Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Macbrady, Philip
MACBRADY, PHILIP (fl. 1710), Irish scholar, commonly called in Irish Pilip Ministeir, Philip the Minister, was born in co. Cavan. He was brought up in the protestant religion, and became vicar of the parish of Inishmagrath, in the diocese of Kilmore. He translated into Irish a sermon preached by Archbishop Tillotson before the king and queen at Hampton Court in April 1689, on St. Luke, x. 42, and this was printed in Irish type, but with a title-page in Roman letters, by Elinor Everingham, with five other sermons, London, 1711, entitled ‘Seanmora ar na priom Phoncibh na na Chreideamh.’ He was a friend of Carolan [q. v.], and wrote an Irish poem addressed to him. He was famous for his wit, and many of his epigrams were current among the country people in Cavan as long as Irish was spoken there. He wrote ‘Fuair me dram don mbrandi laidir’ (‘I got a strong dram of brandy’); the epitaph on Parson Pryx, ‘Ar an cuigeamh la fichet don mi abhra, se chaill teampul Chriost a bhall feabhra;’ his De Profundis over a dead man, ‘A Rois MicCaba an ait sean budhleat’ (‘O Rose MacCabe, the old place will be thine’); and a beautiful verse on seeing his daughter weep at the report of the death of a youth. He suspected it was her lover, and asked why she wept. ‘Some snuff I was taking,’ was her reply, but her father saw the true cause, recited this Irish verse, sent for the youth, and consented to the marriage. He was so popular with the native Irish for his wit and his literary accomplishments in their language, that his protestantism was sometimes suspected.
[Seanmora, London, 1711, often called from the author of the preface Richardson's Sermons; Irish verses, &c., in manuscript, 1824–7, copied from various older manuscripts, or from oral repetition by Peter Galegan, a schoolmaster, 1824–7, at Carnaross and other places on the borders of Meath and Cavan.]