\ " I _ r \ ,,/ - Roscommon, but the three senior members just referred to voted in favour of John Horan, who was known as John the The Franciscans Archdeacon. Horan set out for Lyons where the Pope was then in residence and succeeded in obtaining papal confir- mation for his election; he became bishop of Elphin in 1245 but died the following year. Some years later, in 1252, in Elphin Thomas O'Quin, the Franciscan, was promoted to Clon- macnoise (3). It is interesting to note that O'Quin's CATHALDUS GIBLIN. O.F.M. nomination to Elphin was the first nomination of a Fran- AINT FRANCIS of Assisi, founder of three separate ciscan to an Irish diocese. Many years later, in 1418,Pope S Orders in the Church, died in the year 1226.It is not Martin V provided Robert Fosten, another Franciscan, to absolutely certain when his followers first set foot .in Elphin (4); he was an Englishman, and there is no evidence Ireland; there is a strong tradition that their first that he ever visited his see. foundation was in Youghal, but there is definite proof that Foundation at Elphin they had acquired a house in Dublin shortly before 1233, It was not until shortly before 1453that the Franciscans when King Henry In ordered that they be given twenty got a solid footing in what is now County Roscommon when marks to enable them to restore their church and friary they settled in the town of Elphin. They were 'Conventual' which had fallen into disrepair '(1). 'A friary wasestab- Franciscans, and are to be distinguished from another lished at Roscommon town in 1268or 1269,but it survived branch of the Order who called themselves 'Observants'. only a year or so; it was burned to the ground during Those friars who went by the name of 'Conventuals' availed hostilities between the Irish and the English, and the man themselves of.certain concessions granted by the Popes in on whom the friars depended to restore the building died the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries as regards the shortly afterwards (2). It would appear that the friars holding of property and the use of money. About the abandoned the site and never resettled there. beginning of the fifteenth century small groups of friars in Before the disaster which befell the Roscommon various countries decided to adhere more fully to the ideals foundation however, the diocese of Elphin, which in area of St. Francis, and started a reform within the Order; they corresponds approximately .with the present County came to be knownas 'Observants'. Withthe introduction of Roscommon,had Franciscan associations. In the year 1244 the Observant movement into Ireland the Conventual the chapter of the diocese met to select a bishop, and a Franciscans began to lose ground, and eventually, about goodly number of the chapter voted in favour of a 1567almost all the remaining Conventuals went over to the Franciscan named Thomas O'Quin, but the two arch- Observants. Elphin friary however continued to be a deacons and dean objected and held that a member of the Conventual house until well into the seventeenth century. chapter should have been chosen. The junior members of The historian, Michael O'Clery, states that it did not accept the chapter then selected Muirdach O'Connor, coarb of the Observant reform until 1632(5). 23 The beginnings of a Franciscan foundation in the town canons attached to the church of St. Mary (14). of Elphin owed a lot to the local bishop named Conor or Nothing is known of the activities of the friars in Elphin Cornelius O'MulIally, a Franciscan himself, who was during the latter half of the fifteenth century. We can -onJy appointed bishop of Elphin on 20 October, 1944, and was in assume they did pastoral work in the town and district, and charge of the diocese for almost twenty years. At the time assisted the diocesan clergy in attending to the spiritual of O'Mullally's appointment there·!W.as a considerable needs of the faithful. Bishop Conor O'Mullally continued as amount of switching about of bishops between the dioceses bishop until his death in 1468; by that time the friars would of Clonfert, Elpnin and EmIy. For instance, O'Mullally had have been well established in Elphin town. The Annals of been promoted to Clonfert on 22 May 1447, had been trans- Connacht and some other sources make occasional ferred to EmIy about fifteen months later, and again, within reference to people who died in or near Elphin in the second more than a year transferred to Elphin. With all this half of the fifteenth century and early years of the sixteenth switching