Wejchert was born in Kraków, Poland on October 16, 1921. Her father is Tedeusz Wejchert, who ran a shipping business out of Gdańsk. She enters University of Warsaw to study architecture in 1939, and while there witnesses the German invasion of Poland during World War II. Having graduated in 1949, she works as a town planner and architect in Warsaw, where she graduates from the Academy of Fine Arts in 1956 with a degree before moving to Italy.
Wejchert holds her first solo show in 1959 in the Galeria dell’ Obelisco, Rome. She then returns to Warsaw where she is featured in the National Museum “Fifteen years of Polish art” exhibition in 1961. At this time she is still working as an architect, but does not support the social realism of Soviet architecture, which leads her to decide to concentrate solely on art from 1963. She leaves communist Poland in 1964, when she accompanies her younger brother, the architect Andrej Wejchert, when he and his wife Danuta moved to Dublin.
She holds her first solo show in Dublin in November 1966 with an exhibition of 30 paintings at The Molesworth Gallery. In 1967 she shows Blue relief at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, which is a wall relief of “sculpted paintings” which are precursors to her later free-standing sculpture. She wins the Carroll Open award of £300 at the 1968 Irish Exhibition of Living Art for Frequency No. 5. Also in 1968 she holds a solo exhibition in the Galerie Lamert, Paris, becoming a regular exhibitor there. During this period her work is used as a setting for an electronic music concert with the critic Dorothy Walker noting her designs have a rhythmic quality.
From the 1970s, Wejchert wins commissions for public art, starting with the 1971 wood and acrylic wall relief in the arts building at University College Dublin. In the same year, the Bank of Ireland purchases Blue form 1971 and then Flowing relief in 1972. Her 1971 triptych, Life, is commissioned for the Irish Life headquarters in Abbey Street. The Lombard and Ulster Bank in Dublin commissions untitled in 1980, and Allied Irish Banks (AIB) purchases Freedom in 1985 for their branch in Ballsbridge. Her entry wins a competition in 1975 for a stamp marking International Women’s Year, and features an image of hands reaching for a dove with an olive branch.
Wejchert becomes an Irish citizen in 1979, a member of Aosdána in 1981, and a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in 1995. She is recognised internationally when she is the only Irish sculptor included in Louis Redstone’s new directions (1981). She is shown at the Solomon gallery from 1989 numerous times, including a solo show in 1992. A number of her most important pieces are for Irish universities, such as Geometric form at the University of Limerick and Flame at the University College Cork in 1995, her last work.
Wejchert dies suddenly at her home on Tivoli Road, Dún Laoghaire on October 24, 1995. She has one son, Jacob. The RHA holds a posthumous exhibition of her work in 1995. She is said to have influenced the younger generation of Irish sculptors, including Vivienne Roche, Eilis O’Connell, and Michael Warren. Flame is selected to be a part of the Irish Artists’ Century exhibition at the RHA in 2000.
(Pictured: “Flame,” 1995, brass and granite, University College Cork. This sculpture commemorates the people who bequested their bodies to the UCC Anatomical Gift Programme for the purpose of science and learning. It represents the flame of knowledge which leads to the light of understanding.)
Michael George Mulhall, Irish author, statistician, economist and newspaper editor, is born in Dublin on September 29, 1836. He co-founds the Buenos Aires Standard, which in 1862 becomes the first English-language newspaper to be published daily in South America. He co-authors the first English-language book published in that continent, The Handbook of the River Plate, a work that goes to six editions, is widely consulted by immigrants and is now a historical sourcebook. His Dictionary of Statistics (1883 and later editions) becomes a standard work of reference.
Mulhall is the third son of Thomas Mulhall. He is educated for the priesthood at the Pontifical Irish College, Rome, but not having the vocation emigrates to Argentina to work with his brother Edward Thomas Mulhall, then a large sheep farmer in that country. In 1861 the Mulhall brothers found the Buenos Aires Standard, which in the next year becomes a daily. It is the preferred newspaper of the Anglo-Argentine community and claims to be the only English-language daily newspaper to be published south of the equator. A third brother, Francis Healey Mulhall, also emigrates to Argentina and founds the Southern Cross, a newspaper of the Irish-Argentine community.
