Bishop Daniel Mageean D.D. 6 May 1882 – 17 January 1962 was an Irish

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

Prelate A prelate () is a high-ranking member of the Minister (Christianity), Christian clergy who is an Ordinary (church officer), ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin , the past participle of , which me ...

and until 1962 he held the title Lord Bishop of Down and Connor.

Early life and priestly ministry

Daniel Mageean was born in the townland of Darragh Cross in the parish of

Saintfield Saintfield () is a village and Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is about halfway between Belfast and Downpatrick on the A7 road (Northern Ireland), A7 road. It had a population of 3,588 in the 2021 Unite ...

, County Down and received secondary education at

St Malachy's College St Malachy's College, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is the oldest Catholic diocesan college in Ulster. The college's alumni and students are known as Malachians. History The college, founded by William Crolly, Bishop William Crolly, opened on th ...

and

St Patrick's College, Maynooth St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth (), is a pontifical Catholic university in the town of Maynooth near Dublin, Ireland Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mou ...

. He was ordained priest in 1906. His older sister Mary (McCall) became the first President of the Apostolic Work in 1924 indicating the faith and commitment of his wider family where there were others vocations to religious life. While his mother was a sister of the late Dr Richard Marner, who served as President of St. Malachy's College from 1866 – 1876 and then

Parish Priest A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

Kilkeel Kilkeel () is a small town and Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish on the Irish Sea coast of County Down, Northern Ireland. It is the main fishing port on the Down coast, and its harbour is home to the largest fishing fleet in Northern Irel ...

until his death in 1906. His first pastoral appointment was a summer curacy in

Glenavy Glenavy () is a village and civil parish in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is approximately 11 miles west of Belfast and eight miles north-west of Lisburn, and sits on the banks of the Glenavy river. In the 2011 census it had a population ...

parish in July 1907 and on 1 September that year he was transferred to

where he taught both English Literature and Latin and served as Dean of Discipline. In 1919 Fr Mageean he appointed Junior Dean at

becoming Senior Dean in 1925.

Episcopal ministry

On 31 May 1929 he was nominated

Bishop of Down and Connor The Bishop of Down and Connor () is an episcopal title which takes its name from the town of Downpatrick (located in County Down) and the village of Connor (located in County Antrim) in Northern Ireland. The title is still used by the Catholic C ...

and received episcopal consecration in

St Patrick's Church, Belfast St. Patrick's Church, Belfast () is a Catholic church located in the Donegall Street area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is built in the Romanesque Revival style, with a four-stage tower and spire rising from the front west elevation.https://ap ...

on 25 August 1929. In the 1930s he was a champion of Catholic rights especially after the anti-Catholic riots of 1935. He claimed that almost 400 Catholic families, totally nearly 1600 people had been driven from their homes. Dr. Mageean succeeded in getting the anti-Catholic nature of much of Northern Ireland life raised in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

at Westminster but his efforts came to naught and he resigned himself to a long period of sterility as prime ecclesiastical leader of demoralised Northern Irish Catholics. A flavour of the struggles Bishop Mageean faced are considered in Jonathan Bardon's magisterial work on this history of Ulster. Bishop Mageean often used his Lenten

Pastoral letter A pastoral letter, often simply called a pastoral, is an open letter addressed by a bishop to the clergy or laity of a diocese or to both, containing general admonition, instruction or consolation, or directions for behaviour in particular circu ...

to address issues of wider social and political concern e.g. his 1938 letter on Partition and the persecution of Catholics in Northern Ireland. In 1939, he coined the much-quoted phrase " A Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People", attributing it to his opponent Prime Minister Lord Craigavon, but that was a slight misquotation. He died on 17 January 1962 and was succeeded by the

Bishop of Clonfert The Bishop of Clonfert () is an episcopal title which takes its name after the village of Clonfert in County Galway, Ireland. In the Roman Catholic Church it remains as a separate title; but in the Church of Ireland it has been united with oth ...

, William Philbin. The Mageean Cup awarded annually to the winners of the Ulster Colleges' Senior Hurling Championship is named after him.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mageean, Daniel 1882 births 1962 deaths Roman Catholic bishops of Down and Connor 20th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland People educated at St Malachy's College Alumni of St Patrick's College, Maynooth