108 Proceedings of the Rojinl Irish Academy. 



priest and without dispensation, whereupon the Pope ordered that the parish 

 be assigned to Donald Ogradi, clerk, of the said diocese. Cornelius protested 

 that he had never held nor did then hold, and that neither witliin the 

 memory of man nor at that present time was there or had there been any 

 parish church so called ; and that he merely held a certain chapel without 

 cure within the bounds of the parish of Inis (-ealtra, from which apparently 

 he derived a certaia profit from burial fees, &c. This chapel, we learn from 

 the second letter, was situate on the side of the lake, and within the bounds 

 of the parish church situate on the island called '" Ynikealtri " on the said 

 lake. He feared lest he should be disturbed by Ogi'adi on account of the 

 mandate to deprive him of the alleged but non-existent parish. It is not 

 difficult to detect the cloven hoof of tlie self-seeking iaformer in these two 

 letters, but we are pleased to find that the matter seems to have been settled 

 to the satisfaction of Cornelius of the impossible name [Ta Maoil-Mhichil??]. 

 and that he was ordered to be left in peace in the enjoyment of his chapel. 



In 1422 we find a letter' addressed to the priory of St John, Nenagh, in 

 the diocese of Killaloe, the Chancellor of Killaloe, and Edmund de Burgo, 

 Canon of Tuam, regarding one Thomas Ohurryle. This person had the 

 misfortune to be the son of a priest named Donatus Ohurryle and an 

 unmai^ied woman ; but he had received papal dispensation to be promoted 

 to Holy Orders, and to hold a benefice with cure. A mandate is accordingly 

 sent to the officials named " to collate and assign the said Thomas Ohurryle 

 to the perpetual vicarage of Iniskealltra, in the said diocese, to which a 

 number of chapels are subject, and whose value does not exceed eight marks, 

 void by the death of Eneas Oflaferthaych [sic\, the said Donatus Ohurryle, 

 who unlawfully retains possession, being removed : whether it became void 

 as stated, or because Donald Macnesbuchb[s/c] held it for more than a year 

 without having himself advanced priest and without dispensation." All tliis 

 is a little complicated, but the course of events seems to have been that 

 Aonghus ua Flaithbhertaigh died in or about the year 1420 ; that Domhnall 

 mac Giolla an Easpuig then held the vicarage, but, being in deacon's orders 

 only, became disqualified from continuing in oftice; that Domhnall ua 

 Muirthuile then obtained the cure, but, on account of his scandalous life, is 

 hereby ejected in favour of his son Tomas. That is the best I can make of it, 

 but I daresay some historian, better accustomed to ecclesiastical documents 

 of this nature than I can claim to be, would be able to improve on my 

 attempt at an exegesis. 



The dilapidated state of the churches, and especially the smashed-np 



' Papal LettcrR, vii, ji. 265. 



