Count For 0 Donel· The See BY FATHER TERENCE O'DONNELL, 0.F.M. I Proposes A Of Raphoe Coadjutor ( 1777) nefices or occupy sees in their !-tingdoms. Nor would a Norman - that is, an Anglo-Irish - cleric be anxious to live under the rule of a Gaelic rhiefJus patronatus, that is, the right tain. But when the tide of eff.ective of a Jay ruler to nominate clerics to English conquest began to reach out benefices i11 his territory, or ,at least to the four corners of the country; and the claim of a prince or chieftain to ex- when native ru)ers were engaged in a ercise some control ove.:: ecclesiastical life-and-death struggle for their anappointments, has long been tolerated cient liberties, the question of eccleshy the Ch~!ch. It is a privilege that iastical appointments assumed a ne.w has long survived the disappearance importance. For the Irish chieftain it of the peculiar circumstances that first was now, if never before, imperative gave rise to iL T?-day it is unknown that local prelates should share to the in l!"eiand; but in form~r times, espec- full his political views and aspirations. ially in pre-Refor~ation clays, jus Hugh O'Neill c.~nd Hugh Roe patronatus, or 'right of patronage/ was O'Donnell. the last native leaders to claimed and exercised in this country. make an :;ill-out effort to re-establish The Normans, familiar with the a free Gaelic state in Ireh::.::.~d, were: practice on the continent and in Eng- particularly anxious that none but land, certainly favoured it when they bishops whom they could trust ·shouid overran Ireland. In doing so their mo- fill th~ Sees of Ulster and Connacht--·· tives were purely political. The better the territories where their authority to spread their own Norman ways and was most firmly established. Accordinstitutions they sought to exclude ingly we find them petitioning the priests of purely Gaelic stock, and Holy See to ,gr3nt them the jus pat~ hence of Gaelic cultur:'. t~aditions andj ronatus, ·or rather to confirm th~t outlook, from the territories they had right previously possessed by their carved out for themselves. That was predecessors. In a long draft-instruc'": the spirit hehind the Statute Of Kil- tion prepared seemingly by Archkenny. bi~hop Peter Lombard about autumn, Native chieftains, on the other 1600, for submission to Pope Clement hand, so long as they remained the VIII, and containing recommendations · effective rulers of thel:.- territories, for the guidance of a nuncio to be apcan hardly have ·seen much point in pointed to Ireland, it is stated : 'The claiming for themselves a similar con- sa.me Prince O'Neill and Prince O'Doncession; for they would permit none but nell, and the other chie:!tains request· native priests and prelates to fill be- that, in order to obviate such abuses 471.
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