From Fr. Thomas Walsh's History of the Irish hierarchy: with the monasteries of each county, biographical notices of the Irish Saints, prelates, and religious, 1856, c. xx, pps. 196-200.
Bishops of Cashel
Its founder Cormac MacCullenan king of Munster and bishop of Cashel. His transactions already noticed.
Donald O'Hene who sat in Cormac's chair died in the year 1098 according to the Four Masters who say of him that he was descended of the family of the Dalcassians that he was the fountain of religion in the western parts of Europe second to no Irishman in wisdom and piety, that he was the most learned doctor of Ireland in the Roman law and died on the 1st of December. He assisted at a council held in Ireland AD 1096 in which Waterford was erected into a bishopric.
Miler O'Dunan died at Clonard on the 24th of December 1118 in the seventy seventh year of his age and the most pious man in the western world.
Malisa O'Foglada died in 1131.
Donatus O Conding died in 1137. He was a prelate celebrated for his devotion wisdom and alms deeds.
Donatus O'Lonargan I sat in 1152 and departed life in 1158. In the annals of the Island of All Saints, Donatus is styled arch-elder of Munster, a learned and liberal man especially to the poor. In the incumbency of Donatus, the see of Cashel was raised to the rank of metropolitan at the synod of Kells held in 1152.
Donald O'Hullucan succeeded in 1158.
During his incumbency a synod was held at Cashel by command of King Henry in which Christian O'Conarchy, the legate of Ireland and bishop of Lismore, presided in order to regulate some affairs of ecclesiastical discipline. It has been said that the archbishops and bishops of Ireland, besides the abbots, attended but it is certain that the primate Gelasius or his suffragans of Ulster did not attend, if we may except the bishop of Clogher. The archbishops of Dublin, Cashel and Tuam are said to have assisted with their suffragans, abbots and archdeacons. On the part of Henry were Ralph, archdeacon of Landaff, his chaplain Nicholas and some other ecclesiastics. First decree for the reformation of the abuses prevalent in the Irish church and which the emissaries of England were so intent on reforming, that children should be brought to the church and baptized there in clean water with the triple immersion and that this act should be performed by the priests unless in cases of imminent danger of death and then by any one without distinction of sex or order.
2d It was ordered that tithes should be paid to the churches out of every sort of property.
3d That all laymen who wish to take wives should take them according to the canon law which prohibited marriages within certain degrees of consanguinity or affinity.
4th That all ecclesiastical lands and property connected with them should be exempt from the exactions of laymen.
5th That in case of murder by laymen and of composition on their part with their enemies clergymen the relations of such are not to pay part of the fine &c.
6th That all the faithful lying in sickness do in the presence of their confessor and neighbors make their will with due solemnity.
7th That due respect be paid to those who die after a good confession by means of Masses, vigils and decent burial and likewise that all divine matters be henceforth conducted agreeably to the practices of the holy Anglican Church.
These decrees, the only ones that emanated from the synod, were confirmed by the king and subscribed by its members. Such an important reform in the abuses of the Irish Church must have been highly gratifying to the royal zeal of Henry who was, sometime before, accessory to the death of St Thomas a Becket, because that holy prelate would not allow him to invade the sanctuary of the church which he was bound to protect and defend. In the transactions of the synod his stipulation with Pope Adrian concerning the payment of Peter pence is entirely lost sight of but the crafty monarch in order to gain them over to his views paid great attention to the privileges and immunities of the clergy, though he had been laboring at home to circumscribe the rights of their brethren in England. The canons of this council, the ones relative to baptism and to the celebration of marriage, form the groundwork of slander against the Irish Church. Another clerical defamer, John Brompton, a Cistercian monk, introduces a barefaced calumny on the subject of marriage. Hitherto, Lanfranc nor Anselm of Canterbury, nor St. Bernard nor Gerald Barry accuse the Irish with polygamy, they may have complained against the practice of marrying within the prohibited degrees nor was it an easy undertaking to put a stop to these intermarriages in Ireland because of the system of clanship and of the Irish laws relative to the right by which landed property was held and to the rules of succession thereto. The charge of polygamy is an atrocious one invented for the sole purpose of vilifying the Irish people. There is not the least foundation for it in any portion of the ecclesiastical history of Ireland.
With regard to the administration of baptism it was conferred in the churches when Christianity was well established. Thus it is mentioned in the life of St. Finnian that some women were carrying him to the church of Roscur to be there baptized by the bishop Forchern and that they were met by a St. Abban who stopped those females and baptized Finnian in the water of two united rivers. St. Patrick used to baptize his converts in rivers lakes and fountains. It is also related of St. Senan that his parents took him to the church. Some negligence may have crept in with regard to the conferring of baptism out of the churches, which the synod wished to redress.
