Archbishop of Cashel

“ For it had been announced by the Archbishop of Cashel (Magrath) "that in Waterford there are certain buildings, erected under colour and pretence of almshouses or hospitals, but that the same are in very deed intended and publicly professed to be used for monasteries and such like houses of religion, and that friars and popish priests are openly received and maintained in them . . . and exercise their service of the Mass openly and usually in many places, as if they were in no awe or fear of any exception to be taken thereunto." ”

“ PRICE, THOMAS (1599–1685) , archbishop of Cashel, was born in London, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1623, M.A. in 1628, and was elected a fellow in 1626 (Todd, Graduates) .
Price was ordained by William Bedell, and became archdeacon of Bedell's diocese of Kilmore. He was consecrated bishop of Kildare in Christ Church, Dublin, on 10 March 1660, and was translated to the archbishopric of Cashel on 20 May 1667. He was imbued with the views of Bedell as to the importance of making the Irish language that of the established church ”

“ Although the Lord Deputy allowed himself to be received at Limerick by Bishop Lacy with full Catholic ceremonial, still the appointment of Protestant commissioners to administer the territories of Desmond, and the intrusion of a queen's archbishop into the See of Cashel (1567) made it clear that the government was determined to force the new religion on the people. About the same time the Pope took steps to strengthen the Catholics of Munster by appointing Maurice Fitzgibbon, commendatory abbot of a Cistercian monastery in Mayo, to the vacant See of Cashel. ”

“ BRAY, THOMAS, D.D. (1759–1820) , an Irish catholic prelate, was born in the diocese of Cashel on 5 March 1759. He became archbishop of Cashel in 1792, and died in 1820. He was author of the following privately printed work: 'Statuta Synodalia pro unitis Dioecesibus Cassel. et Imelac. ”

“ It was now decided that there should be but twenty-four dioceses—twelve for the northern and twelve for the southern half of Ireland. Cashel was also recognized as an archiepiscopal see, and the successor of St. Jarlath was sometimes called Archbishop of Connaught. The custom of lay appropriations, which had obtained in some places, was also firmly denounced. This was an intolerable abuse. St. Celsus, the Archbishop of Armagh, though himself a member of the family who had usurped this office, made a special provision in his will that he should be succeeded by St. Malachy. ”

“ Laurence, to receive consecration from the Archbishop of Cashel, his metropolitan. For a century previous to this time, the Bishops of Waterford had been consecrated by the Norman Archbishops of Canterbury, with whom they claimed kindred.
St. Gelasius died in 1173, and was succeeded in the see of Armagh by Connor MacConcoille. This prelate proceeded to Rome very soon after his consecration, and was supposed to have died there. When the Most Rev. Dr. Dixon, the late Archbishop of Armagh, was visiting Rome, in 1854, he ascertained that Connor had died at the Monastery of St. ”

“ After the Restoration he returned to Ireland, and was translated to the archiepiscopal see of Cashel (1 Feb. 1660–1) . Kennett gives a somewhat highly coloured account of the archbishop's reception at Cashel, not only by churchmen but by others, who were converted by his ‘indefatigable powers and exemplary piety’ (Kennett,, Register, p. 312) . He died 31 March 1667, in the seventy-fourth year of his age, and was buried in the chancel of his cathedral of St. ”

“ After a successful pontificate of three years he again retired to the humbler position of a diocesan bishop at Down; [415] but he still continued to watch over the interests of the whole Irish Church; and in 1139 he went to Rome specially to lay its necessities before the Pope, and if possible to obtain from him the gift of a pallium for the archbishop of Armagh, and another for the bishop of Cashel as metropolitan of southern Ireland. [416] The pallium was now generally regarded as an indispensable note of metropolitical rank, but it had never been possessed by the successors of S. Patrick. ”

“ In his society he led a penitential life, taking no nourishment but bread and water, and wholly absorbed in heavenly contemplation. After some years he was replaced upon the throne, and, in gratitude, built two churches at Lismore, where he had been the companion of St. Malachi, and one at Cashel of the Kings.
The most famous of the bishops of Cashel was Cormac McCullenan, who was at the same time King of Munster, and who has been considered as the founder of the chapel on the Rock which still bears his name. ”

