Anglicitatis.” As one of the three founders of the dictionary, he expresses his vision that it will be “an entirely new Dictionary; no patch upon old garments, but a new garment throughout.”

Trench’s advocacy of a revised translation of the New Testament (1858) helps promote another great national project. In 1856 he publishes a valuable essay on Pedro Calderón de la Barca, with a translation of a portion of Life is a Dream in the original metre. In 1841 he had published his Notes on the Parables of our Lord, and in 1846 his Notes on the Miracles, popular works which are treasuries of erudite and acute illustration.

In 1856 Trench becomes Dean of Westminster Abbey, a position which suits him. Here he introduces evening nave services. In January 1864 he is advanced to the post of Archbishop of Dublin. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley had been first choice, but is rejected by the Church of Ireland, and, according to Bishop Wilberforce’s correspondence, Trench’s appointment is favoured neither by the Prime Minister nor the Lord Lieutenant. It is, moreover, unpopular in Ireland, and a blow to English literature, yet it turns out to be fortunate. He cannot prevent the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, though he resists with dignity. But, when the disestablished communion has to be reconstituted under the greatest difficulties, it is important that the occupant of his position should be a man of a liberal and genial spirit.

This is the work of the remainder of Trench’s life. It exposes him at times to considerable abuse, but he comes to be appreciated and, when he resigns his archbishopric because of poor health in November 1884, clergy and laity unanimously record their sense of his “wisdom, learning, diligence, and munificence.” He finds time for Lectures on Medieval Church History (1878), and his poetical works are rearranged and collected in two volumes (last edition, 1885). He dies at Eaton Square, London, on March 28, 1886, after a lingering illness. He is buried at Westminster Abbey.

George W. E. Russell describes Trench as “a man of singularly vague and dreamy habits” and recounts the following anecdote of his old age:

“He once went back to pay a visit to his successor, Lord Plunket. Finding himself back again in his old palace, sitting at his old dinner-table, and gazing across it at his wife, he lapsed in memory to the days when he was master of the house, and gently remarked to Mrs. Trench, ‘I am afraid, my love, that we must put this cook down among our failures.'”


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Death of Samuel Henry Butcher, Scholar & Politician

Samuel Henry Butcher, Anglo-Irish classical scholar and politician, dies in London on December 29, 1910.

Butcher is born in Dublin on April 16, 1850, the son of Samuel Butcher, Bishop of Meath, and Mary Leahy. John Butcher, 1st Baron Danesfort, is his younger brother. He is educated at Marlborough College in Wiltshire and then receives a place at Trinity College, Cambridge, attending between 1869 and 1873 where he is Senior Classic and Chancellor’s medalist. He is elected fellow of Trinity in 1874.

Butcher leaves Trinity on his marriage, in 1876, to Rose Julia Trench (1840-1902), the daughter of Archbishop Richard Chenevix Trench. The marriage produces no children.

From 1876 to 1882 Butcher is a fellow of University College, Oxford, and tutors there. From 1882 to 1903 he is Professor of Greek at the University of Edinburgh succeeding Prof. John Stuart Blackie. During this period, he lives at 27 Palmerston Place in Edinburgh‘s West End. He is succeeded at the University of Edinburgh by Prof. Alexander William Mair.

Butcher is one of the two Members of Parliament for Cambridge University, between 1906 and his death, representing the Liberal Unionist Party. He is President of the British Academy from 1909 to 1910.

Butcher dies in London on December 29, 1910, and his body is returned to Scotland and interred at the Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh with his wife. His grave has a pale granite Celtic cross and is located near the northern path of the north section in the original cemetery.

Butcher’s many publications include, in collaboration with Andrew Lang, a prose translation of Homer‘s Odyssey which appears in 1879 and the OCT edition of Demosthenes, Orationes, vol. I (Or. 1-19, Oxford, 1903), II.i (Or. 20–26, Oxford, 1907).


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Death of John O’Reily, Archbishop of Adelaide

John O’Reily, the first Bishop of Port Augusta and the second Archbishop of Adelaide, dies in Adelaide, Australia on July 6, 1915.

O’Reily is born John O’Reilly on November 19, 1846, in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, the son of Michael, a military officer, and Anne, née Gallagher. He completes his primary education at the parochial school of St. John’s Parish, and spends six and a half years at St. Kieran’s College. Due to poor health, he decides against pursuing a military career, and in 1864 he enters All Hallows College in Dublin to study for the priesthood. He learns the Irish language and studies mental philosophy, mathematics and ecclesiastical studies, achieving first prize in each of his classes.

After being ordained on June 21, 1869, O’Reily leaves Ireland for Western Australia in October, arriving in January 1870. Having served briefly in Newcastle (present day Toodyay) and Northam, he becomes a parish priest in Fremantle, establishing the West Australian Catholic Record in 1874 and serving as its publisher, editor and printer from 1883.

When the Diocese of Port Augusta is established in 1887, Pope Leo XIII names O’Reily as its first bishop. Concerned about the financial position of the diocese, which had inherited significant debt from the Diocese of Adelaide, he accepts the posting reluctantly. As bishop, he greatly improves the financial position of the new diocese, reducing its debt by half and earning a reputation as a competent administrator.

