CORRESPONDENCE.
Kilkee, February 7th, 1865.
To the Editors of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record.
Gentlemen,
Be pleased to allow me to bring under your notice a slight mistake noticeable in the January issue of your Record, and in doing so I may be permitted to express my great satisfaction, and that of all those who spoke to me on the subject, with the interesting and varied matter in your Record. Your high character, not to speak of stronger reasons, will secure for your statements a ready acceptance with Catholics, and this, coupled with the very faultless character of your extensively read periodical, renders me anxious to have it the medium of correction to its own mistakes, however slight. The learned writer on the Irish sees of the sixteenth century, speaking of the vicissitudes of Clonmacnois, and of its subjection to the metropolitical see of Tuam, says, in p. 158 of the Record: "This change probably took place during the episcopate of Bishop Symon of the Order of St. Dominick, who, though omitted in the lists of Ware and De Burgo, was appointed to the see on the death of Dr. Henry in 1349". Now, Symon was never Bishop of Clonmacnois. Indeed, as remarked by the learned writer in the Record, Theiner gives, in page 291, the bull of his appointment. But the appointment was null, as the see was not vacant by the death of Dr. Henry. Hence, by looking to the next page of Theiner, you will see how good Pope Clement VI. acknowledges and rectifies the mistake by appointing Symon to the see of Kildare, then vacant. The report of Dr. Henry's death was unfounded; therefore, as the bull of Pope Clement declares, Symon was not, and in the circumstances could not have been, Bishop of Clonmacnois. "Cum autem sicut postea vera relatio ad nos perduxit", etc., the Pope says, addressing Symon, "tu nullius Ecclesiae remansisti".
I remain, Gentlemen,
Your obedient servant,
Sylvester Malone.
[We feel much obliged to our learned and reverend correspondent for the interest he takes in the success and the accuracy of the Record, and we beg to assure him that the greatest attention will be paid to every communication and suggestion from him, or from any other promoter of the study of Irish ecclesiastical literature or antiquities. In publishing the Record, our only desire is to illustrate and uphold truth, and thus to promote the interests of religion.
We regret that, our colleague who treated of the See of Clonmacnoise in the January number being at present absent, we have not been able to communicate to him the remarks contained in the above letter; we can therefore only state that, as he was not treating of the fourteenth century, he referred only incidentally to the appointment of Bishop Symon in order to fix the period at which a change had been "probably" effected in a matter of ecclesiastical jurisdiction connected with the See of Clonmacnoise, and that he had no intention of giving the history of the bishops of that diocese, or of entering into a question which was not connected with his subject; so that, having fixed the date in question with accuracy—as he does by referring to the appointment of Bishop Symon to Clonmacnoise, as given by Theiner—it did not appear necessary for him to proceed farther.
However that may be, we can safely promise in the name of our colleague, that he will be happy to correct any mistake into which he may have fallen. He will be able to do so the more readily because he has been requested to publish in a separate volume all he has written on the succession of the Bishops in the various Sees of Ireland. When corrected and completed, these articles will be a valuable accession to our ecclesiastical history, whilst they will supply a triumphant answer to an assertion of the learned Dr. Todd in the preface to his Life of St. Patrick, viz.: that the original Irish Church, having merged into the Church of the English Pale, adopted the Reformation in the sixteenth century. That assertion undoubtedly was made hastily and without sufficient reflection. Any one who reads the articles of the Record will find that it has no foundation in fact. Penal laws, indeed, and brute force were employed to propagate the Reformation in Ireland, but the true faith was so deeply rooted in the minds of the clergy and laity of the "original Irish Church" that all the powers of Hell could not exterminate it.
As to Bishop Symon, mentioned by our correspondent, it appears that he was appointed in 1349 by Clement VI. to Derry, not to Kildare. According to Ware, there was no vacancy in that year in this last see, as it was occupied from 1334 to 1365 by Richard Hulot and Thomas Giffard. But in the list of the Bishops of Derry given by Ware, a Bishop Symon, of some order of friars, is mentioned as filling that see in 1367 and 1369. The historian states that he could not discover to what religious order that prelate belonged, or what was the date of his consecration. The valuable documents published by the Archivist of the Vatican, F. Theiner, show that Bishop Symon was of the Order of St. Dominick, that he was consecrated by Talleyrand, Bishop of Albano, that he was appointed to Derry in 1349, and that he succeeded a Bishop Maurice who was unknown to Ware. A copy of the brief appointing Bishop Symon to Derry, was sent to the Archbishop of Armagh, as appears from Theiner, p. 292. This shows that the Ecclesia Darensis conferred on Bishop Symon belonged to the province of Armagh. Kildare, indeed, was called by the same name, but it belonged to a different province. Theiner gives the appointment of a Bishop of Kildare at page 261, in which reference is made to his metropolitan of Dublin. At page 64 Ecclesia Darensis is mentioned again, but it is stated to belong to the metropolitan of Armagh. Thus, although Derry and Kildare went by the same name, it is not difficult to determine to which see the papal Bulls regarding them belong, because mention is generally made of the metropolitan to whose suffragan the document is addressed.]