By 1864 Mulhall, despite his relative youth, is regarded as a spokesman for the entire British community in the region.
In 1878 (1868 by another source) Mulhall marries Marion McMurrough Murphy, herself an author who’s works include Between the Amazon and the Andes (1881) and Explorers in the New World (1909). She cooperates with him closely on his statistical work.
Reynolds is the son of Patrick Reynolds and his wife Elizabeth, née Bourke. Educated by the Carmelites at Clondalkin, Dublin, he later comes under the influence of the Benedictines when he volunteers for the Northern Territory mission of Bishop Rosendo Salvado Rotea, and is sent to Subiaco near Rome to train for the priesthood. He leaves after three years and goes to the Swan River Colony with Bishop Joseph Serra to continue his training at New Norcia, arriving at Fremantle in May 1855. Probably because of poor health, he leaves the Benedictines and in January 1857 goes to South Australia. He completes his training under the Jesuits at Sevenhill and is ordained in April 1860 by Bishop Patrick Geoghegan. He is parish priest at Wallaroo (where he builds the church at Kadina), Morphett Vale and Gawler. When Bishop Laurence Sheil dies in March 1872, he is appointed administrator of the diocese of Adelaide. On November 2, 1873 in Adelaide he is consecrated bishop by Archbishop John Bede Polding.
Reynolds has a large diocese and in 1872-80 travels over 52,000 miles in South Australia. The opening up of new agricultural districts, an increase in Irish migrants and diocesan debts had produced a grave shortage of clergy. But his most urgent problem is conflicts between and within the clergy and laity over education, especially the role to be played by the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart. He supports the Sisters, reopens schools closed by Archbishop Sheil and, though opposed by the Bishop of the Diocese of BathurstMatthew Quinn, helps the Superior, Mother Mary MacKillop, secure Rome’s approval for autonomy for her Sisterhood.
Reynolds is not a good administrator and his strenuous efforts to extend Catholic education after the Education Act of 1875 incurs alarming debts. In 1880-81 he visits Rome. On his return, increasingly concerned with finances, disturbed at the prospect of losing St. Joseph nuns and, to some extent misled by jealousy and intrigue, he dramatically reverses his policy towards the Sisterhood and on November 14, 1883 relieves Mother Mary of her duties as Mother Superior. Though the Plenary Council of the Bishops of Australasia, held in Sydney in 1885, support him, in 1888 Pope Leo XIII decrees a central government for the Sisterhood, to be located in Sydney. The council requests that Adelaide be raised to an archiepiscopal and metropolitan see and on September 11, 1887 Reynolds is invested archbishop by CardinalFrancis Moran.
Reynolds’s health is never robust and after a two-year illness he dies on June 12, 1893 in Adelaide, where he is buried. Although he is austere and hard-working, he leaves his successor church debts of over £56,000. A particularly fine preacher, he is widely respected for his missionary zeal and for an ecumenical spirit unusual for his time.
During his time in Derry, Daly takes part in the civil rights marches. He has first-hand experience of the Battle of the Bogside in 1969, the early years of the Troubles, internment, and the events of Bloody Sunday, in which British soldiers fire on unarmed protesters on January 30, 1972, killing 14 people. He becomes a public figure after he is witnessed using a blood-stained handkerchief as a white flag in an attempt to escort 17-year-old Jackie Duddy, a wounded protester, to safety. Duddy dies of his injuries soon after and Daly administers the last rites. He later describes the events as “a young fella who was posing no threat to anybody being shot dead unjustifiably.”
Daly gives an interview to the BBC in which he insists, contrary to official reports, that the protesters were unarmed. He testifies as such to the Widgery Tribunal, though he also testifies that he had seen a man with a gun on the day, to the anger of some of those involved. The Widgery Report largely exonerates the British Army, perpetuating the controversy. Years later, he says that the events of Bloody Sunday were a significant catalyst to the violence in Northern Ireland, and that the shootings served to greatly increase recruitment to the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Prior to Bloody Sunday, Daly is sympathetic to the “old” IRA, of which his father was a member, but the events of Bloody Sunday leave him of the opinion that “violence is completely unacceptable as a means to a political end,” which leads to tension with the Provisional Irish Republican Army throughout his career.