“ The very ancient church which is the present glory of the rock of Cashel was then unbuilt, and the summit of the crag was enclosed by a rampart of loose stones, the stronghold of the kings of the south, within which a small low stone-roofed building was the bishop's church. In 900 he became king of Cashel, and was thus the chief temporal as well as the chief spiritual authority in the south of Ireland. ”

“ Each throws upon another the load which he refuses to bear his share of, and the end is, we have a reckless gentry and a ruined people; all the embittering hatred of a controversy, and little of the active working of Christian charity. Good-bye, sir. I ask pardon for inflicting something like a sermon upon you. Good-bye.”
“And yet,” said Cashel, “you have only made me anxious to hear more from you. ”

“ In 1823 he removed to Ireland as domestic chaplain to the learned Dr. Laurence, shortly before promoted to the archbishopric of Cashel, who was also an Oxford man, and father-in-law of Cotton. In June 1824 the archdeaconry of Cashel was conferred upon him ”

“ As the horrors of war disturbed continually the clergy from their sacred calling, and led many of them, even Abbots and Bishops, to take up arms, so the yoke of religion gradually loosened and dropped from the necks of the people. The awe of the eighth century for a Priest or Bishop had already disappeared in the tenth, when Christian hands were found to decapitate Cormac of Cashel, and offer his head as a trophy to the Ard-Righ. ”

“ Thus Becket at once kicked down from him the ladder by which he had risen, and now, no longer obsequious towards his sovereign, he determined to maintain to the utmost the privileges of the Church. Never was there a change of life more sudden, or one that excited so much indignation, on the one hand, or so much admiration on the other. The new archbishop became the idol of the poor, and especially of his own countrymen, while the king and his favourites regarded him with the deepest anger and aversion. ”

“ That a see whose bishops had behaved so haughtily in the past should, at the very moment of its entrance into the Irish Church, receive so signal an honour, long denied to Armagh and Cashel, and that in the person of its bishop it should be given jurisdiction over bishops whom till now it had treated with contempt, could not but be regarded as unreasonable, or even insulting. ”

“ Todd, hold that there is no foundation in our earliest documents for these pre-Patrician bishops; that the Lives containing an account of these prelates are forgeries of the eleventh or twelfth century, invented in the south of Ireland for the purpose of contesting the claim of Armagh to the primacy of all Ireland, and of establishing the new-fangled claims of the Bishop of Cashel to a primacy over the Southern Province. It is quite impossible with the evidence attainable at present to settle this question ”

“ Each day he exhibits more and more of those qualities which bespeak far more goodness of heart than intellectual training or culture. His waywardness and eccentricity might seriously damage his own party,—could he even be taught that he had one,—and become terrible weapons in the hands of the enemy. I was speaking of Cashel, my Lord,” said Linton, as it were answering the look of inquiry in the old man's face.
“I hate him, sir,” said the old peer, with a bitterness of voice and look that well suited the words. ”

“ I need not vindicate her Ladyship; that she has taken a warm, I shame not to say an affectionate, interest in my fortunes, may have been imprudent I know not what your code admits of or rejects, but her kindness demands all my gratitude, and, if need be, the defence that a man of honor should always be ready to offer for the cause of truth.”
“Don't you perceive, Cashel, that all you are saying only proves what I have been asserting,—that, while you are actually ignorant of your danger, the peril is but the greater? ”

“ Mary’s, the Protestant Cathedral of the Church of Ireland. He erected several other churches and monasteries in Limerick County which bear witness to the religious zeal of Donald O’Brien. The ruins at Cashel, which are the most extensive in all Ireland, are reminders of his piety, energy, and generosity in the Christian propaganda. He is supposed to have been buried in St. Mary’s Cathedral, and the most ancient and noteworthy monument in that venerable temple is a brown-stone slab covered with a Celtic cross and inscription that is supposed to be the lid of his coffin. ”

