WATERFORD
665
WATERFORD
addition to the secular clergy, there are three houses
of Franciscans, a Cistercian abbey, and one commu-
nity each of i)ominicans, Augustinians, Fathers of
Charity, and Congregation of the Divine Pastor.
There are thirty houses of nuns and ten of brothers,
including the (Irish) Christian Brothers, whose
l)arent house is
Waterford, and
the Brothers of
the Christian
Schools (de La
Salle). The fol-
lowing orders or
congregations of
nuns are repre-
sented: Presenta-
tion; Ursuline ;
Our Lady of
Mercy; Sisters of
the Poor; Good
Shepherd; Sisters
of Charity; Lo-
reto; Carmelite;
Sisters of St. John
of God; Sisters of
Le Bon Sauveur;
and Sisters of St.
Joseph of Cluny. All the communities of brothers
and the majority of the female religious are engaged
in educational work.
It is probable that the region of Decies received its first Christian message — presumably from Britain — ■ previous to the advent of St. Patrick. The Life of St. Declan (cf. Plummer and the BoUandists) places the preaching of Declan in the early fifth century, before St. Patrick had liglited his Pa.schal fire at Slane. The chronology of Declan's life is very confused, and first- class authority is available for the opinion that Declan's mission was subsequent to Patrick's. But it is quite certain that at this period there was con- siderable intercourse between Wales and the south- east coast of Ireland. Controversy ceases when we come to St. Carthage, who established himself at Lismore and founded a great school there in 630. Long before that event, Lismore had been the seat of a religious establishment, for four early abbots, predecessors of St. Carthage, are mentioned (Colgan, "Acta Sanctorum", and "Annals of the Four Mas- ters"). It maybe, however, that the abbots in ques- tion belonged not to the Irish but to a Scottish Lis- more. Lismore gradually became the acknowledged ecclesiastical capital of the Decies. There were other bishops and episcopal churches OTthin the region in Celtic times, but there docs not appear to have been anything approaching to episcopal suc- ces.sion in these instances, if we except the case of St. Declan's Church of .Vrdmore. It ha.s been contended that the ancient deaneries represent these early epis- cojial churches. They probably represent the chief of them, but certainly they do not represent them all. In Waterford and Lismore the ancient deaneries were: Waterford, Kilbarrymeaden, Ardmore, Lismore, Ardfinan, and Kil.sheelan. Up to the S\Tiod of Rath- brca.sil (1110) we have the names of twelve abbots or abbot-bishops who sat in the chair of Carthage at Lismore. Presuming succession to have been con- tinuous during the period, there must be many others whose names are lost. Some of the recorded succrs sorg in question are catalogued as saints in the Irish martjTologies, e. g. Cuanan. Cronan, Mocholomog etc. At the 8>Tiod just named Irish episcopal juris- diction was more clearly defined and diocesan boun- daries formally aligned. The Bishop of Lismore at the time of the SjTiod of Rathbreasil was Nial Mac- Aeducan, whose episcopal .staff, inscribed with his name and covered with Celtic ornament, is still preserved at Lismore.
Keating has doubts that a Diocese of Waterford,
as distinct from Lismore, was recognized at Rath-
breasil. But Waterford was recognized as an inde-
pendent see forty-two years later, when its bishop
assisted at the Synod of KeUs. Unseemly disputes
between Waterford and Lismore paved the way for a
union of the sees on the death of the last Bishop of
Waterford, Roger Cradock, in 1362. Waterford was
the smallest diocese in Ireland, embracing an area of
only twelve miles by nine; it included Httle more, in
fact, than the city of Waterford and the adjoining
cantred of the Danes. Its history is peculiar; the
Christianized Ostmen of the city determined, towards
the close of the eleventh century, to set up a bishop
and cathedral of their own, and the racial friction
between them and their Celtic neighbours is reflected
in their method of procedure on the occasion. Having
chosen one Malchus, a monk of Winchester in Eng-
land, to be their first bishop, they sent him for conse-
cration — not to C^ashel or Lismore — but to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury. It was during the incumbency
of Malchus (1096-1110) that the cathedral was
erected by the Ostmen citizens, on the same plan and
of the same dimensions as the Danish Christ Church
of Dublin. This building, dedicated to the Holy
Trinity, was not allowed to survive long in its original
plan; a practically new cathedral was erected early
in the thirteenth century, and survived till 1770. The
original endowment of the cathedral may have been
meagre or precarious; at any rate there was a re-en-
dowment by King John — probably on completion of
the second cathedral. Then too its first dean was
appointed, and a formal confirmation of its statutes
and possessions made by Innocent III.
Among the more noted bishops of the see up to the time of its union with Lismore may be mentioned: David the Welshman, who was killed bv O'Phelan (1207); Robert (1210-22), who commenced the century-long quarrel with Lismore which led to his excommunication and to his death from grief; Stephen of Fulburn (1373-86), who became Lord Justice or Chief Governor of Ireland, and established a mint for coinage of "a new kind of money" in his episcopal city; Roger Cradock (13.50-0)2), between whom and the Archbishop of Cashel there arose liti- gation, because of Roger's action in executing two Irishmen for heresy at Bunratty Castle.
Though the sees were formally united in 1362, they continued to have separate cathedrals and chapters down to the suppression. During the period from the union of the sees to the Reformation, Lismore was regarded as the senior partner, and the title of the diocese in papal documents ran "Lismore and Water- ford". Of its bishops we have httle information beyond what we can glean from occasional references in state papers. The majority of them bear English names; in fact, there is only one — Nicholas O'Hennes- sey — with a distinctly Irish cognomen; three— Purcell, Power, and Cantwell — are Xorman-Irish. Nicholas Comin, the bishop of the suppression period, had an unusually long reign if, as Brady states, he resigned only in 1551, for he was translated from Ferns to Waterford as early as 1519, and the latter year was the tenth from his consecration as bishop. The history of this Bishop Comin is not at all clear. He appears to have been an Englishman; he was conse- crated in St. Paul's, London. His name does not appear in the Bull nominating his successor; instead we have the name of his predecessor, Thomas Pur- cell, who resigned in 1519. It was probably during Comin'a episcopate that the famous vestments of Flemi.sh work, still preserved in Waterford cath<Mlral, were presented to that church by the king. These consist of four copes, two dalmatics, and one chasuble, with stoles and maniples richly WTOught with silver gilt ribbons twisted around silk thread on a ground of Genoese velvet, and are valued at thousands of