Daly is appointed Bishop of Derry in 1974, a position he holds until he is forced to retire in October 1993 after suffering a stroke. He continues in the role of chaplain to Derry’s Foyle Hospice until February 2016.
Daly makes headlines in 2011 when he says there needs to be a place in the modern Catholic Church for married priests. He addresses the controversial issue in his book about his life in the Church, A Troubled See. Allowing clergymen to marry would ease the church’s problems, he says.
Daly is awarded the Freedom of the City by Derry City Council in 2015 in a joint ceremony with Bishop James Mehaffey, with whom he had worked closely while the two were in office. He is “hugely pleased to accept [the award], particularly when it is being shared with my friend and brother, Bishop James.” The city’s mayor, Brenda Stevenson, announces that the joint award is in recognition of the two bishops’ efforts towards peace and community cohesion.
Daly dies on August 8, 2016 at Altnagelvin Area Hospital in Derry, having been admitted after a fall several weeks previously. He had also been diagnosed with cancer. He is surrounded by family and local priests.
Daly’s remains are taken to St. Eugene’s Cathedral, where he lay in state with mourners able to file past. His coffin is sealed at midday on August 11, 2016 and buried after Requiem Mass in the grounds of St. Eugene’s Cathedral alongside his predecessor as Bishop of Derry, Neil Farren. The bells of the cathedral toll for one hour on the morning of Daly’s death while many local people arrived to pay tribute. The mayor of Derry, Hilary McClintock, opens a book of condolence in the city’s guildhall for members of the public to sign. The funeral, conducted by the incumbent Bishop of Derry Donal McKeown, is attended by multiple religious and political leaders from across Ireland and retired leaders from throughout his career. A message from Pope Francis is read aloud at the beginning of the service. Hundreds of members of the public also attend the funeral, some lining the route from the cathedral to the gravesite. His coffin is greeted with applause as it is carried out of the cathedral for burial.
(Pictured: Father Edward Daly, waving a blood-stained white handkerchief as he escorts a mortally-wounded protester to safety during the events of Bloody Sunday (1972) in Derry, Northern Ireland, an image which becomes one of the most recognisable moments of the Troubles)
By 1860, a twenty-year-old Keogh volunteers, along with over one thousand of his countrymen, to rally to the defence of Pope Pius IX following a call to arms by the Catholic clergy in Ireland. By August 1860, Keogh is appointed second lieutenant of his unit in the Battalion of St. Patrick, Papal Army under the command of General Christophe Léon Louis Juchault de Lamoricière. Once the fighting is over and duties of the Pontifical Swiss Guard become more mundane, Keogh sees little purpose in remaining in Rome. In March 1862, with civil war raging in America, he resigns his commission in the Company of St. Patrick and sets out for New York City, arriving on April 2.
Perhaps the strongest testimony to Keogh’s bravery and leadership ability comes at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as Custer’s Last Stand, on June 25, 1876. The senior captain among the five companies wiped out with General George Armstrong Custer that day, and commanding one of two squadrons within the Custer detachment, Keogh dies in a “last stand” of his own, surrounded by the men of Company I. When the sun-blackened and dismembered dead are buried three days later, Keogh’s body is found at the center of a group of troopers. The slain officer is stripped but not mutilated, perhaps because of the “medicine” the Indians see in the Agnus Dei (“Lamb of God”) he wears on a chain about his neck or because many of Sitting Bull‘s warriors are believed to be Catholic. Keogh’s left knee has been shattered by a bullet that corresponds to a wound through the chest and flank of his horse, indicating that horse and rider may have fallen together prior to the last rally.
The badly injured animal is found on the fatal battlefield, and nursed back to health as the 7th Cavalry’s regimental mascot, which he remains until his death in 1890. This horse, Comanche, is considered the only U.S. military survivor of the battle, though several other badly wounded horses are found and destroyed at the scene. Keogh’s bloody gauntlet and the guidon of his Company I are recovered by the army three months after Little Bighorn at the Battle of Slim Buttes.
