Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, born at Ballyhaise, co. Cavan, Ireland, on the 8th of April 1853. After a distinguished career at Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his degree in 1872, he was ordained in 1876. From 1885 to 1897 he was vicar of Holywood, co. Down. In 1896 he became honourable secretary of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland, becoming in the same year a canon of St. Patrick’s cathedral. In 1897 he was elected Bishop of Ossory, was translated in 1907 to the see of Down, and in 1911 succeeded Dr. Alexander as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. In 1912 he took a conspicuous part in the agitation against the Home Rule bill, and presided over the monster meeting of Unionists held at Balmoral, Belfast, on Easter Tuesday. In the Irish Convention of 1917–18, he and Dr. J. H. Bernard (then Archbishop of Dublin), represented the Church of Ireland. At the close of the Convention the Archbishop joined Dr. Mahaffy, the provost of Trinity, in presenting a minority report advocating a solution of the Irish question on the lines of the Swiss federalism. He died at Armagh on the 1st of April 1920.
