The Diocese of Killaloe, Volume I: In the Eighteenth Century; Volume II: 1800-1850; Volume III: 1850-1904, by Ignatius Murphy (review)

book reviews477 century Ireland.We are fortunate in having Patrick Fagan's edition. His footnotes provide valuable biographical information on the correspondents as well as cross references to related documents in the collection. Moreover, he includes a very comprehensive index at the end ofVolume II. Thomas F. Moriarty Elms College Chicopee, Massachusetts The Diocese of Killaloe. Volume I: In the Eighteenth Century; Volume II: 1800-1850; Volume III: 1850-1904. By Ignatius Murphy. (Dublin: Four Courts Press. 1991, 1992, 1995.Pp. 373,488, 527.) These three volumes by Ignatius Murphy on the history ofthe Diocese ofKiIlaloe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are not only a very significant contribution to knowledge, but they will long remain a rich resource for all who will venture to research and write about the modern Irish Church. The Diocese of Killaloe (pronounced likeWaterloo) extends in a broad band across the middle ofIreland from the Atlantic coast eastwards to include virtually all of County Clare, the northern third ofTipperary, and a large part of King's County. In the eighteenth century, Killaloe was one of the twenty-six dioceses that constituted the Irish Church, and while it was one ofthe largest in terms ofarea and population, it was among the poorest in regard to wealth and resources. The diocese was mainly rural, containing a considerable amount of mountain and bog and only a half-dozen towns of any importance, ff Killaloe was representative of anything, therefore, in the Irish Church in the eighteenth century, it was its poverty.This continued to be the case for the greater part of the nineteenth century, and especially in the western reaches of the dioceses.These three volumes , then, are a true witness not only to the courage but to the endurance of the Catholics of Killaloe between 1700 and 1900. The recent and untimely death of the author of these volumes at the age of fifty-five in 1993 was both a sad and a serious loss for Irish historical scholarship .When Monsignor Murphy initially conceived his history of the Diocese of Killaloe, he structured it in terms of two volumes—one on the eighteenth century and the other on the nineteenth century, and he published his first volume in late 1991.The enormous amount of material available for the volume on the nineteenth century, however, had resulted in a manuscript of twenty-five chapters , compared to the ten that had comprised his very substantial first volume. Monsignor Murphy then decided to divide his manuscript into two volumes, breaking his narrative at 1850, and in late 1992 he published his second volume , 1800-1850, which consisted of the first eleven of these twenty-five chapters . By that time, however, he had learned that he was seriously ill, and set to work to prepare his third volume, 1850-1904, for publication. He proposed to revise the remaining fourteen chapters, and then write a concluding chapter 478book reviews that would serve to sum the significance ofhis work on the nineteenth century. He was only able, unfortunately, to revise the first two chapters before his death, and never wrote the concluding chapter.The diocesan publication committee , which had been formed to see the third volume through the press, wisely decided, in consultation with Monsignor Murphy before his death, to publish the fourteen chapters as they then stood, and the third volume was finally published in 1995. The first of these volumes, on the eighteenth century, is undoubtedly Monsignor Murphy's masterpiece. It is in terms ofits conceptual framework and the great learning that informs it, a model of what an artful and thoughtful historical presentation ought to be. After a graceful prologue, which sets the scene, Monsignor Murphy opens his eighteenth century in 1697 with the passing of the first ofthe penal laws affecting the Church in the banishing of all those secular clergy, bishops, deans, and vicars general, exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Ireland and all the regular clergy without exception, and closes it in 1815 with the end of the Napoleonic wars. During that extended eighteenth century,the Irish Church, and its microcosm in the Diocese ofKillaloe, emerged from the darkness of a severe persecution into the light of a...