pages 555 to 683 (4602 Kb) - Limerick City Council

James's brother, father, and grandfather had basely deceived them, and
bitterly persecuted their bishops aqd clergy, secular and regular; they
believed that, if the king were restored to his crown, he would be prin-
cipally advised by Protestant counsdIors, whose object it would -be to
promote improper nominees, partizans of the court, and enemies of the
people ; they conceived that by these means the Church would be de-
prived of its freedom and become the slave of a state party, and that the
old project would be revived of appointing Englishmen to the vacant
mitres, which had been intrigued fbr in the reign of the first Charles. It
was in reality a veto discussion of the time, and to his honour it must be
said, that no one took a more liveIy part in it, and in the interest of the
Church, than Dr. O'Moloney and his friend Dr. Pierce Creagh, Bishop
of Cork, and afterwards Archbishop of Dublin. The circumstances which
gave rise to this state of affairs we shall shortly refer to. They appear in
the unpublished report of Father John Young, of the Society of Jesus,
addressed to the General Piccolomini, on the incorporation of the Irish
with the English province, and dated at Rome in 1661, where he was then
president of the Irish College. After giving some reasons at great length
against such incorporation, he goes on to say:
U But they who are intimately acquainted with the genius of either country,
and the ineradicable hatred which exists between them, cannot on this point
entertain the slightest doubt. The cause of this alienation I would much rather
express orally than in writing.
"bd, The bishops and prelates of Ireland, who heretofore valued most
highly the Society, will, for the future, consider as suspected, and the opinion
will again revive which arose twelve years since, when the queen of England
was treating with the Pope by her procurator, regarding the propriety of having
English bishops consecrated for Ireland, to which proposition our Irish fathers
were said to be favourable, and a great storm was raised against our order that
the leading men of the kingdom connected with the Supreme Council, and who,
up to this, entertained the deepest respect for us, resolved that, were the matter
to go further, the Society should be expelled the kingdom".
That Dr. O'Moloney was right in believing that Queen Henrietta
Maria's design was entertained by King James, is fully proved by the
king's advice to his son, the Chevalier St. George, supposed to have been
slain in 1690.'
Referring to IreIand he. says :-
' L As to the Catholic clergy, great care should be taken to fill the dignities
with able, learned, and men of exemplary lives, and to break off that evil
which we have too much practiszd, of giving orders to young men, and then
sending them abroad to study ; and 't woixld not be amiss to make some few
English clergy bishops there, and set up colleges, that the youth might not be
obliged to be sent to study beyond the sea".
In virtue of this indult numerous appointments of Irish bishops were
made? Capara, the agent of Mary of Modena, was the principal negotiator
of these appointments. None of the earlier ones appear to have been
excepted to'by Dr. O'Moloney, who, in fact owed his own appointment to
Clarke's Life of Jam- IT., voi. ii. p. 636.
Sir Dad Nairne's Stuart State Papers in the Bodleian Library. Sir David Nairne was
private secretary of King James formany year&
HISTORY OF LIMEBLCK. 617
the mitre of Limerick to the king's influence. But in' 1694, when he
forwarded to Rome, in reply to the memorial of Capara, objections to
Edward Comerford's nomination by the k' to the see of Cashel (15th
August, 1693), and also against Dr. Richar Pierce's nomination to the
see of Waterford, 23rd July, 1694, objections partly political, partly
personal;' he exhibited a very determined spirit against the proceed~ngs
of James. In this, however, he was not successful. The king replied to
remonstrances, showing that Dr. Cornerford was a doctor of the
Sorbonne, that he had been many years on the English mission, and
m q years a parish priest in Ireland, and his majesty insinuated that Dr.
O'Moloney'a oppo8i~on arose because he had declined to appoint him
to'Dublin or to Cashel, or to a point his nephew the Rev. - Moloney,
P
Vicar of Limerick, to the see o Killaloe. The bishop's representations,
though they retatded these appointments, did not succeed with the Propsganda
in preventing the archblsho$s bull being forwarded ; he was consecrated
b John Ba tist Hayne, Bishop of Cork, assisted by Dr. Robert
Pieme, &shop of f aterford. We have no further incidents relative to
Dr. O'Moloney, except those that prove how influential he was at the
court of Louis, negotiating assistance for Ireland when it was most needed
in a perilous crisis of her fortunes. He died in P& on the 3rd of
September, 1702, in the 78th year of his age, and a mural tablet marks
the spot where his remains are interred (see p. 220).
The see of Limerick, which was governed for many years bp a vicarpneral,
in the person of the Very Rev. Dr. Jamea Stretch, or Stntch, P.P.
of Rathkeale, remained without a Catholic bishop from the period of the
death of the Right Rev. Dr. Moloney in 1702, to the year 1720, wholly
owing to the ceaseless penecutions which continued to rage after the suoeeas
of King William, and the passionate vehemence of the dominant faction,
which could 0~x1 satiate its vengeance by depriving the Catholics of every
shred of politics I power and social position, in violation of solemn treaties,
and against the dxtates of reason and of 'ustice. At length the Court of
Borne judged it pro er to coder the dignity of the see on Comelius
P
O'Keeffe, a native o the county Cork, of the ancient family of the
O'Keeffes of Clounna-Phricane. He had studied with distinction at
Toulouse, where he became a doctor of divinit , and he enjoyed the rectorshi
of the &h of St. Chmnicleu, in the &ocw of Nantz, when the
H ~ P ~ P
See se ected him to supply the position which had been occupied
by a long line of illustrious men who preserved the faith in the midst of
every danaer. Denis O'Keeffe, the father of the bishop, was expelled
from his oh fatnil estate of L' Dun n , on the river Bride, b the ruthless
Cmmaelln.' ~ i e many r hardship he settled at Drum h eene, in the
county of Limerick, where he left six sons, viz., Daniel, Dennott,
Philip, Donatus, Luke, and Cornelius, the bishop. In the year above
menboned, Cornelius O'Keeffe took ossession of his see of Limerick,
which he carefully governed for t % e space of seventeen yeam, hb
death having taken place in 1737. He founded three bnrses in the
Irish ColIege of Paris for boys of the name of O'Eeeffe, of the family he
was himself; he prescribed rules for the government of the burses, and
1 Sir David Nsirne's Shcatl State Papers in the Bodleian Library. Sir David Nairne wsr
private aecre of Hi Jamea for many years.
V&n*a";Ls;~o ~ames~s lrmg List.
43
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