Archbishop William Magee

Magee, William, Archbishop of Dublin, a distinguished author and divine, was born at Enniskillen in 1766.[118] In 1781 he was entered of Trinity College, Dublin, where he quickly distinguished himself and obtained all the academic honours, including a scholarship in the year 1784. In 1788 he was elected a Fellow; in 1790 entered into orders; in 1800 became Professor of Mathematics; in 1812 retired on the college livings of Cappagh and Killyleagh; in 1814 was made Dean of Cork; in 1819 was consecrated Bishop of Raphoe; and in 1822 was advanced to the see of Dublin. He attained a wide literary reputation, his most important work being Discourses on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement and Sacrifice (London, 1801), which has seen numerous editions, and is declared by a competent authority to be "one of the ablest critical and polemical works of modern times." He was in his early days a strenuous opponent of the Union, as he afterwards was of Catholic Emancipation. He died at Redesdale, near Dublin, 19th August 1831, aged about 65, and was buried in the centre of the old churchyard of Rathfarnham, under a tomb as yet un-inscribed. The Archbishop's works were collected and printed from his own corrected copies, with a memoir, by Rev. A. H. Kenney, in 2 vols., London, 1842. The present Bishop of Peterborough is his grandson.

Sources

12. Archbishops of Dublin, Memoirs of: John D'Alton. Dublin, 1838. Archdall, Mervyn, see No. 216.

118. Ecclesiae Hiberniae Fasti: Rev. Henry Cotton: Indices by John R. Garstin, M.A. 5 vols. Dublin, 1851-'60.

196. Irishmen, Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished, Rev. James Wills, D.D. 6 vols. or 12 parts. Dublin, 1840-'7.