successor was without delay appointed by the Holy See, but owing to the destruction of the monuments of our Church, his name has not come down to us. He is thus commemorated in 1583 by the English agent in Italy: "In April there came from Rome to Naples an Irishman, whom the Pope created Bishop of Ross in Ireland" (Letter of Francis Touker to Lord Burghley, 22nd July, 1583). He is also mentioned by the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr. Cornelius O'Mulrian, in a letter addressed from Lisbon to Rome, on the 29th October, 1584: "Episcopus Limericensis et Episcopus Rossensis postquam venerant Romam in curia Regis Hispaniarum degunt" (Ex Archiv. Vatic.) No further particulars connected with this Bishop of Ross have come down to us. He had for his successor the renowned Owen M'Egan, who with the title and authority of Vicar-Apostolic of this see was sent to our island by Pope Clement VIII. in 1601. A bull of the same Pontiff granting some minor benefices to the same Owen M'Egan in 1595, is preserved in the Hibernia Pacata, page 670. In it he is described as a priest of the diocese of Cork, bachelor in Theology, master of arts and "most commendable for his learning, moral conduct, and manifold virtues". Towards the close of the century he undertook a journey to Spain to procure aid for Florence M'Carthy and the other confederate princes of the South: and he himself on arriving in Ireland as Vicar-Apostolic in 1601, shared all the privations and dangers of the Catholic camp. At length, as Wadding informs us, he was mortally wounded while attending the dying soldiers, and on the 5th January, 1602-3, passed to his eternal reward. The hatred borne to him by the agents of Elizabeth is the best proof of his disinterestedness and zeal. His death, says the author of Hibernia Pacata, "was doubtlessly more beneficial to the state than to have secured the head of the most capital rebel in Munster" (page 662).

As regards the Bishops nominated by the civil power, we find one commemorated during Henry's reign. So little, however, is known about him, and that little belonging to a period when a canonically appointed Bishop held the see, that even Protestant historians scarcely allow him a place amongst the bishops of Ross. During Elizabeth's reign Dr. O'Herlihy was indeed deprived of the temporalities of the see in 1570, yet no Protestant occupant was appointed till 1582. Sir Henry Sidney wrote to her Majesty in 1576, soliciting this bishopric for a certain Cornelius, but his petition was without effect. Lyons was more successful; he not only obtained the see of Ross in 1582, but subsequently annexed to it the dioceses of Cork and Cloyne. The following extract contains the local tradition regarding the reception given to this Protestant Bishop, and has been kindly supplied by a priest of the diocese, whose parish was, in early times, the theatre of the apostolate of many a distinguished saint of our Irish Church:—

"Lyons was an apostate from the beginning; he went to England and acknowledged the Queen's supremacy, and was left in quiet possession of the revenues of the diocese till his death, a period of about thirty-five years. On his return from England he was deserted by his clergy, who secreted all the plate connected with the cathedral and monastery, as also the bells, and chimes of bells, all solid silver, which were then valued at £7,000. The commissioners subsequently hanged all the aged friars that remained, on pretence that they knew where the above-named property was concealed, and refused to reveal it. At all events, the plate remained concealed, and to this day it never has been found. Tradition says it was all buried in the strand, which contains two or three hundred acres of waste, covered by every tide, having three feet of sand in most places, and underneath a considerable depth of turf mould".

The account here given of the diocesan plate is certainly confirmed by the consistorial record already cited in the beginning of this article. Whilst, however, the clergy thus resolved to remove the sacred plate at least from the grasp of the Protestant prelate, the people were determined that the old Catholic episcopal mansion should not be contaminated by his presence. The commissioners of the crown in 1615, report that he found no house on his arrival in his see of Ross, "but only a place to build one on". They further add, that he, without delay, built a fine house for himself which cost £300, but even this "in three years was burnt down by the rebel O'Donovan"—(Records of Ross, etc., iii.-50). It will suffice to mention one other fact connected with his episcopal career. In Rymer we find a patent dated 12th June, 1595, and amongst others it is addressed to our Protestant dignitary, commissioning him "to consider and find out ways and means to people Munster with English inhabitants".—Rym., tom. 16, pag. 276.

P.F.M.

THE RULE OF ST. CARTHACH. (OB. A.D. 636.)

[The learned O'Curry, in his eighteenth lecture on the MSS. materials of Irish History, when enumerating the Ecclesiastical manuscripts, gives the second place to the ancient monastic rules. He says (page 373-4):

"The second class of these religious remains consists of the Ecclesiastical and Monastic Rules. Of these we have ancient copies of eight in Dublin; of which six are in verse, and two in prose; seven in vellum MSS., and one on paper.

"Of the authenticity of these ancient pieces there can be no reasonable doubt; the language, the style, and the matter, are quite in accordance with the times of the authors. It is hardly necessary to say that they all recite and inculcate the precise doctrines and discipline of the Catholic Church in Erinn, even as it is at this day.

"It would, as you must at once see, be quite inconsistent with the plan of these introductory Lectures to enter into details of compositions of this kind; and I shall therefore content myself by placing before you a simple list of them in the chronological order of their authors, and with a very few observations on their character by way of explanation.

"The fifth in chronological order is the Rule of St. Carthach, who was familiarly called Mochuda. He was the founder of the ancient ecclesiastical city of Raithin [near Tullamore, in the present King's County], and of the famous city of Lis Mór [Lismore, in the present county of Waterford]; he died at the latter place on the 14th day of May, in the year 636.

"This is a poem of 580 lines, divided into sections, each addressed to a different object or person. The first division consists of eight stanzas or 32 lines, inculcating the love of God and our neighbour, and the strict observance of the commandments of God, which are set out generally both in word and in spirit. The second section consists of nine stanzas, or 36 lines, on the office and duties of a bishop. The third section consists of twenty stanzas, or 80 lines, on the office and duties of the abbot of a church. The fourth section consists of seven stanzas, or 28 lines, on the office and duties of a priest. The fifth section consists of twenty-two stanzas, or 88 lines, minutely describing the office and duties of a father confessor, as well in his general character of an ordinary priest, as in his particular relation to his penitents. The sixth section consists of nineteen stanzas, or 76 lines, on the life and duties of a monk. The seventh section consists of twelve stanzas, or 48 lines, on the life and duties of the Célidhé Dé, or Culdees. The eighth section consists of thirty stanzas, or 120 lines, on the rule and order of the refectory, prayers, ablutions, vespers, and the feasts and fasts of the year. The ninth and last