Tuesday 26 March 2019

Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy (IER)(2)

From the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1 (1836), at pages 375 and following:


Side Altar of Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy
in Cobh Cathedral, County Cork

I. The Pilgrim of Ivrea was an Irish bishop who died in the year 1492. The most diligent search through our Irish annals will not discover another bishop to whom even so much of the poet's description will apply but Thaddeus McCarthy, Bishop of Cloyne. About that date there were indeed in Ireland five bishops named Thaddeus: 1. Thady, Bishop of Kilmore since before 1460, but his successor Furseus died in 1464 and Thomas, the third from him, died before 1492. 2. Thady McCragh of Killaloe succeeded in 1430 full sixty years before our saint's death at Ivrea. His third successor died in 1460. 3. Thady, Bishop of Down, was consecrated in Rome 1469, died in 1486 and his successor, R. Wolsey, was named before 1492. 4. Thady of Ross died soon after his appointment in 1488 succeeded by Odo in 1489. 5. Thady of Dromore, appointed only in 1511 and the see was held by George Brown in 1492. The date 1492 is alone enough to prove that B. Thaddeus of Ivrea was not any of the preceding bishops and there was no other of the name for full sixty years after or before but the Bishop of Cork and Cloyne the date of whose death fits exactly all the requirements of the case. Ware quotes from Harold that he was appointed by Innocent VIII (sed. 1484-1492), that he succeeded W. Roch resigned 1490, and further that Gerald who succeeded resigned in 1499, after obtaining a pardon from Henry VII in 1496 (Lib. Mun., i, p. 102).

II Another line of the old fragment seems to name the see of the B. Thaddeus whom the poet describes as lamenting his death abroad far from the "solum Chariense" or "Clovinense," which we interpret far "from Kerry," the burial place of his family, and "from Cloyne," his episcopal see. Cloyne is variously Latinized, even by Irish writers, Cloynensis, Clonensis, Cluanensis, and often Clovens or Clovinen in Rymer's Foedera.* What more natural than that a poet would describe the pilgrim as longing to be buried either in his cathedral church of Cloyne or with his fathers in Kerry.

III. The passage which seems to us most decisive is that which points to the royal extraction and name of this holy bishop "Regia progenies alto de sanguine Machar." Observe how, in the notice from Harold, Bishop McCarthy was called also 'Mechar.' Clearly both were one and the same name. Thus, Mac Carthaigh, anglicised McCarthy, is pronounced Maccaura, with the last syllable short as in Ard Magha (Armagh) and numberless like words. Hence Wadding,** in speaking of the foundation of Muckross Abbey, Killarney, by Domnal McCarthy, Prince of Desmond, quotes to this effect a Bull of Paul II in 1468 in which Domnall's name is spelled Machar, a form identical with that in the contemporary fragment. In truth there is no Irish family name like "Machar" at all but "Meagher" which is invariably spelled with "O," especially in the Latinized form and the O Meaghers had no claim to royal blood.

IV. The Blessed Thaddeus was "regia progenies." Now there was no royal family name in Ireland like that in the inscription except the truly royal name made more royal still by the saintly Bishop of Cloyne. Without insisting with Keating that the ancestry of the McCarthy family could be traced through twenty eight monarchs who governed the island before the Christian era, we may assert with the Abbé MacGeoghan, in a note (tom iii, p. 680), strangely omitted by his translator, "that if regard be had to primogeniture and seniority of descent the McCarthy family is first in Ireland." Long before the founders of the oldest royal families in Europe, before Rodolph acquired the empire of Germany, or a Bourbon ascended the throne of France, the saintly Cormac McCarthy the disciple the friend and patron of St. Malachy, ruled over Munster and the title of king was at least continued in name in his posterity down to the reign of Elizabeth. Few pedigrees if any, says Sir B. Burke, "in the British empire can be traced to a more remote or exalted source than that of the Celtic house of McCarthy... They command a prominent perhaps the most prominent place in European genealogy." Plain then is it that in no other house could the "regia progenies" be verified more fully than in the McCarthy family.***

V. The date of death, the wished for burial place his native soil (Kerry) or his diocese (Cloyne) the name and royal extraction, all point to the Bishop of Cloyne as the saint whose relics are still worshipped at Ivrea. If we add that 'Chiar' is the usual Irish form of Kerry, that Domnall's (the founder of Irralagh) father's name was THADDEUS, not improbably our Saint's uncle, the evidence seems to be overwhelming.

