Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/438

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in their extant versions are in the dialect of Louth, which he may have adopted from long residence in the district, unless, indeed, some local scribe, and not the author, is responsible. He died 5 April 1768 at Friarstown in the townland of Shean, near Forkhill, co. Armagh. He was buried near the north-east wall of the churchyard of Urney, co. Louth, three miles north of Dundalk. The parish priest of Forkhill, Father Healy, had so great a respect for his learning and virtues that when dying he desired to be buried in O'Doirnin's tomb, and this wish was carried out.

[O'Daly's Poets and Poetry of Munster, Dublin, 1849; Works; information from S. H. O'Grady; Reeves MS. in Cambridge University Library.]

N. M.

O'DOMHNUILL, WILLIAM (d. 1628), archbishop of Tuam. [See Daniel.]

ODONE, WILLIAM of (d. 1298), archbishop of Dublin. [See Hothum.]

O'DONNEL, JAMES LOUIS (1738–1811), ‘the Apostle of Newfoundland,’ was born at Knocklofty, Tipperary, in 1738. At the age of eighteen he left Ireland and entered the Franciscan convent of St. Isidore at Rome. He was afterwards sent to Bohemia, and was ordained priest at Prague in 1770. In 1775 he returned to Ireland and settled at Waterford. In 1779 he was appointed prior of the Franciscan house there, and subsequently became provincial of the order in Ireland.

In 1784, at the request of the leading Newfoundland merchants and their agents at Waterford, O'Donnel was sent out to Newfoundland as prefect and vicar-apostolic. He was the first fully accredited Roman catholic priest who had appeared in the island. He obtained permission to build churches and schools, and did his utmost to diminish sectarian animosities.

On 21 Sept. 1796 he was consecrated at Quebec titular bishop of Thyatira, and on his return to Newfoundland made his first episcopal visitation. In 1801 he published a body of diocesan statutes, and divided the diocese into missions, he himself, owing to the paucity of clergy, being obliged to act as a mission-priest. During succeeding years he used his influence among the Roman catholics to check disaffection to the government. In 1800 O'Donnel discovered and reported to the commandant, Major-general Skerret, a projected mutiny among the soldiers of the Newfoundland regiment stationed at St. John's. The government awarded him a life pension of 50l. for his important service to the colony, and his position in Newfoundland was thenceforth equal in everything but name to that of the governor. O'Donnel's missionary exertions wore out his health, and in 1807 he was obliged to resign his see and return to Ireland.

He spent his last years at Waterford, where he was known as a learned and eloquent preacher, and died there on 15 April 1811.

[Gent. Mag. 1811, i. 497, copied in Ryan's Biographia Hibernica; Hatton and Harvey's Newfoundland, pp. 70, 84–5; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography (not strictly accurate in details).]

G. Le G. N.

O'DONNELL, CALVAGH (d. 1566), lord of Tyrconnel, was the eldest son of Manus O'Donnell [q. v.] by his first wife, Joan, daughter of O'Reilly. He took an active part with his father in the wars against the O'Conors, the O'Cahans, and MacQuillins. It is not easy to explain the reason of Calvagh's subsequent quarrel with his father. Probably jealousy of his half-brother Hugh's influence was the principal motive. Anyhow, about 1547 he tried to assert his claim to the leadership of the clan, but without immediate success; for in the following year he and his ally, O'Cahan, were defeated by Manus O'Donnell at Strath-bo-Fiaich, near Ballybofey. In consequence of the disorders which their rivalry created, O'Donnell and his father were summoned to Dublin in July 1549 by the lord-deputy, Sir Edward Bellingham, and a decision given on the whole favourable to Calvagh, to whom the castle of Lifford, the main point in dispute, was assigned (Cal. Carew MSS. i. 220). But it was not long before disturbances broke out afresh, and, after an ineffectual effort on the part of St. Leger to arrange their differences, Calvagh in 1554 went to Scotland to claim the proffered assistance of James MacDonnell of Isla, elder brother of Sorley Boy MacDonnell [q. v.], who was anxious to form an alliance against the O'Neills in order to obtain a secure footing on the coast of Antrim. Returning early in the following year with a large body of redshanks, he overran Tyrconnel, captured his father, whom he placed in confinement, and assumed the government of the country. His conduct brought him into collision with his brother Hugh, who appealed for assistance to Shane O'Neill [q. v.] Nothing loth of an occasion to interfere, and in the hope of asserting his supremacy over the whole of Ulster, Shane in 1557 assembled a large army at Carriglea, in the neighbourhood of Strabane. Here, however, he was surprised and utterly routed by Calvagh.