Life
1786-1834; [‘J.K.L.’, or JKL, viz., James Kildare and Leighlin],
b. nr. New Ross, Co. Wexford; witnessed atrocities of 1798; ed. Carnsore
Point, Augustinian Abbey, New Ross, 1799; entered novitiate, 1805; sent
to Coimbra University, Portugal, 1806-08; acted as interpreter for Wellington’s
Army and then with the British Mission at Lisbon; ord. an Augustinian
priest, Enniscorthy, 1809; tutor to seminarians at Carlow College; Professor
of Rhetoric, Carlow College, 1813; Chair of Theology, 1814; Catholic Bishop
of Kildare and Leighlin, 1819-34; opposed agrarian violence in his sermons;
openly supported O’Connell and Catholic Emancipation; formidable
opponent of Established Church; established author of A Vindication
of the Principles and Rights of the Irish Catholics (1823) [var. 1824],
under monogram ‘JLK’; also Letters on the State of Ireland
(1824-25); maintained close link with Archb. Daniel Murray (Dublin); condemned
Kildare Place Society Protestant proselytes on the grounds that it made
improper use of state finance, resulting in the withdrawl of that finance
in 1831; established diocesan libraries and attacked establishment of
public libraries; revived parish retreats; organised mammoth retreat involving
majority of hierarchy and 1,000 parish priests, 1820; ecumenically advocated
union of Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, 1824; influential witness
before Select Committee into Irish conditions, March 1824 [DIB var. 1825;
and also in 1839 and 1832], being questioned on topics such as sacraments,
miracles, papal authority, payment of clergy, and the Veto; forbade his
clergy to engage in polemical controversy with evangelicals as contrary
to public peace, 1825; wrote prolifically in papers as ‘JKL’;
exchanged letters with Dr Magee, Protestant Archbishop of Dublin and accused
Lord Farnham of joining in evangelical crusade against people of Ireland,
drawing a letter in answer from Caesar Otway (A Letter to J.K.L. on
the subject of his Reply to Lord Farnham, Dublin 1827); first bishop
to support Daniel O’Connell publically; opposed disenfranchisement
of 40 Shilling Freeholders in 1829; disputed in pamphlets with Bishop
Elrighton of Leighlin and Ferns, former provost of TCD, 1828; supported
Fr. Martin Doyle of Graiguenamanagh, (a cousin) who resisted the distrainment
of his cattle as tithe-payment and organised wider resistance, initiating
the ‘Tithe War’, and supplying its slogan, ‘May your hatred
of tithes be as lasting as your love of justice’, 1830; initially
supported Repeal Movement, though favouring reform legislation (in fear
of fresh rebellion), 1829-30; gave evidence on the state of the poor,
1830 and disputed with O’Connell who proposed that the Repeal movement
was his poor law; supported National Education system, 1831, urging his
clergy to seek its support for parish schools; On the Origin, Nature,
and Destination of Church Property (1831); reformed diocesan discipline,
and opened libraries; built schools on graveyards to make up deficit to
requirement left by recalcitrant landlords; built Carlow Cathedral, consecrated
1828; d. of tuberculosis, 16 June, at Braganza House, Carlow; Carlow Museum
preserves much of his effects. CAB DNB PI JMC DIB DIW DIH OCIL FDA
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Works
A Defence by J.K.L. of his Vindication of the Religious and Civil Principles of the Irish Catholics (Dublin: Richard Coyne; London: Keating, Brown, & Keating 1824).
See also The Report of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the ‘State of Ireland’ and particularly the Whiteboy agitations, edited by William Phelan and Mortimer O’Sullivan (1824) [under Phelan, infra].
Criticism
W. J. Fitzpatrick, The Life, Times, and Correspondence of Dr. Doyle,
2 vols. (1861).
Michael MacDonagh, Bishop Doyle (JKL), A Biography and Historical Study [New Irish Library] (1896).
Thomas McGrath, Religious Renewal and Reform in the Pastoral Ministry of Bishop James Doyle of Kildare & Leighlin, 1786-1834 (Dublin: Four Courts Press 1998), 367pp. [with index].
Thomas McGrath, Politics, Interdenominational Relations and Education in the Public Ministry of Bishop James Doyle of Kildare and Leighlin (Dublin: Four courts Press 1998), 330pp.
W. M. Thackeray, Irish Sketchbook (1842; ed. John A Gamble, Blackstaff 1985) p.39.
W. P. Ryan makes reference to a long summary in his paper, The Irish Peasant, of Bishop Doyle’s ‘expressive doctrines’ in his ‘Essay on the Catholic Claims’, addressed to Lord Liverpool (in The Pope’s Green Island, 1912, p.36).
Sean O’Faolain, The Irish (1947), pp.94-95.
P. J. Kavanagh, Voices in Ireland, Murray 1994, p.151.
John Philip Cohane, The Indestructible Irish (NY: Hawthorn Books 1969), pp.101-03.
Brian Girvin, ‘Making Nations, O’Connell, Religion and The Creation of Political Identity’, in Daniel O’Connell, Political Pioneer, ed. Maurice R O’Connell (1991), pp.13-34.
Fergus O’Ferrall, ‘Liberty and Catholic Politics 1790-1990’, in O’Connell, op. cit. 1991, pp.35-56.
Joseph Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fíor Ghael, 1986, p.435.
Peter Costello, Clongowes Wood (1991), p.28.
Justin
McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: University of America 1904).
Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature, [1876-78]; provides a long notice (vol. 2, pp.242-44.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2, p.199.
R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland (London: Allen Lane 1988), p.297.
John Cornelius O’Callaghan, The Green Book, or Gleanings [of] a Literary Agitator, 1841).
Hugh Kearney, ‘Contested ideas of Nationalhood 1800-1995, in Irish Review, Winter/Spring 1997, p.9.)
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Notes
Ex cathedra: The remodelling of Carlow cathedral,
and in particular the repositioning of JKL’s throne in the place
of the high altar so that the bishop can be ‘seen’ by the people’ is a source of controversy in 1995; originally built in 1833 to design
of Cobden, English Protestant architect from Brighton; the diocese then
so poor that only the shell and basic wooden furniture could be afforded,
leaving decoration to later generations (The Irish Times article
by Frank MacDonald, 29 July 1995.
R. R. Madden’s United Irishmen, takes its epigraph from JKL.
Bibl. variations; A Vindication of the Religious Principles of the Irish Catholics (1822) [DIW & FDA]; A Vindication ...of the Irish Catholics (1824) [DIB; Foster, Mod. Ireland, 1988].
Portrait, commemorated by seated figure in Carlow Cathedral; AND NOTE, JKL is a character in John Henry Edge, An Irish Utopia (1906, 1910 and 1915); and in Peter Burrowes Kelly, The Manor of Glenmore (1839).
Hyland Books (Cat. 220) lists A Vindication of the Religious and Civil Principles of the Irish Catholics [2nd edn. Dublin 1823], 71pp.
Cathach Books (1996/97) lists Letters on the State of Education in Ireland; on Bible Societies addressed to A Friend in England (Dublin: Coyne 1924), 60pp.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)