“ The kings of Cashel appear to have steadily 237consolidated their authority and to have been content to do so without seeking to extend it beyond the bounds fixed in the fifth century. In the Book of Rights, the tributes payable to the king of Cashel far exceed those to which any of the other six principal kings in Ireland laid claim. There is an allegory related in the genealogies which indicates that at one time the supremacy of Cashel was challenged by the Eoghanacht kings of West Munster. ”

“ But it's a sad sight, so it is, to see the graves wid the nettles on thim an' the walls all tumblin'. It isn't every owld church that has a caretaker like him of Cashel. Bedad, he was betther nor a flock av goats to banish the weeds.
"Who was he? Faith, I niver saw him but the wan time, an' thin I had only a shot at him as he was turnin' a corner, for it was as I was lavin' Cormac's chapel the time I wint to [pg 040] Cashel on a pinance, bekase av a little throuble on me mind along av a pig that wasn't mine, but got mixed wid mine whin I was afther killin' it. ”

“ There appears to be little else in the market and business is far from brisk. There are many husky farmers from the country and bright-looking young maidens that seem of a different race from the old [Pg 334] market women. We see and hear much to interest us during our hour’s stop in Cashel.
To one other Tipperary shrine we must make a pilgrimage—Holy Cross Abbey, which is only a few miles away. We see its low square tower just above the trees as we approach the town which bears the same name as the abbey, and we find the caretaker living in wretchedly dirty quarters in a part of the ruin. ”

“ And as the Greeks, I suppose for effect’s sake, have varied the posture of their temples, so that the sun illumines them at different moments, the old Irish have varied the orientation of their churches that the sun might rise directly over against the east window on the anniversary of the patron saint. There is at Cashel the great Cathedral—in loftiness and grandeur the Parthenon of the place; there is the smaller and more beautiful Cormac’s Chapel, the holiest of all, like the Erechtheum at Athens. ”

“ There are sunsets more rich and glowing, but if we see them, it will be to think of that sinking orb which sent its last rays over that wide river, and lit up in a golden glory this little chamber. There 's not a charm the fairest clime can own but will have its highest merit in recalling some humble scene that tells of 'home.'”
“I never could leave a spot so dear to me as this were!” cried Cashel, who watched with ecstasy the impassioned beauty of her features.
“Do not say that,” said she, seriously. “We can all of us do what we ought, however it may try our courage. ”

“ At length, perceiving that he did not speak, he himself turned towards the stranger, and said,—
“You are, doubtless, a man of the world, sir, and need no apologies for my remarking that good news demands a scrutiny not less searching than its opposite. As the friend of Senhor Cashel,”—here he turned a glance beneath his heavy brows at the youth, who, however, seemed not to notice the word,—“as his friend, I repeat, deeply interested in whatever affects him, I may, perhaps, be permitted to ask the details of this very remarkable event.” ”

“ The Franciscan monastery at Cashel, on the site of which the remarkable effigies which have been described were found, was commonly called Hacket's Abbey, and strange as it may appear that the memorials of the invader and his wives or kinswomen should have been preserved in times when popular feeling was subject to no control, there can be little doubt that the knight whose portraiture has been brought before the notice of our readers, was either William Hacket, the founder, or one of his immediate descendants. ”

“ While, therefore, the party gathered around Cashel, with eager assurance of Miss Meek's precedence, Lady Kilgoff, rising, crossed the room to where that young lady was standing, and gracefully arranging her loose-flowing ringlets into a knot at the back of the head, fastened them by a splendid comb which she took from her own, and whose top was fashioned into a handsome coronet of gold, saying, “The question of legitimacy is solved forever: the Pretender yields her crown to the true Sovereign.” ”

“ It is rich Norman work, comprising nave, chancel, and towers at the transepts. The doorways and chancel arch are elaborate. The Round Tower is unique when compared with the other buildings, as it is of sandstone. It is connected with the transept of the Cathedral. The pointed windows, choir, transepts, and tower are very beautiful. In the burial-ground outside is the famous Cross of Cashel, with a sculptured effigy of St. Patrick. The whole group gathered together on the massive Rock of Cashel, whose firmness [Pg 131] is a proverb in Ireland, presents an imposing array. ”