Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Maguire, Nicholas
MAGUIRE, NICHOLAS (1460?–1512), bishop of Leighlin, natural son of a priest, was born in Idrone, co. Carlow, about 1460. He was educated at Oxford, where he is said to have remained two years and three months with much profit, and to have taken one or more degrees (Wood, Athenæ, i. 15). On his return to his native country he was made prebendary of Hillard or Ullard, in the diocese of Leighlin, and was highly respected there for his assiduity in preaching, learning, and hospitality. On 21 April 1490 he was advanced by papal provision to the see of Leighlin, vacant by the death in 1489 of Milo Roche, whose life he wrote. Maguire died at Leighlin in 1512, and was buried in the church there. Dowling ‘comendes him for hospitalitie and the number of cowes that he grased without losse (so well was he beloved) upon the woodes and mountaines of Knockbrannen,’ and he is described as ‘beinge in favour with the king and nobilitie of Leinster’ (Annals, ii. 32).
Maguire is said to have commenced many works, but he only completed the ‘Chronicon Hiberniæ’ and ‘Vita Milonis Episcopi Leighlinensis.’ The former was materially useful to Dowling in the composition of his ‘Annals.’ Neither work seems now accessible. There is a drawing of his episcopal seal in the archives of Christ Church, Dublin.
[Ware's Ireland, i. 460; Dowling's Annals, ii. 32, who notes that Maguire's Life was written by Thomas Browne, his chaplain; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. i. 15; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 499; Cotton's Fasti, ii. 381, 386, 400, v. 183; Brady's Episcopal Succession, i. 384; Nouvelle Biographie Générale.]