Charles Patrick Meehan (12 July 1812 – 14 March 1890) was an Irish
Catholic priest
The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in common English usage ''priest'' refe ...
, historian and editor.
Life
Meehan was born at 141
Great Britain Street,
Dublin
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
, on 12 July 1812.
He received his early education at
Ballymahon
Ballymahon () on the River Inny (Leinster), River Inny is a town in the southern part of County Longford, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is 19 km north-east of Athlone, at the junction of the N55 road, N55 and R392 road (Ireland), R392 ro ...
,
County Longford
County Longford () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Longford. Longford County Council is the Local government in the Republic ...
, the native place of his parents. In 1828 he went to the
Irish Catholic College, Rome, where he studied until he was ordained a priest in 1834. Returning to Dublin in the same year Meehan was appointed to a
curacy
A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are ass ...
at
Rathdrum, County Wicklow. After nine months he was transferred to a curacy at the parish church of Saints Michael and John, Dublin. In that position he continued till his death, on 14 March 1890.
A friend and
confessor
In a number of Christian traditions, including Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Lutheranism and Anglicanism, a confessor is a priest who hears the confessions of penitents and pronounces absolution.
History
During the Diocletianic Persecut ...
to the poet
James Clarence Mangan
James Clarence Mangan, born James Mangan (; 1 May 1803 – 20 June 1849), was an Irish poetry, Irish poet. He freely translated works from German, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, and Irish, with his translations of Goethe gaining special interest. St ...
, Meehan encouraged him to write his autobiography. Meehan was also elected a member of the
Royal Irish Academy
The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the natural sciences, arts, literature, and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier List of Irish learned societies, learned society and one of its le ...
.
Works
He wrote poetry for ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
'', a radical nationalist newspaper, under the pen-name 'Clericus'. He wrote signed articles for ''
Duffy's Hibernian Magazine'' (1860–1865), becoming editor in 1862 when it relaunched as ''Duffy's Hibernian Sixpence Magazine''.
From materials gathered while in Wicklow, he compiled a "History of the O'Tooles, Lords Powerscourt", published without his name and long out of print. Meehan also wrote "Tales for the Young", and translated others which he named "Flowers from Foreign Fields". He edited
Thomas Davis's "Literary and Historical Essays" (1883), Mangan's "Essays and Poems" (1884), and
Richard Robert Madden's "Literary Remains of the United Irishmen" (1887).
He also wrote verse, which is to be found in various anthologies.
His book "The Fate and Fortunes of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone and Rory O'Donnel, Earl of Tyrconnel; Their Flight from Ireland, and Death in Exile", was highly praised on publication. It gave a new and romantic name,
"The Flight of the Earls", to an event that was known in Gaelic as, "The Departure of the Chiefs of Ulster". The Limerick Vindicator claimed, "Father Meehan .... boldly lifts the veil off those foul and treacherous deeds which fill some of the blackest pages in Ireland's disastrous history".
He also published a biography of Mangan in 1884.
His other works are:
*"History of the
Confederation of Kilkenny" (1846);
*"The Geraldines, their Rise, Increase and Ruin" (1847); reprinted 1878.
[https://ia802601.us.archive.org/16/items/riseincreaseexit00daly/riseincreaseexit00daly.pdf ]
*translation of Alessandro Manzoni's
"La Monaca di Monza" (1848);
*"Portrait of a Christian Bishop" (1848); biography of
Francis Kirwan,
Bishop of Killala
The Bishop of Killala () is an episcopal title which takes its name after the village of Killala in County Mayo, Ireland. In the Roman Catholic Church it remains a separate title, but in the Church of Ireland it has been united with other bis ...
, translated from the Latin of
John Lynch";
*"Lives of the most eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, of the Order of St. Dominic, translated from the Italian of Vincenzo Marchese" (1852);
*"Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell" (1868);
*
''Rise and Fall of the Irish Franciscan Monasteries and Memoirs of the Irish Hierarchy in the Seventeenth Century'' Dublin: J. Duffy and Sons, 1877.
*"Confederation of Kilkenny"; new ed., rev. & enlarged, J. Duffy, Dublin, 1882
Notes
;Attribution
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meehan
1812 births
1890 deaths
19th-century Irish Roman Catholic priests
19th-century Irish historians
19th-century Irish biographers
Irish male poets
Irish male biographers
Irish translators
People from County Dublin
19th-century Irish translators
19th-century Irish poets
19th-century Irish male writers
People from Ballymahon
Scholars and academics from County Longford
Christian clergy from County Longford