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

HISTORY OF LIMERICK. . .
Then seriously reflect on what you see,
And think on what you are now, and what you'll be ;
Whether you 're greater, equal, less, you must,
As well as these, be crumbled into dust.
In 1279, according to King, a general chapter of the order was held
there. On the 13th of January, 1330, a " liberate" was issued for the sum
of thirty-five marcs, for the payment of one year's pension to the Dominicans
of Limerick, Dublin, Drogheda, Cork, and Waterford.' Nine
liberates had been issued. In 1340 Gerald Rochfort, a renowned knight,
and head of his sept, died on the 29th of March, and according to Ware
was interred here.
About this time, according to the Arthur MSS., Martin Arthur built a
magnificent peristyle of marble to the church of St. Saviour in Limerick.
1345, John O'Grady, Treasurer of Cashel, and for a the Rector of
O'Griffin, in the diocese of Killaloe, succeeded by the election of Dean and
Chapter to the Archbishopric of Cashel, and having procured recommendatory
letters from the King to the Pope (dated 10th October, 1331) was
by his provision placed in that see (Cashel) in 1332. A mark", says
Hogan, the author of the Annals of Nenagh '' ofgreat wisdom and industry".
He died in Limerick on the 8th day of July, 1345, in the Dominican Jmbit,
and was buried there in a monastery of that order. He made many
donations to his church, and in that particular gave it a large pastoral staff.'
Indeed, according to the book of the Friars Preachers already referred
to: the Dominican monastery of Limerick was famous, among many other
circumstances, for being the place of interment of illustrious Irishmen in
olden days. It was there, it adds, that its founder 'Oomcao Cuipbpouc
0bpcun, as we have already stated, was Suried. It was the place of
sepulture, accor?.ing to the same calendar, of De Burgo, alias bupca~.o
" Dux et Capitmeus*,' as well as of many other distinguished leaders of the
Irish nation, who chose it as their last resting place. Many of the
Geraldines were buried there, as we learn on the same authority, and
their anniversaries were commemorated with due solemnity, as is set forth
in the authority in question. The second founder of this convent, viz.,
James Fitz John Earl of Desmond, was buried there in 1462, and it is
recorded that the Friars Preachers were obliged to celebrate a yearly mass
for his own soul, md for the souls of his parents and of his wife, and of
his successors and their wives. There also, furthermore, was interred the
" Dux et Capitaneus"MacNamara, alias roitbeama? who diedin 1503. The
sept of the O'Ryans had a tomb there also, and the Dux et Ca itaneus of
the sept, viz., Thaddeus Fitz Dermot O'Ryan, who is named in t K e ancient
calendar Cuog m c lit ann m eau: was interred there, as were also many
Roches, otherwise lioip6, whose Dux et Capitaneus was Gerald de Rupe
Forti, a famous soldier, and able and strong in arms, who was buried there
on the 4th Kalend of April, 1349. Many others of the old race and faith
were interred there, as we h d by the Arthur MSS., which mention
several citizens of Limerick who directed that their bodies should rest
there. In tke year 1504' this convent, with others in Ireland, was reformed
by the Most Rev. Master of the Order, Vincent Bandello, of Castro Novo in
' Archdale's Noncuticon. 9 Ware. S Sloane MSS. in British Museum, 4793.
' The chief of his family is mennt by this expression. The warlike.
Thaddeus O'Byan the gentle. De Burgo, H& Dom
I
Lombardy! by his own proper authority, as well as by that of Pope Julius
II., and, with four others, it was erected into a university or general study,
by the Chapter Generalissimo of the order in 1644. The other places
thus favoured were Dublin, Cashel, Athenry, and Coleraine-one for
each of the provinaes.' Thomas Curchmus was rior, but in what year is
not certain. Considerable endowments were P brmerly bestowed up04
this monastery by James Fitzgerald, Earl of Desmond.'
Among the remarkable members of the Domlnicas order of Limerick
oonvent were :-
John Quin, or O'Quin, Bishop of the Diocese of Limerick (see Bishops),
Terence Albert O'Brien, the martyr and ill~strious Bisho of Emnly, of
whose martyrdom we have given an account in the history o P Ireton's siege;
and James O'Hurly, the predecessor of Terence Albert O'Brien in Emly.
There were many others also who suffered martyrdom, or who became
distinguished for their sanctified lives.
There was another house of the order at Six Mile Bridge, in the
Connty of Clare, subject to the Limerick convent, of which de Burgo
(Rib. Dorn.,. p: 213) states, he can add nothing to the fact that it existed,
except that it IS asserted on the authority of O'Heyne, that it was called
in Ineh Abbhutn O'Seayna: from the name of the nver (Ozeayna) which
flows into the Shannon, and that it was demolished in the wars of 1641.
De Burgo further states that he visited the site in the year 1754, on the
5th of May, and that he could find no vestige whatever of the convent of
Six Mile Bridge.
Father John O'Hepe, who is frequently quoted by de Burgo, gives thc
history of the celebrated Convent of the Dominicans of Limerick, and de
Burgo supplements, up to his own the, the annals which O'He e began,
but died before he could have finished. O'Heyne also wrote t K" e history
of the convent of the same illustrious order at Kilmallock. The work is
written in Latin, and is called " O'Heynels Chronological Epilogue q
; it
is of extreme rarity, and for the extracts from it, in reference to the
Dominicm Convents of Limerick and Kilmallock, we are indebted to the
Very Rev. Dr. Carbery, Prior of St. Saviour's, Limerick, who obtained
them from the only copy of the book known to be in Ireland, namely,
that in the convent at Esker, County Galway. O'Heyne is said to
have been s native of Kilmallock. Having given a succinct account of
the foundation of the convent, O'Heyie proceeds to enumerate and
give a short history of the many distmguished men who belonged to
it from time to time, and among whom, in the first and most distinguished
place, stands the Mart r-Bishop of Emly, the great Terence
Albert O'Brien of Arragh. Fa d er James Wolfe, the resolute and determined
opponent of Cromwell, who was taken while he was celebrating
mrtss, and who was executed in the same year, viz., 1651, in which thc
sainted Bishop of Emly met his death, was also a member of the same convent.
He then tells us of Father Cornelius O'Heyne, who studied in the
College of Minerva at Rome, and taught theology for several years in the
College of the Domi cans at Lisbon, and was rector of this convent, came
to Ireland for subjects for the convent in Lisbon and died there ; of another
O'Heyne; of Father John de Burgo, or Burke, who was prior in 1667 ; of
DeBurgo, Bib. Dorn., p. 221. Ware, vol. i. p. 727. a River O'Gemm
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