In 1894, O’Reily is appointed to replace the deceased Christopher Reynolds as Archbishop of Adelaide. The archdiocese he inherits is burdened with substantial debt, again left over from the old Diocese of Adelaide. Through the sale of church assets and a fundraising campaign, he is able to eliminate most of the Archdiocese’s liabilities while still investing in church infrastructure. He also actively participates in public discussions relating to education policy at a time when the role of the state in supporting religious education is topical. He publicly advocates government assistance for religious schools, stating that it is unfair Catholics pay taxes to support state schools, but receive no funding for their own.

In the later years of his life, poor health forces O’Reily to spend less time attending to his episcopal duties, and from 1905, he keeps to himself in his house in Glen Osmond, leading to the local press referring to him as the “Recluse of Glen Osmond.” Increasingly, his episcopal duties are fulfilled by Bishop of Port Augusta John Norton, who has to visit the more remote parts of O’Reily’s see on his behalf.

As he becomes more frail, O’Reily asks certain priests to accompany him when he travels, among whom is the Dominican prior Robert Spence. When O’Reily requests a coadjutor in 1913, he chooses Spence as his first preference for the role. Despite the reluctance of some clergy to the appointment of a religious as Archbishop, Spence is consecrated as coadjutor, with right of succession, in August 1914.

O’Reily dies at his house in Adelaide on July 6, 1915 and is buried under a large Celtic cross at the West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide. He is highly regarded by many in South Australian society, with Adelaide’s daily newspapers praising his character, administrative ability and positive relations with non-Catholics.


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Birth of Samuel Henry Butcher, Scholar & Politician

Samuel Henry Butcher, Anglo-Irish classical scholar and politician, is born in Dublin on April 16, 1850.

Butcher is the son of Samuel Butcher, Bishop of Meath, and Mary Leahy. John Butcher, 1st Baron Danesfort, is his younger brother. He is educated at Marlborough College in Wiltshire and then receives a place at Trinity College, Cambridge, attending between 1869 and 1873 where he is Senior Classic and Chancellor’s medalist. He is elected fellow of Trinity in 1874.

Butcher leaves Trinity on his marriage, in 1876, to Rose Julia Trench (1840-1902), the daughter of Archbishop Richard Chenevix Trench. The marriage produces no children.

From 1876 to 1882 Butcher is a fellow of University College, Oxford, and tutors there. From 1882 to 1903 he is Professor of Greek at the University of Edinburgh succeeding Prof. John Stuart Blackie. During this period, he lives at 27 Palmerston Place in Edinburgh‘s West End. He is succeeded at the University of Edinburgh by Prof. Alexander William Mair.

Butcher is one of the two Members of Parliament for Cambridge University, between 1906 and his death, representing the Liberal Unionist Party. He is President of the British Academy from 1909 to 1910.

Butcher dies in London on December 29, 1910, and his body is returned to Scotland and interred at the Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh with his wife. His grave has a pale granite Celtic cross and is located near the northern path of the north section in the original cemetery.

Butcher’s many publications include, in collaboration with Andrew Lang, a prose translation of Homer‘s Odyssey which appears in 1879 and the OCT edition of Demosthenes, Orationes, vol. I (Or. 1-19, Oxford, 1903), II.i (Or. 20–26, Oxford, 1907).


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Death of William Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin

William Joseph Walsh, archbishop and nationalist, dies in Dublin on April 9, 1921. He serves as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin from July 3, 1885, until his death.

Walsh is born at 11 Essex Quay in Dublin, the only child of Ralph and Mary Perce Walsh. His father is a watchmaker and jeweler. He inherits his sympathy for Irish nationalism and independence from his father, who has the boy enrolled in the Repeal Association before he is two years old. He is educated locally at Mr. Fitzpatrick’s School on Peter St. and at St. Laurence O’Toole Seminary School, Harcourt Street, Dublin. In 1856, he goes to the Catholic University of Ireland and three years later to St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth where he becomes Professor of Theology in 1867. He is appointed vice-president of Maynooth in 1878 and president in 1880. A poor preacher, he makes the press his pulpit, making a name for himself in the areas of land law and education.

Walsh is ordained into the priesthood on May 22, 1866. He is appointed Archbishop of Dublin on July 3, 1885, followed by his consecration on August 2, 1885. He serves in this position until his death in 1921 and is succeeded by Edward Joseph Byrne.

The Land issue divides the Irish hierarchy. Walsh supports agrarian reform on behalf of the rural population. He is openly sympathetic to Irish nationalism, and an advocate of both Home Rule and agrarian land reform. It is his support for this movement, led by Michael Davitt, which leads the Vatican to honour Michael Logue in Armagh with the dignity of Cardinal in 1893 rather than Walsh in Dublin.

Walsh serves on the Senate of the Royal University of Ireland (1883–84) and as part of the Commission of National Education (1885–1901). He is appointed Chancellor of the newly founded National University of Ireland in 1908, a position he holds until his death, after which he is succeeded by Éamon de Valera.

Walsh has been described as “the greatest archbishop of Dublin since Laurence O’Toole (Lorcán Ua Tuathail). Walsh Road in Drumcondra, Dublin is named after him.