VI. We have said there is no account in Irish writers of even the Bishop of Cloyne, except the few lines in Ware. The continental annalists of the religious orders do however speak of one celebrated Thaddeus, without mentioning his surname or country. Elsius (quoting De Ilerera and Crusen, whose works are not within our reach) notices Thaddeus de Hipporegio sive Iporegia as "a man distinguished for learning, religious observance, preaching, holiness of life and experience, a man of great zeal and a sedulous promoter of the interests of his order." He was prior, he adds, of several convents, seven times definitor, thirteen times visitator, four times president of synods, nine times vicar general and his government was ever distinguished for the greatest love of order and edifying example. See Els Encom August p. 645. After quoting these words in substance from the Augustinian chronicler, Dr. Renehan adds: "After the most diligent inquiry I could make at Ivrea, wherever I could hope for any little information, particularly at the episcopal palace where I was received with marked respect as a priest from the country that sent out the B. Thaddeus, and of the Bishop's secretary, the vicar general and many others whose kind attention I can never forget, I could find no vestige of any other Thaddeus called after the city Eporedia but our own blessed Irish bishop and I was assured, over and over again, that he was the only Thaddeus known in its annals or who ever had any connection with the town by birth, residence, death or any way known to the present generation. It is not then unreasonable to suppose that the Thaddeus so celebrated in the Augustinian Order was no other than our Bishop. True, Elsius gives 1502 for the date of the friar's demise but Elsius is never to be trusted in dates and the printer may easily take MCCCCXCII, the true date, for MCCCCCII. Indeed 1492 is not so different from 1502 that an error may not have crept in.

Dr. Renehan's theory, then, with regard to B. Thaddeus, fully detailed in the letter to the Bishop of Ivrea was this:-

Thaddeus McCarthy was born in Kerry, where the McCarthy More branch of the family resided, and where, in the monastery of Irialac (now Muckross), or in Ennisfallen (see Archdall), the princes of the house were always buried. The young Thaddeus went abroad at an early age and embraced the monastic life. His virtues and piety soon attracted the notice of his religious brethren, as manifest from their chronicles. They became in time known to the ruling Pontiff Innocent VIII who raised him to the episcopal dignity. The B. Thaddeus repaired to Rome, in the first place to receive consecration and jurisdiction from the successor of St. Peter, imitating in this the example of our great patron saint. He stopped at Ivrea, probably on his way home, fell sick there and died, God witnessing to His servant by signs and wonders. The silence of our annalists is thus accounted for to a great extent by the long residence of B. Thaddeus abroad. This theory is remarkably borne out by the independent notice in last Record. Having little to help us to arrive at any correct notion of the saintly bishop's life beyond the epitaph and the slender tradition at Ivrea, we entirely subscribe to this view. Other sources of information may be opened now that we have ventured to bring for the first time the name of B. Thaddeus before the Irish Catholic people, and for this service, little as it is, and entirely unworthy of our saintly bishop, we still expect his blessing in full measure.

Footnotes

*Clove CIoyne fiymer's Foedera Tom v par iv p 105 Lib Mun Tom i par iv p 102
**"Maccarthy=Carthy=Macare=Maccar." Wadd. Annal. Min. ad. an. 1340 n. 25, ed. Roman, tom. viii, p. 241; ibid tom. xiii, p. 432, et pp. 558-9.
***"Kings of the McCarthy race," Annuls of Innisfallen, ad an. 1106, p. 106, an 1108, 1110, 1176. Annals of Boyle, an. 1138, 1185. Annals of Ulster, an. 1022-3, 1124. Gir. Cambr. lib. i, cap iii. S. Bernard in Vit. Malac., cap. iv. "Their burial place," Archdall Monast. Hib. pp. 302, 303.

Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy (IER)(1)

From the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1 (1836), at pages 375 and following:

 
The Reliquary of Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy
In the North Cathedral, Cork City

BLESSED THADDEUS McCARTHY

In an article of the Record for April page 312 we briefly referred to a Bishop of Cloyne and Cork who is venerated as blessed in Ivrea a town of Piedmont. In conformity with the few fragments preserved in the archives of Ivrea and elsewhere regarding him we adopted the opinion that his name according to modern orthography should be rendered Thaddeus Maher. Since the publication of the article just mentioned a paper containing much valuable matter has been communicated to us through the great kindness of the Very Rev. Dr. McCarthy, the learned Professor of Scripture in Maynooth College, who had prepared it long before the article in the Record was published and before he could have had any knowledge of our views on this subject. We are anxious to publish every document that we can find on this interesting question in the hope that by discussing it light may be thrown on the history of a holy Irish bishop who is honoured beyond the Alps but so little known at home that there is great difficulty in determining his real name. In one of our next numbers we shall return to this subject.

On June 23rd 1847 the Most Rev Dr Murray Archbishop of Dublin received at Maynooth a letter covering a bill of exchange for £40 (1,000 francs) sent for the relief of the famine stricken poor of Ireland by order of the good Bishop of Ivrea. The town of Ivrea anciently Eporedia is the capital of the Piedmontese province of the same name which extends from the Po to the Alps. The province contains a population of over one hundred thousand of whom about eight thousand reside in the town where is also the bishop's see. The letter to Dr. Murray enclosed a separate paper of which the following is a copy:-

De Beato Thaddeo Episcopo Hiberniae

Anno Domini millesimo quadringentesimo nonagesimo secundo, die vigesima quarta Octobris, Eporediae (antiquae urbis Transalpinae in Pedemontio) postremum obiit diem in hospitio peregrinorum sub titulo Sancti Antonii, quidam viator incognitos; atque eodem instante lux mira prope lectum in quo jacebat effulsit, et Episcopo Eporediensi apparuit homo venerandus, Pontifi calibus indumentis vestitus THADDEUM MACHAR Hiberniae Episcopum ilium esse innotirit ex chartis quas deferebat, et in Cathedrali ejus corpus solemni pompa depositum est snb altari, et in tumulo Sancti Eusebii Episcopi Epbrediensis, atque post paucos dies coepitmulta miracula facere.

Acta et documenta ex quibus ejus patria et character episcopalis tune innotuerunt, necnon ad patratorum miraculorum seu prodigiorum memoriam exarata, interierunt occasione incendii quo seculo xvii. Archivium Episcopate vastatum est. In qua darn charta pergamena caracteribus Gothicis scripta, quae in Archivio Ecclesiae Cathedralis servatur haec leguntur:

"Marmoreis tumulis hoc templo Virginis altuae Corpora Sanctorum plura sepulta jacent Martinus hic...
"Inde Thaddeus adest quern misit Hibernia praesul
Sospite quo venit saepe petita salus
Regia progenies alto de sanguine Machar,
Quern nostri in Genua nunc Latiique vocant.
Ingemuit moriens quem Hiberno sidere cretum
Non Cariense tenet, non Clovinense solum.
Sic visum superis; urbs Eporedia corpus
Templo majore marmoreo claudat opus.
Hicjacet Eusebii testudinis ipse sacello,
Pauperiem Christi divitis inde tulit.
Hunc clarum reddunt miracula sancta: beatus
Exstat et in toto dicitur orbe pius.
Huc quicunque venis divum venerare Thaddeum
Votaque fac precibus: dicque viator, Ave.
Mille quadringentos annos tune orbis agebat
Atque Nonagenos: postmodum junge duos."
 
