James Gallagher (bishop)

James Gallagher (died 1751), was a Roman Catholic bishop.

Life

Gallagher was a member of the Ulster sept of O'Galchobhair, anglicised Gallagher. He was born about 1684, possibly near Kinlough, Leitrim, and was educated at the Irish College in Paris, where he received an MA in 1715. He entered the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church, and was consecrated Bishop of Raphoe, Donegal, in November 1725 at Drogheda.[1]

Gallagher administered his diocese until 1735, when he left due to threats to his safety in regards to the penal laws. It has been reported that he went to an island in Lough Erne, where he worked on the sermons which he published the following year. In May 1737 Gallagher was translated from the bishopric of Raphoe to that of Kildare,[1] and in the same year he was appointed administrator of the diocese of Leighlin.

In April 1741 Gallagher, then at Paris, was one of four bishops gave a certificate of approval regarding Andrew Donlevy's Irish-English catechism of the Christian Doctrine.[1] This work, with Gallagher's certificate prefixed, was printed in the following year at Paris by James Guerin.

Gallagher succeeded in evading the penal laws against Roman catholic ecclesiastics, and died in May 1751.

Works

In 1736 he published at Dublin Sixteen Irish Sermons, in an easy and familiar stile, on useful and necessary subjects, in English characters, as being the more familiar to the generality of our Irish clergy. In his preface the author mentioned that he had composed those discourses principally for the use of his fellow-labourers, to be preached to their respective flocks, as his repeated troubles debarred him "of the comfort of delivering them in person". He added:

I have made them in an easy and familiar style, and of purpose omitted cramp expressions which be obscure to both the preacher and hearer. Nay, instead of such, I have sometimes made use of words borrowed from the English which practice and daily conversation have intermixed with our language.

Several editions of his sermons were published, the latest of which was that issued at Dublin in 1877, with an English translation.

gollark: If we don't tell the computer about them, it's fine.
gollark: Don't tell anyone or they might notice.
gollark: Also, there's an unprocessed application.
gollark: I am ABSTAINING, bee.
gollark: So just me, more or less than 22.7%, or 22.7%, of the time.

References
  1. Mac Murchaidh, Ciarán. "Notes on the Use of the Bible in the Sermons of James Gallagher", Ireland and the Reception of the Bible: Social and Cultural Perspectives, (Bradford A. Anderson, Jonathan Kearney, eds.), Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018ISBN 9780567678881

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Gallagher, James". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.