Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/570

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WAL
WAL

teacher in the Cork workhouse. He was proficient in the fairy and legendary lore of the country, and published two volumes of poetical translations from the Irish, with the original text. Hayes says in his Ballads of Ireland: "There is a singular beauty and fascinating melody in his verse, which cheers and charms the ear and heart. His translations preserve all the peculiarities of the old tongue, which he knew and spoke with graceful fluency. His ballads are the most literal and characteristic which we possess." Edward Walsh died in Cork, 6th August 1850, aged 44. 159*

Walsh, Nicholas, Bishop of Ossory, an Irishman, was educated at Cambridge, and was consecrated Bishop of Ossory in January 1576-'7. He was the first to introduce Irish types into Ireland, and to cause the Church Service to be printed in them, "which proved an instrument of conversion to many of the ignorant sort of Papists in those days." He also forwarded the translation of the New Testament into Irish. He was murdered by a fanatic on 14th December 1585, and was buried in St. Canice's, Kilkenny. 118


Walsh, Peter, D.D., Professor of Divinity at Louvain, was born at Moortown, County of Kilkenny, early in the 17th century, and was educated in the College of St. Anthony, Louvain. He returned to Ireland in 1646, joined the Ormond party, and wrote a treatise against Rinuccini. In 1661 he was made procurator or representative in London of some of the Catholic hierarchy. He was the ally of Ormond in the political complications of the period — especially in the matter of the "Remonstrance," the discussion regarding which raged fiercely for three years. The document was condemned by a synod of Catholic clergymen that met in June 1666, some of whom were imprisoned through his instrumentality. For this he was suspended and excommunicated by his own Church. The Duke of Ormond obtained for him a situation of £100 a year in London. The Earl of Orrery entered into a pamphlet war with him in Irish Colours Displayed, to which Walsh replied by his Irish Colours Folded. In 1672 he published his valuable History of the Remonstrance. D'Arcy McGee says: "It has great candour, abounds in bonâ fide documents, letters, decrees, and state papers. Without it, the great Catholic confederacy could not be well understood by our times, or rescued from misrepresentation by the lovers of true history." Walsh endeavoured upon one occasion to convert his friend and patron, Ormond, to Catholicism. Dr. Walsh died in 1687, and was buried in St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, London. His character is thus sketched by the Bishop of Salisbury: "He was the honestest and learnedest man I ever knew among them [the Catholics], and was indeed in all points of controversy almost wholly a Protestant, but he had senses of his own, by which he excused his adhering to the Church of Rome, and maintained that with these he could continue in the communion of that Church without sin: and he thought no man ought to forsake that religion in which he was born and bred, unless he was clearly convinced that he must certainly be damned if he continued in it. He was an honest and able man, much practised in intrigues." 16 110 195 339


Walsh, Robert, Rev., LL.D., M.D., was born in Waterford, about the middle of the 18th century. Having passed through Trinity College (scholar, 1794; B.A., 1796), he took orders as curate to Dean Kirwan. He assisted the Rev. J. Whitelaw in the preparation of his History of Dublin, and completed the work after Whitelaw's death. He was much interested in Irish antiquities. In 1820 he went out as chaplain to the British consulate at Constantinople, and wrote A Journey from Constantinople to England, and other works connected with the East, besides An Essay on Ancient Coins, Medals, and Gems, as Illustrating the Progress of Christianity in the Early Ages (8vo, London, 1830), and Notices of Brazil, 2 vols., 8vo. The latter part of his life he was Vicar of Finglas, near Dublin. He died about 1852. [His son, John Edward Walsh, was Master of the Rolls in Ireland, 1866 to 1869. His younger brother Edward, a physician (born in Waterford in 1756; died in Dublin, 7th February 1832) was the author of a Narrative of the Expedition to Holland in 1779, and other works.] 16 38 116(3 15)

Walsh, William, Bishop of Meath, was born at Dunboyne early in the 16th century, and was appointed, by the Pope, Bishop of Meath in 1554. He enjoyed more than one office under Elizabeth, but refusing in 1560 to conform in matters of religion, was first imprisoned and afterwards deprived of his bishopric. He was subsequently enlarged, but was again cast into prison in 1565. On 16th July, Adam Loftus, the Archbishop of Armagh, wrote to Cecil: "He refused the oath, … and openly showed himself to be a misliker of all the Queen's Majesty's proceedings. He openly protested before all the people, the same day he was before us, that he would never communicate or be present, by his will, where the service 546