Originally buried on the battlefield, Keogh’s remains are disinterred and taken to Auburn, New York as he had requested in his will. He is buried at Fort Hill Cemetery on October 26, 1877, an occasion marked by citywide official mourning and an impressive military procession to the cemetery.
Tongue River Cantonment in southeastern Montana is renamed after him to be Fort Keogh. The fort is first commanded by Nelson A. Miles. The 55,000-acre fort is today an agricultural experiment station. Miles City, Montana is located two miles from the old fort.
At Italia ’90 the Irish team is drawn in a very tough Group F that includes European champions the Netherlands, African footballing power Egypt, and England. This is something of a coincidence as the English and the Dutch were also in Ireland’s UEFA Euro 1988 group. The tournament organisers are fearful that this grouping might lead to crowd disorder particularly between the English and Dutch fans. The group is based on the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia and security is very tight with alcohol bans in place on match days.
Ireland’s first match at a World Cup finals competition is against their longtime foe England. The English are seeking revenge for their surprise defeat by the Irish in the opening group match at Euro ’88. Once again Bobby Robson‘s English team is expected to beat Ireland and his players underline that by taking an early lead through an eight minute goal from Gary Lineker. Despite Ireland getting a greater foothold in the second half an equaliser is elusive until an error by Steve McMahon allows Kevin Sheedy to score in the 73rd minute.
Ireland’s next matches are against Egypt and the Netherlands, both played in Palermo and both ending in a draw. The Irish team finishes group play with 0 wins, 0 losses and 3 draws. England registers the only win in the group, beating Egypt. The three European teams progress into the next round.
In the knock-out round Ireland avoids drawing West Germany, the ultimate winner of the 1990 World Cup. They draw Romania as their first opponent and end regulation in yet another draw in Genoa. A penalty shoot-out follows and after the first eight penalties the teams are still tied at 4-4. Irish goalkeeperPackie Bonner blocks Romania’s fifth penalty kick. David O’Leary steps up confidently and sends his kick past the goalkeeper and into the net. Ireland has advanced to the quarterfinals at the first attempt.
Ireland bows out at the quarterfinals stage losing by a single goal to the hosts, Italy, at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. It is a very strange campaign in that Ireland does not won any of their matches, scores only two goals, and plays in some really poor matches in terms of quality of play. Notwithstanding this the Irish over-achieve which is fully appreciated by the Irish supporters. The green army stays on in the Stadio Olimpico long after the final whistle to laud manager Jack Charlton and his gallant squad.
(From: “Ireland at 1990 World Cup Finals in Italy,” Soccer-Ireland.com, http://www.soccer-ireland.com | Photograph by Ray McManus / SPORTSFILE)
Rice is born into a Catholic family and is one of nine children. It comes as a surprise that a Catholic family can be prosperous in these days but they have a lease of a good-sized farm and are industrious people. In view of his future work in education it is fortunate that he receives a very good education himself, first at a local hedge school and then at a private secondary school in Kilkenny.
Rice is apprenticed to his uncle, Michael Rice, in Waterford at the age of 17. Waterford is then the second largest port in Ireland with an expanding trade with England, France and Spain and has very special trading links across the Atlantic with Newfoundland. His uncle is involved in providing food and services for the crews and passengers of the ships trading in and out of the port of Waterford. His uncle becomes a very prosperous businessman and his business expands even more after it is handed over to his nephew. His great wealth is later to be used in transforming the lives of countless young boys.
At the age of 25 Rice marries Mary Elliot and is left a widower two years later when she dies after falling from a horse. He is left with a handicapped daughter, Mary. He calls in his step-sister Joan Murphy to help him care for his daughter so he can develop the business he inherited from his uncle.
In 1802, having properly cared for his daughter, Rice begins a night school for the uneducated boys from the quays of Waterford. His deep desire is to found a religious order of men who will educate these poor boys so that they can live with dignity and high self-esteem. But his volunteer assistants cannot stick with it. Neither can the paid teachers he later employs. Just when his spirits are lowest, and he looks to be a failure to all his business colleagues, two men from his native Callan join him not only to educate these unruly boys but also to join him in his plan to found a religious order. To do such a thing is contrary to the law. Nevertheless Rice and his growing number of companions proceed. In 1808 seven of them take religious vows under Bishop Power of Waterford. They are called Presentation Brothers. This is the first congregation of men to be founded in Ireland and one of the few ever founded in a Church by a layman. Rice has in the meantime built a substantial school out of his own money, but it is already proving too small for the many boys who flock to him for an education.
