Produced by Bryan Ness, Sam W. and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) Transcriber's Note A cross pattée is indicated with + in this text. Superscripted text is surrounded with {braces}. THE IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD. JANUARY, 1865. THE SEE OF CLONMACNOISE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. CARDINAL CONSALVI AND NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. ST. BRIGID'S ORPHANAGE. THE MSS. REMAINS OF PROFESSOR O'CURRY IN THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. ASSOCIATION OF ST. PETER'S PENCE, DUBLIN. POLAND. LITURGICAL QUESTIONS. DOCUMENTS. NOTICES OF BOOKS. THE SEE OF CLONMACNOISE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. In the beginning of the sixteenth century the See of St. Kieran was reckoned among the dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Tuam. Dr. Walter Blake was then its bishop; he was a native of Galway, and Canon of Enaghdune, and by the provision of Pope Innocent VIII., was appointed to this See on the 26th of March, 1487. During twenty-one years he governed the faithful of Clonmacnoise with prudence and zeal, and died in May, 1508. Thomas O'Mullally was appointed his successor the same year, and after administering this diocese for five years, was, in 1513, translated to the archiepiscopal see of Tuam. There are still preserved in the Vatican archives two original letters written by King Henry VIII., on the 18th of June, 1515, soliciting the appointment of Father Quintinus Ohnygyn, of the Order of St. Francis, as successor to Dr. Mullally. These letters should, of themselves, suffice to set at rest for ever the plea which some modern theorists have advanced, that the course pursued by the English monarch in the latter years of his reign, in appointing bishops by his own authority to the episcopal sees, was the traditional right of the crown, ever exercised by him and his predecessors on the throne of England. The first letter is addressed to the reigning pontiff, Leo X., as follows: "Sanctissimo, Clementissimoque Dño nostro Papae.