Richard Parr

Alfred Webb

A Compendium of Irish Biography

1878

Parr, Richard, D.D., a distinguished divine, was born at Fermoy in 1617. He received much advancement in the Church owing to his intimacy with Archbishop Ussher. After occupying several preferments in England, he was on the Restoration made a canon of Armagh Cathedral. Harris's Ware says: "He was so constant and ready a preacher at Camerwell that thereby he broke two conventicles in his neighbourhood, by outcrying the dissenters at extempore preaching... In this course of constant preaching he continued nigh thirty-eight years." He died at Camberwell, 2nd November 1691, aged 74. His Life of Ussher is spoken of as "this rich and incomparable volume... The divine and the student of church history will read these letters with equal interest and profit." Gibbon criticises it as "accurate as written by his chaplain; but this chaplain is both too long and too short."

Sources

16. Authors, Dictionary of British and American: S. Austin Allibone. 3 vols. Philadelphia, 1859-'71.

339. Ware, Sir James, Works: Walter Harris. 2 vols. Dublin, 1764.

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