Gradually an extraordinary transformation takes place in the “quay kids” of Waterford. Rice and his Brothers educate them, clothe and feed them. Other Bishops in Ireland supply him with men whom he prepares for religious life and teaching. In this way the Presentation Brothers spread throughout Ireland. However, the groups in separate dioceses are not under his control but that of the Bishop. This creates problems when Brothers need to be transferred. Rice seeks and ultimately obtains approval from Pope Pius VII for his Brothers to be made into a pontifical congregation with Rice as Superior General. He is then able to move Brothers to wherever they are most needed. From this time on they are called Christian Brothers. By 1825 there are 30 Christian Brothers working in 12 towns and cities and educating 5,500 boys, free of charge. Many of these boys are also being clothed and fed.
Rice’s life is steeped in a spirituality that is strong and practical. He is forever caring for the poor in the wretched circumstances of their lives, for he believes there is a great need “to give to the poor in handfuls.” Many people, both men and women, from many cultures, young and old are helped and given hope and purpose and a new footing in life. He and his Brothers even card for the inmates of the jails of Waterford. He is privileged to comfort and accompany many a condemned man to the gallows. The poor never forget his love for them and see him as “a man raised up by God.”
Rice endures many and severe trials and in 1829 it seems the Christian Brothers are going to be suppressed by the law of the land. They face extinction but this does not happen. An even worse trial comes to him personally when some of his own Brothers try to undermine his work. Fortunately they are unsuccessful. He gave his Brothers as their motto a text from the Book of Job that means so much to him in his life: “The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord forever.”
In 1838, at the age of 76, Rice retires from leadership of the congregation and returns to Waterford. After living in a near-comatose state for more than two years, he dies at Mount Sion, Waterford on August 29, 1844, where his remains lie in a casket to this day.
Rice is declared to be Blessed Edmund Rice by Pope John Paul II in Rome on October 6, 1996. His Feast Day in the Catholic Church is 5 May.
Leslie is born on July 27, 1650 in Dublin, the sixth son and one of eight surviving children of John Leslie (1571-1671) and Katherine Conyngham (or Cunningham), daughter of Dr. Alexander Cunningham, Dean of Raphoe. He is allegedly named after the executed Charles I and educated at Enniskillen school and Trinity College, Dublin. After his father dies in 1671, he studies law in London before changing career and being ordained as an Anglican priest in 1681. Shortly afterwards, he returns to the family estate at Glaslough in County Monaghan and marries Jane Griffith. They have a daughter, Vinigar Jane, who appears to have died young and two sons, Robert (1683-1744) and Henry who are also Jacobites and spend time in exile.
Leslie is appointed assistant curate for the Church of Ireland parish of Donagh but as most of his parish is Roman Catholic or Presbyterian, he has few duties. His father had been chaplain to Charles I and a key supporter of Caroline religious reforms, first in Scotland, then in Ireland as Bishop of Raphoe in 1633, while the estate at Glaslough was granted by Charles II in 1660 as a reward for his service. With this background, Leslie is a firm supporter of the Stuart dynasty, although deeply hostile to Catholicism and soon becomes involved in political and theological disputes.
Shortly afterwards, Leslie becomes Clarendon’s personal chaplain and like his patron refuses to take the oath of allegiance to William III and Mary II. Like other Non-Jurors, he is deprived of his Church offices and becomes instead one of the most prominent Jacobite and Tory propagandists. This includes a long dispute with his Trinity College contemporary William King, who supports the Revolution. Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, later names him ‘the violentest Jacobite’ active in England during these years.
Much of Leslie’s early writing focuses on Scotland, where the 1690 Settlement ends Episcopacy and restores a Presbyterian kirk. He uses this to inspire concern about William’s intentions towards the Church of England. Ironically, his modern fame now rests primarily on a pamphlet written in 1695, called Gallienus Redivivus, or Murther will out, &c. Being a true Account of the De Witting of Glencoe, Gaffney. The focus of this is William’s alleged complicity in the 1672 death of Dutch Republican leader Johan de Witt, with other crimes including Glencoe included as secondary charges. During the Jacobite rising of 1745, Charles Stuart orders Leslie’s pamphlet and the 1695 Parliamentary minutes of the investigation to be reprinted in the EdinburghCaledonian Mercury.
