Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walsh, Nicholas

732886Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 59 — Walsh, Nicholas1899Norman Moore

WALSH, NICHOLAS (d. 1585), bishop of Ossory, born at Waterford, was son of Patrick Walsh, bishop of Waterford and Lismore in 1551, who died in 1578 (Cotton, Fasti, i. 123, 138; Wood, Athenæ Oxon. ii. 815; Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714). He studied at Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge, and in 1562–3 he was granted his B.A. by the senate at Cambridge on the ground of having kept twelve terms at these universities. He commenced M.A. in 1567, and in 1571 was chancellor of St. Patrick's, Dublin, and in 1573 began to translate the New Testament into Irish with John Kearney [q. v.] The edition was published in 1603. In February 1577 Walsh was consecrated bishop of Ossory, but continued his translation with Fearganainm O'Domhnallain of Catharine Hall. On 14 Dec. 1585 Walsh was stabbed with a skeine by James Dallard, whom he had cited for adultery. Dallard was hanged, and his victim buried in St. Canice's Cathedral, Kilkenny, where his tomb, bearing an interlaced cross and an inscription, is still to be seen.

[Ware's Commentary of the Prelates of Ireland, Dublin, 1704; Anderson's Historical Sketches of the Native Irish, Edinburgh, 1830; Graves and Prim's Hist. of the Cathedral of St. Canice, Dublin, 1857; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 515–16, and authorities there cited.]

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