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Life
fl. 1905-1934 [John Roche Ardill]; author of Forgotten Facts of Irish History (1905); The Closing of the Irish Parliament (1907), and St. Patrick, AD 180 (1932), in which he sought to push back the date of St. Patrick’s mission to Ireland by two hundred and thirty years - an argument not accepted by the scholarly community.
Works
Forgotten Facts of Irish History (Dublin: [q.pub.] 1905); The Closing of the Irish Parliament (Dublin: Figgis 1907), 146pp.; St. Patrick, A. D. 180 (London: J. Murray 1932); ix, 221pp.; The Date of St. Patrick: A Reply to the Rev. Newport J.D. White, 2nd and 3rd edns. (Dublin: Church of Ireland Printing & Pub. Co. 1932), 19pp. [1]; Ireland in St. Paul’s Time: A Paper Read Before the South Leitrim Clerical Association [with additions] (Dublin: Church of Ireland Printing & Publishing Co. 1933), 29pp.; St. Patrick: Where Was He Born?: A Paper Read Before the North Elphin Clerical Union (Dublin: Church of Ireland Print. and Pub. Co. and APCK 1934), 29pp. [3].
Reference
The copy of Ardill’s book in the University of Ulster, Morris Collection contains an autograph letter to Mr. Morris, addressed Calry Rectory Sligo, with additional remarks supporting his ascription of [St.] Patrick’s coming to 250 ad.; notices also a very favourable review of his own book by Professor Burkitt in Journal of Theol. Studies, and remarks his appreciation of the unsolicited and unbiased letter received from [Henry] Morris.
Quotations
Dr. J. H. Todd (Life of St. Patrick, 1864) was regarded by Ardill as the most influential writer on [St.] Patrick, but not free from ‘preconceived ideas’, quoting his assertion that the fact that Christianity believed in demons, and that for [St.] Patrick the ‘equipment of superstition’ and ‘exorcists in his train’ were ‘not unimportant [in] going forth to persuade the heathen’. (Todd, p. 77; Ardill, Life of St. Patrick, 1931, p.17.)
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