During the 1690s, Leslie serves as a messenger between James’ court in exile at Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Non-Juror community in England, including the Non-Juror bishops Jeremy Collier, Thomas Ken and George Hickes. He defends Collier and two other Non-Juror priests when they become involved in a furor over the execution of Sir John Friend and Sir William Parkyns for their role in the 1696 Jacobite plot to assassinate William. Immediately prior to the execution, the clergymen declare the two absolved of their sins, effectively declaring the correctness of their actions, while also performing a rite not recognised by the Church of England.
In 1702, the accession of Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch, causes a resurgence in Jacobite activity and in 1704, Leslie begins a weekly periodical initially called The Observator, later The Rehearsal of Observator and finally The Rehearsal. Although his Tory readership shares his High Church principles, he is primarily a Jacobite and violently opposes the common practice of ‘occasional conformity.’ The Rehearsal is forced to close in 1709 and he falls out with his former allies, including Henry Sacheverell whose trial helped the Tories win a landslide victory in the 1710 British general election.
Despite his Tory allies now being in government, a warrant is issued for Leslie’s arrest for his tract The Good Old Cause, or, Lying in Truth. In 1711 he escapes to Paris, where James Francis Edward Stuart has succeeded his father as the Stuart heir in 1701. He continues to write polemics and act as a Jacobite agent. However, after the failed Jacobite rising of 1715, France withdraws support for the Stuarts who are forced to leave France, eventually being invited to settle in Rome by Pope Benedict XIV. The Spanish-sponsored 1719 Rising in Scotland is judged to have done more damage to the Jacobite cause than otherwise, one of its leaders concluding “it bid fair to ruin the King’s Interest and faithful subjects in these parts.”
Despite these failures, Leslie remains a dedicated Jacobite but his lifelong antipathy towards Catholicism makes living in Rome as a Papal pensionary difficult, while hopes of converting James to Anglicanism fades due to his devout personal Catholicism. He returns to Paris in 1717 and in 1719 publishes a two folio-volume edition of his Theological Works. It is later claimed these placed him ‘very high in the list of controversial authors, the ingenuity of the arguments being equalled only by the keenest and pertinacity with which they are pursued.’ He invites friends and supporters to subscribe to these and by 1721, over 500 members of the House of Lords and House of Commons have pledged a total of £750. Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland finally allows him to return home, with the stipulation he cease his political activities.
Saint Gelasius of Armagh B (AC), also known as Giolla Iosa and Gioua-Mac-Liag, dies on March 27, 1174. The son of the Irish poet Diarmaid, Saint Gelasius (meaning `servant of Jesus’) is the learned abbot of Derry for sixteen years. He is consecrated Archbishop of Armagh c. 1137, when Saint Malachy resigns and serves as Primate of Ireland until 1174.
During his long episcopacy, Gelasius has to deal with the events before and after the Norman invasion, including the alleged Donation of Ireland by Pope Adrian IV to Henry II of England, Henry’s arrival in Ireland in 1171, and Pope Alexander III’s confirmation of everything granted by Adrian IV.
Gelasius reconstructs the Cathedral of Armagh and, in 1162, consecrates Saint Laurence O’Toole as Archbishop of Dublin, although the invasion and settlement of Dublin by Norsemen means that the Christians of that see are looking more to Canterbury than Armagh. That same year, during the Synod of Clane in County Kildare, a uniform liturgy is ensured throughout Ireland by requiring that only Armagh-trained or Armagh-accredited teachers of divinity may teach in any school attached to the Irish Church.