and changing it is little wonder that doubts were who would appear to have been closely associated with the being cast on O'MulIally's claim to the bishopric of Elphin friars. Thus we read in 1464Lochlainn (15), son of Mailin 0 during the first years of his reign there (6). These doubts Maolchonaire died, having won victory over the world and and fears were being channelled to Rome, and on 25 May, the devil, and was buried at Elphin under the prote~tion of 1456, Pope. Calixtus III issued a long document confirming God, Patrick and St. Francis. Likewise, Torna 0' O'Mullally's appointment to Elphin and thus clearing up Maolchonaire (16), ollav or professor of Sil Murray in any misunderstanding concerning the validity of his history and poetry, died in 1468after a victory of repentance promotion to that see (7). Before Mullally became bishop in his own house at Lis Ferbain after St. Patrick's Day,.and he had taken a degree in theology and had spent some time was buried under the protection of St. Patrick and St. teaching that subject to Franciscan students (8). We know, Francis at Elphin, and Urrard 0 Maolchonaire succeeded to too, that when he was transferred from Emy to Elphin he the ollavship. In 1527 a local lady of outstanding qualities agreed to allow £10 annually from the temporalities of died and was· buried in the precincts of the Franciscan Elphin to Bishop William O'Hayden who had immediately friary. The Annals of Connacht are full of praise for her and preceded him in Elphin but who had been transferred to recount her virtues and _her family connections in the EmIy (9). following terms (17): "Mor, daughter of Maelsechlainn MacCaba, wife of 0 hAinlige, the best woman who ever Some short time before October 1453 and while lived in Cenel Dobtha, foster-mother to the poets and exiles O'Mullally was bishop of Elphin, the minister provincial of of Ireland, a re-incarnation of Mor Muman, for good repute the Franciscans in Ireland, Father William O'Reilly, and piety and virtue, the greatest bestower of alms and applied to Rome for pernlission to accept an offer made by charitable gifts of food and clothing to God's poor and needy the people ,and clergy of Elpnin town of the church of St. and to all who stood in need thereof, died in her own Patrick there and a piece of land to the Franciscans. On 16 residence at Port Locha Leise, and was buried in the October, 1453, Pope Nicholas V issued a brief acceding to monastery of Elphinunder the protection of God and St. O'Reilly's request (10). It would appear that at the time the Francis". Pope composed his brief the friars had already taken possession of St. Patrick's Church, and Sir James Ware Dissolution and Dispersal may not have been too far wide of the mark when he stated . When this generous and virtuous lady died in 1527'the that a house was built for the friars in' Elphin in the year dissolution of the monasteries was near at hand, but not 1450 (11). Fortunately the brief of Pope Nicholas V throws until 1563 were the friars deprived of their foundation at some light on how the friars came to possess the church. Elphin (18), slightly over one hundred years after they had It specifically states that the church was handed over for first settled there. Ware - Harris informs us that the few the use and habitation of the friars, and that "the canons acres of land held by the friars and any buildings they and inhabitants of Elphin were the donors of the church as possessed were granted to one Terence OBeirne (19). In well as the bishop". The agreement between the friars and 1569 "the site of the house of friars of Ulfyne with the bishop and chapter declared that the friars were free appurtenances" were leased to Patrick Cusack of Gerards- from any obligation of the cure of souls and from all taxes town, Co. Meath, for twenty-one years at an annual rent of and exactions. Apart from the church of St. Patrick, the 5s.4d. (20). On 6 August 1577, Queen Elizabeth made a . bishop and citizens, among whom Tomhaltach MacDermott grant of the friary and its land to Hugh Bni 0 Domhnall for is specifically mentioned in the brief, made a grant of twenty-one years at a rent of 5s. 4d.; in the fiants it is certain lands to the friars. The church of St. Patrick was described as "the site of the house of friars'of Oldefyne, Co. the Elphin parish church, and is said to have been built on Roscommon" (21). In 1588the friary was definitely in the the site of.a very early church which had been erected by possession of John Lynch, Protestant bishop of Elphin, as it St.