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Rh and Emly, and three score and ten spiritual livings.’ In 1607 Archbishop Thomas Jones of Dublin gave further details, adding that, as a rule, no provision was made for divine service in his dioceses, and that those parts scarcely knew whether there was a God. Six months later Magrath was half persuaded, half forced to resign Waterford and Lismore, where he had made shameful havoc with the connivance of nominal chapters. He alienated Lismore to Raleigh for a nominal price, and kept the capitular seal of Cashel in his own hands. He was induced to accept ‘Killala and Achonry in the remotest part of Connaught, which sees have been long void, as no one of worth would take them by reason of their small value.’ Several small grants were made at the same time, but Magrath complained in 1610 that he had not received actual possession of the two sees. In 1608 a jury found that he had declared Tyrone wronged about the Bann fishery, and had credited him with ‘a better right to the crown of Ireland than any Irishman or Scottishman whatsoever.’ He denied the charge and demanded a trial, but the indictment was not proceeded with. In 1609 he was at war with George Montgomery, bishop of Derry, Clogher, and Raphoe about the lands of Termon Magrath, which were granted to his son James in the next year. At this time he generally lived on his property in Ulster, improving his talent for intrigue, and in 1610 William Knight was appointed his coadjutor at Cashel. Knight did not stay long in Ireland, having disgraced himself by appearing drunk in public. Magrath was very fond of whisky himself. Arthur Chichester, lord Chichester [q. v.], reported that Magrath was stout and wilful, his coadjutor simple and weak, with a bad pulpit delivery, and that neither of them was likely to act for the good of the church (to Salisbury, 4 Feb. 1612, State Papers). In 1611 Killala and Achonry were fully granted as promised. In 1612 Chichester condemned Magrath's evil influence, but took no decided steps against him from fear of his intriguing nature and his influence among the Ulster Irish. In 1613 he attended parliament in Dublin, and he lived till December 1622. Ware says he died in his hundredth year, and he had held his bishopric for nearly fifty-two years. He was buried in his own cathedral at Cashel, and some curious Latin lines of his composition, which were printed by Harris, are still legible on his monument. Magrath was twice married; and by his first wife, Anne or Amy O'Meara of Lisany in Tipperary, who never became a protestant, he had several sons and daughters (, i. 12), whom he enriched with the spoils of the church. Some of the sons adhered to their mother's creed.

It has been maintained that Magrath returned to the church of Rome before his death, and Brennan professes to prove this conclusively. But the documents relied on only show that the Franciscan provincial had hopes of his conversion in 1612. Another Franciscan, Mooney, who wrote in 1617, says: ‘Magrath is still alive, extremely old and bedrid; cursed by the Protestants for wasting the revenues and manors of the ancient see of Cashel, and derided by the Catholics, who are well acquainted with the drunken habits of himself and his coadjutor Knight. Nevertheless there is some reason to believe that he will return to the church; and if I be not misinformed he would now gladly exchange the rock of Cashel for the Capitoline, where he spent his youth’ (, p. 81). He certainly kept on the best possible terms with his first wife's co-religionists, and let his papal rival, Kearney, live quietly in Cashel, though he might easily have arrested him. O'Sullevan says he did not try to proselytize, nor to hunt down priests. His simony, rapacity, and evil example did incalculable harm to Irish protestantism, and Strafford spoke truly of the ‘ugly oppressions of that wicked bishop Melerus.’

 MAGUIRE, CATHAL MACMAGHNUSA (1439–1498), Irish historian, was born in 1439 on the island of Loch Erne, called in modern Irish Ballymacmanus, but in old writings Seanait, and by the English Belleisle. He was eldest son of Cathal, son of Giollapatraic. His paternal great-grandfather was Maghnus, whence his name MacMaghnusa, and Maghnus's father was Donn Carrach, who died in 1302, the first lord of Fermanagh of the Sil Uidhir, a tribe which included the MacAmhalgaidhs, MacMaghnuses, and MacCaffraidhs, as well as the Maguires. Cathal became chief of the MacMaghnus sept of the Maguires. He took orders and became rector of Inishkeen, a church in upper Loch Erne, canon of Armagh, and in 1483 archdeacon (‘fer ionait epscoib,’ erroneously translated ‘coadjutor’ by -