Gelasius is an indefatigable prelate. He makes constant visitations throughout Ireland, reorganizes old monasteries, and convenes synods. He is said to be the first Irish bishop to whom the pallium is sent. Pope Eugene III’s papal legate, Cardinal Giovanni Paparoni, brings four pallia with him to the Synod of Kells in 1152 for the archbishops of Armagh, Cashel, Dublin, and Tuam. The records of this synod include the first mention of tithes in Irish annals, which Cardinal Paparoni proposes but none of the participants support. The matter of tithes and the Peter’s Pence is an important consideration in subsequent negotiations between Pope Adrian IV and Henry II of England.
Gelasius convenes another synod at Armagh in 1170 in the hope of finding some means to expel the Anglo-Normans, who had invaded the country the previous year, before they become too entrenched. In 1171, Henry II of England arrives, lavishly entertains the civic and ecclesiastic Irish leaders, and requests the convening of the Synod of Cashel, during which he presents a plan for improving the Church of Ireland. At this time there is no mention of any claim of Canterbury or the Donation. However, the eighth canon of the synod decrees that the Irish Church will celebrate the Divine Office according to the usage of the Church of England, which is still Catholic at the time.
The bishop of Armagh does not attend the Synod of Cashel. At the time he is occupied in a visitation of Connacht and Ulster in an attempt (in concert with the high king) to organize a defense of Ireland. He realizes that Henry II has duped many Irish princes by masking his true intentions.
The following year Henry II falls under interdict for his murder of Saint Thomas Becket. When news of HenryII’s penitential, bare-foot walk to the shrine of Saint Thomas and his plans for the `uplift’ of the Irish Church reaches Rome, Pope Alexander III confirms the Donation of Ireland made by Pope Adrian IV. Shortly thereafter the Church of Ireland became English, the School of Armagh is closed (c. 1188) and the last native bishop of Armagh until the Reformation dies in 1313.
(From: “Saints of the Day – Gelasius of Armagh” by Katherine I Rabenstein, CatholicSaints.Info (www.catholicsaints.info) | Pictured: Arms of the Archbishop of Armagh, in the Church of Ireland)
Isaac Weld, Irish topographical writer, explorer, and artist, is born on Fleet Street, Dublin on March 15, 1774. He is a member of the Royal Dublin Society.
Weld’s name stems from his great-grandfather Nathanael Weld’s close friendship with Sir Isaac Newton, and as such both his grandfather and father are also named Isaac. His father is a close friend of Charles James Fox. His sister marries George Ensor, and their half-brother is Charles Richard Weld, traveler and author of A Vacation Tour in the United States and Canada (London, 1855), which is dedicated to his brother, Isaac. He is sent to the school of Samuel Whyte at Grafton Street and from there to another private school Barbauld at Palgrave near the town of Diss in Norfolk. From Diss he proceeds to Norwich as a private pupil of Dr. William Enfield. He leaves Norwich in 1793.
In 1795 he sails to Philadelphia from Dublin and spends two years traveling in the United States and Canada, partly as an adventure and partly as research into suitable countries to which the Irish can emigrate. He visits Monticello and Mount Vernon and meets George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. He travels on horseback, by coach and by canoe in Canada with local native guides. He returns in 1797 “without entertaining the slightest wish to revisit it.” He finds the Americans to be obsessed with material things and prefers Canada. His published Travels (1799) quickly goes into three editions and is translated into French, German, Italian, and Dutch.
Weld writes on slavery that “there will be an end to slavery in the United States…[as] negroes will not remain deaf to the inviting call of liberty forever.” With regard to Americans in general, he states, “Civility cannot be purchased from them on any terms; they seem to think that it is incompatible with freedom.” On Washington, D.C., he writes “If the affairs of the United States go on as rapidly as they have done, it will become the grand emporium of the West, and rival in magnitude and splendour the cities of the whole world.”
Weld visits Killarney, navigates the lakes in a boat he made from compressed brown paper, and publishes Scenery of Killarney (1807), illustrated with his own drawings. He is also well known for his drawings of American life and, in particular, the Niagara Falls.
In May 1815 Weld sails from Dún Laoghaire to London in the 14 horsepower (10 kW) steamboat Thames, the first such vessel to make the passage. He compiles the Statistical Survey of the County of Roscommon (1838) for the Royal Dublin Society, of which he is Honorary Secretary and Vice-President. In later life, he spends much time in Italy and particularly Rome, where he develops a friendship with Antonio Canova.