Another abuse which is alleged was that of baptizing the children of the rich in milk instead of water. St. Adamnan, in his life of Columbkille, relates that when he was traveling through the country of the Picts an infant was presented by his parents for baptism and that as there was no water in the neighborhood the Saint prayed for a while upon a rock and blessed a part of it whence water immediately flowed in abundance with which he baptized the infant. Had the practice of baptizing with milk prevailed among the Irish, how has it escaped St. Bernard, Lanfranc or Anselm and above all the searching eye of Gerald Barry. St. Jerome observes that milk and wine the former denoting their innocence used to be given to newly baptized infants, in the western churches in some churches honey was given instead of wine. A similar custom in Ireland could be mistaken or misrepresented, nor is it true that the Irish people were careless in having their children baptized by clergymen. St. Fursey was three days after his birth baptized by St. Brendan of Clonfert. St. Fintan of Cluain edneach, on the eighth day of his birth, was baptized by a holy man who lived in a place called Cluain mic treoin. St. Lawrence O'Toole was baptized by the bishop of Kildare. In the 24th and 27th canons of the Synod called that of St. Patrick, Auxilius and Iserninus, it is ordered that no stranger do baptize or offer the holy mysteries without the permission of the bishop.
King Henry sent to the Pope certain letters it is said of all the archbishops and bishops of Ireland the synod having terminated its labors recognizing his power over the nation. We have already seen that the Primate Gelasius and his suffragans did not attend the synod of Cashel. He may have at a later period forwarded letters containing copies of those admirable decrees and an account of certain practices which might induce the pontiff to sanction his views. Be this as it may the decrees produced no effect in Ireland and were disregarded by the Irish clergy as if the synod had never been convoked. The Archbishop Donald in whose incumbency those transactions took place died in the year 1182. Three years before his death Cashel was destroyed by fire.
Maurice succeeded in 1182 and died in 1191, was a man of learning and wisdom according to Cambrensis Gerald having taunted the Irish Church with having no martyrs the archbishop replied. Though says he our country be looked upon as barbarous uncultivated and cruel yet they always have paid reverence and honor to ecclesiastics and never could stretch out their hands against the saints of God. But now there is come a people who know how and are accustomed to make martyrs. Henceforth Ireland like other countries shall have hers.
Mathew O'Heney succeeded in 1192 and was appointed legate apostolic of Ireland by Pope Celestine III. Mathew was a Cistercian monk He convened a synod at Dublin in the year of his appointment and at which the best men of Ireland attended. Mathew was the author of the life of St. Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, whom English writers claim as a native of England. He was born at Kells in the county of Meath according to the annals of St Mary's Abbey near Dublin. But it is more probable that he was born in the kingdom of Northumbria. Benedict XIV in his decree regarding the offices of Irish saints enumerates St. Cuthbert among the national ones of Ireland. In the annals Four Masters is recorded the following eulogy of the illustrious Mathew O'Heney in the year 1206: "Mathew archbishop of Cashel and legate of Ireland, the wisest and most religious man of the natives of that country, having founded many churches having triumphed over the old enemy of mankind by working many miracles, voluntarily abandoning all worldly pomp happily went to rest in the Abbey of the Holy cross in the county of Tipperary."
Donagh O'Lonergan II a Cistercian monk succeeded in 1206. Pope Innocent III gave him the pallium and confirmed the possessions of the see of Cashel on the 6th of April 1210. In the Pope's letters Donatus receives instructions as to his behavior in so holy a clothing and the pontiff points out the festivals on which he should wear this badge of dignity and jurisdiction and moreover desires when he or any of his suffragans should die that their pastoral staff and ring should remain in its proper church under a faithful guardian for the use of the successor. That he should take care the churchyards and ecclesiastical benefices should not be possessed by hereditary right and should any attempt of this sort be made to have them restrained by ecclesiastical censures. The annals of Ulster affirm that this archbishop assisted at the council of Lateran in Rome AD 1215 and died there, yet it is said that he was buried in the conventual church of Cisteaux in Burgundy on the gospel side of the great altar.
Donat O'Lonargan III succeeded in 1216. He is said to have erected Cashel into a borough and to have given burgage holdings to the burgesses. Donatus with the consent of the Pope resigned the archbishopric in 1223. Some time before his resignation he interdicted the king's tenants and lands within his diocese upon which the king appealed to Pope Honorius III who enjoined Donatus to relax the interdict in fifteen days and in case of refusal authorized the bishops of Kildare, Meath and Ossory to do so. He survived his abdication nine years and died in 1232.