Verbis illis solum Cariense vel Cloviense et Clovinense desi nari a poeta civitates Hibemiae in quibus Thaddeus aut natus aut Episcopus fuerit, putandum est forsan Clareh, Carrick.

Quamobrem exquiritur utrmm in Hibernia habeatur notitia hujus Episcopi THADDEI MACHAII - loci ubi natus fuerit, - ejus familiae quae regia seu princepssupponitur in poesi, - civitatis seu ecclesiae in qua fuerit Episcopus. Desiderantur quoque notitiae si quae repenri poterunt et documenta quibus illius vita et gesta illustrari possint; insuper utrum labente saeculo xv. an qua persecutio in Hibernia ad versus Episcopos facta sit, quemadmodum argumentari licet ex quibusdam Epistolis Innocentii VIII. circa immunitatem ecclesiasticam. (End of paper)

As our space precludes a literal translation of this paper a summary may be acceptable to the reader:

On the 24th of October 1492 died at Ivrea in St. Antony's Hospice for Pilgrims Blessed Thaddeus, an Irish bishop, whose body was deposited under the high altar of the cathedral in a shrine over the relics of the holy patron St. Eusebius. At the time of death a brilliant light was seen round his bed and at the same moment to the Bishop of Ivrea there appeared a man of venerable mien clothed in pontifical robes. Several other miracles were also wrought through his intercession. The papers found with him showed he was an Irish bishop and these as well as other documents proving his great sanctity religiously kept in the episcopal archives were destroyed by fire in the seventeenth century. In an old parchment written in Gothic letters still preserved in the archives of the cathedral church are these lines:

Neath marble tombs in this the virgjn's shrine
The bones of many a saint in peace recline
Here martyred Thaddeus there
From Erin's shore he came
A bishop of McCarthy's royal name
At whose behest were wondrous cures oft made
Still Latium Genoa invoke his aid
Dying he mourned that not on Irish soil
Where sped his youth should close his earthly toil
Nor Cloyne nor Kerry but Ivrea owns
For God so willed the saintly bishop's bones
'Tis meet that they in marble shrine encased
Should be within the great cathedral placed
Like Christ whose tomb was for another made
He in Eusebius cenotaph is laid
Soon sacred prodigies his power attest
And all the Earth proclaims him pious blest
O ye who hither come our saint assail
With prayers and votive gifts nor traveller fail
To greet with reverence the holy dead
Since Christ was born a thousand years had fled
Four hundred then and ninety two bacide
Had passed away when St. Thaddeus died.

When Dr Murray received the Bishop of Ivrea's letter he placed it in the hands of the late venerated President of Maynooth College from whose MSS it is now copied together with the very literal translation of the verses made by one of the junior students at the time Dr. Renehan undertook to collect all the notices of Blessed Thaddeus in our Irish annals and to give the best answers he could to the bishop's questions. He even visited Ivrea in the summer of 1850 in the hope of finding traditional records of the life of Blessed Thaddeus but to no purpose. He found the task more difficult than might be expected. All the knowledge regarding the saint's family, see, etc., that can be gathered from Irish or British sources is found in these few lines from Ware on the Bishops of Cloyne:

"THADY McCARTHY succ. 1490. Upon the resignation of William, Thady McCarthy, by some called Mechar, succeeded the same year by a provision from Pope Innocent VIII as may be seen from the Collectanea of Francis Harold" Ware's Bishops (Harris) p. 563

The Blessed Thaddeus's name is unhonoured then in his own country; his biography if ever written is at least not recorded by the Irish historians. Even the scanty information which the industrious Ware supplies was gleaned not from our annals but from Harold's Collectanea probably notes and extracts taken from documents in the continental libraries. Dr. Renehan had therefore little to add on our saint's life. He was however fully satisfied that Blessed Thaddeus of Ivrea was no other than the Bishop of Cork and Cloyne mentioned by Ware. His arguments may be seen in a rough outline of his answer to the Bishop of Ivrea's letter among the O'Renehan MSS in Maynooth, almost the only authority we had time to consult for this notice. Sometimes the very words of the letter are given in inverted commas:-