Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/360

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Kelly
354
Kelly

February 1808, when it had reached as far as ‘L,’ a fire in the printing-office destroyed the whole impression except two copies. One of these, together with the remainder of the manuscript, is in the possession of the Manx Society. It is printed in four columns, the first containing the English word, the second the Manx, the third the Irish, and the fourth the Gaelic. It is an unwieldy vocabulary rather than a dictionary. The Manx and English portions of it were reprinted in 1866, under the auspices of the Manx Society, with emendations, which are certainly not improvements, and the addition of an English-Manx part. Kelly's orthography is unfortunately based on that of the Bible, the recognised standard. It incongruously attempts to combine the spelling of written Irish with the phonetic reproduction of the ordinary Manx pronunciation.

[Gent. Mag. January 1810; unpublished letters; Timperley's Encyclopædia of Printing, p. 729.]

A. W. M.

KELLY, JOHN (1801–1876), independent minister, was born in Edinburgh on 1 Dec. 1801, received his education at Heriot's Hospital, and at an early age was converted by the preaching of Dr. Robert Gordon of Edinburgh. He was for some time engaged in tuition in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and for four years later studied at the academical institution at Idle, since known as Airedale College. Thence in January 1827 he was sent to Liverpool to preach at Bethesda Chapel, and was ordained to the charge in September 1829. His career as a minister was very successful, and the new Crescent Chapel built for his growing congregation at Everton, Liverpool, was opened on 23 Nov. 1837. Kelly was for many years a director of the London Missionary Society, and took a warm interest in the Lancashire Independent College. He was chairman of the meeting of the Congregational Union of England and Wales in London in May 1851, and of the meeting held at Northampton in the following October. He retired from the Crescent Chapel on 28 Sept. 1873, and died at 18 Richmond Terrace, Liverpool, on 12 June 1876. He was buried in the necropolis on 15 June.

Kelly was author of many addresses and single sermons, and of:

  1. ‘The Voluntary Support of the Christian Ministry the Law of the New Testament,’ 1838.
  2. ‘The Hindrances which Civil Establishments present to the Progress of genuine Religion,’ 1840.
  3. ‘The Church Catechism considered in its Character and Tendency,’ 1843.
  4. ‘Discourses on Holy Scripture,’ 1850.
  5. ‘An Examination of the Explanation of the Rev. Samuel Davidson, relative to the Second Volume of the Tenth Edition of Horne's “Introduction,”’ 1857.

[Hassan's Rev. John Kelly, a memorial, 1876, with portrait; Congregational Year-Book, 1877, pp. 384–7; Waddington's Congregational History, 1880, v. 561–9; Liverpool Mercury, 13 June 1876, p. 8.]

G. C. B.

KELLY, MATTHEW (1814–1858), Irish antiquary, born at Kilkenny 21 Sept. 1814, was eldest son of James Kelly, by Margaret Sauphy. An uncle, Patrick Kelly, was bishop of Waterford. Kelly was taught in very early years by M. S. Brennan, author of the ‘Ecclesiastical History of Ireland.’ When about seven years of age he entered the Kilkenny diocesan seminary, and in 1831 he began theological studies at Maynooth, where he was elected a Dunboyne student in 1836. From 1839 to 1841 he was professor successively of philosophy and theology in the Irish College at Paris, and on 5 Nov. 1841 was appointed to the chair of belles-lettres and French at Maynooth; on 20 Oct. 1857 he became professor there of ecclesiastical history. In 1854 he was made D.D. by the pope, and about the same time a canon of Ossory. Kelly died on 30 Oct. 1858, and was buried in the cemetery of Maynooth.

Kelly was an enthusiastic student of Irish antiquities and ecclesiastical history. At his death he had made large collections for a work on ‘The Ecclesiastical Annals of Ireland from the Invasion to the Reformation,’ as a continuation of the work of John Lanigan [q. v.], and was superintending the publication of the ‘Collections on Irish Church History’ by Dr. Renehan. He edited John Lynch's ‘Cambrensis Eversus,’ Dublin, 3 vols. 1848–52 (for the Celtic Society, of whose council he was a member); Stephen White's ‘Apologia pro Hibernia,’ Dublin, 1849; and Philip O'Sullivan's ‘Historiæ Catholicæ Iberniæ Compendium,’ Dublin, 1850. He also translated M. Gosselin's ‘Power of the Popes during the Middle Ages,’ London, 1853 (vol. i. of the ‘Library of Translations from Select Foreign Literature’), and published a ‘Calendar of Irish Saints, the Martyrology of Tullagh; with Notices of the Patron Saints of Ireland. And Select Poems and Hymns,’ Dublin, 1857, 8vo. Kelly contributed to various periodicals, notably the ‘Dublin Review,’ and a collection of his essays, entitled ‘Dissertations chiefly on Irish Church History,’ was edited, with a memoir, by Dr. McCarthy, Dublin, 1864.

[Memoir prefixed to the Dissertations; private information.]

W. A. J. A.