Jonathan Ashe (
fl.
''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...
1813), was an Irish masonic writer.
Ashe was born in
Limerick
Limerick ( ; ) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. W ...
in 1766, entered
Trinity College Dublin
Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...
, 26 March 1783, took B.A. degree in ordinary course, and became
D.D. in 1808. Very little is known of him except that he commenced and perfected his
masonic studies in Dublin.
While in Bristol in 1813 he published a work entitled 'The Masonic Manual, or Lectures on Freemasonry, containing the Instructions, Documents, and Discipline of the Masonic Economy,' and asserts in the introduction that he 'plainly and completely tells the craft its eternal and temporal obligations, and affords the uninitiated a fair review and estimate of masonry.' This work was dedicated to the
Duke of Sussex
Duke of Sussex is a substantive title, one of several Royal dukedoms in the United Kingdom, royal dukedoms in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It is a hereditary title of a specific rank of nobility in the British royal family. It has been c ...
, then
grand master of the order. In many portions it is a mere copy of
William Hutchinson's 'Spirit of Masonry,' published in 1775.
Ashe's work was edited, with annotations and remarks by the Rev.
George Oliver, D.D., in 1843, and again in 1870 by the Rev. John Edward Cox, D.D.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ashe, Jonathan
19th-century Irish writers
Writers from Limerick (city)
Alumni of Trinity College Dublin