Matthew Kelly [Rev.]


Life
1814-58; b. 24 Sept. nr. Kilkenny; son of James Kelly and Margaret [née Sauphy; var. Sauphy]; neph. of Patrick Kelly, bish. of Waterford; first taught by Michael John Brenan; ed. Kilkenny Diocesan Seminary, from aetat. 7; matriculated Maynooth, Aug. 1831; winner of essay prize of Dunboyne Establishment [i.e., elected Dunboyne student]; appt. Professor at Irish College, Paris, 1838-41; considered ultra-Montanist;
 
appt. Professor of English and French at Maynooth, 1841-58; later occupied chair of Ecclesiastical History, 1857; contrib. to Dublin Review, 1842-55, where he rebutted greeted George Petrie’s Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland (in Dublin Review, 1845) NS Mason’s The Testimony of St. Patrick against [...] Rome (1846); he issued the Calendar of Irish Saints [being] The Martyrology of Tallagh [sic] (1857), trans. Gosselin’s Power of the Popes (1853);
 
fnd. member of the Celtic Society, for which he edited Irish-Catholic antiquarian classics - viz., Stephen White’s Apologia pro Hibernia, 1849; John Lynch’s Cambrensis Eversus, 1848-51, and Philip O’Sullivan Beare’s Historiae Catholicae Iberniae, 1850; appt. Canon of Ossory, c.1854; he was accorded the degree of Doctor of Divinity [DD] by Papal decree, and he travelled to Rome shortly before his death; d. 30 Oct., bur. St. Patrick’s, College, Maynooth; his Dissertations Chiefly on Irish Church History (1864) were edited the posthum. by Fr. Daniel McCarthy. ODNB RIA

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Works
  • trans. [Stephen White,] Apologia pro Hibernia adversus Cambri Calumnias: sive, Fabularum et famosorum libellorum Silvestri Giraldi Cambrensis, sub vocabulis topographiæ, sive de mirabilibus Hiberniæ et historiæ vaticinalis, sive expugnationis ciusden insulae refutatio / auctore Stephano Vito [Stephen White]. Nunc primum edita cura Matthæi Kelly [Matthew Kelly] (Dublinii: Apud Johannem O’Daly [John O’Daly], 1849), xv, v, 260pp. [26cm.] - available at Internet Archive - online.
  • trans. Lucius Gratianus [pseud. of John Lynch], Cambrensis eversus, seu potius Historia fides in rebus Hibernicis Giraldo Cambrensi abrogata; in quo plerasque justi historici dotes desiderari, plerosque naevos inesse, ostendit gratianus lucius, hibernus, qui etiam aliquot res memorabiles hibernicas veteris et novae memoriae passim e re nata huic operi inseruit / edited with translation and notes, by the rev. Matthew Kelly, 3 vols. (Dublin: printed for the Celtic Society 1848-52) [24cm.; Latin and English texts facing; i.e., “Refutation of the Authority of Giraldus Cambrensis on the History of Ireland”].
  • ed. [Philip O’Sullivan-Beare], Historae Catholicae Iberniae compendium, domino Philippo Austriaco, Hispaniarum, indiarum, aliorum regnorum atque multarum ditionum regi catholico monarchaeque potentissimo dicatum a D. Philippo O’Sullevano Bearro, iberno ... 1621 / Editit, notulisque ac indicibus illustravit M. Kelly (Dublinii: Apud Johannem O’Daly, 1850), xxx, [2], 369, [1]pp. [25cm.].
  • trans. [Jean Edme Auguste Gosselin], The Power of the Pope during the Middle Ages, or, An historical inquiry into the origin of the temporal power of the Holy See, and the constitutional laws of the middle ages relating to the deposition of the sovereigns, with an introduction on the honours and temporal privileges conferred on religion and its ministers by the nations of antiquity, especially by the first Christian emperors / translated by Matthew Kelly [orig. titled Pouvoir du Pape], 2 Vols. [ Library of Translations from select Foreign Literature. Vols. 1 & 2] (London: C. Dolman 1853) [23cm.]
  • ed., Calendar of Irish saints, the martyrology of Tallagh; with notices of the patron saints of Ireland, and select poems and hymns (Dublin: J. Mullany 1857), xlii, 189pp., 12° - with a “Supplementary catalogue from the Martyrology of Donegal” (p.30-36).
  • Dissertations chiefly on Irish Church History ... ed. by Rev. D. M’Carthy, &c. (Dublin [printed], London, 1864), 8°. [incls. his review of George Petrie’s Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, 1845).

See also his Preface to Stephen White’s Apologia pro Hibernia - under White, infra.

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Bibliographical details
Cambrensis eversus, seu potius historica fides in rebus Hibernicis Giraldo Cambrensi abrogata; in quo plerasque justi historici dotes desiderari, plerosque nævos inesse, ostendit Gratianus Lucius, Hibernus [i.e. John Lynch, Archdeacon of Tuam] qui etiam aliquot res memorabiles hibernicas veteris et novæ memoriæ passim e re nata huic operi inseruit ... Impress an. MDCLXII. Ed., with translation and notes, by the Rev. Matthew Kelly [Publications of the Celtic Society] (Dublin: The Celtic Society 1848-51 [1854]), 8° [ University Press, by M.H. Gill; last page dated 1854; copy in Wellcome Library]. (See also under John Lynch, q.v., infra.)

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Criticism
C. J. Woods, ‘Matthew Kelly’, in Dictionary of Irish Biography (Dublin: RIA 2004), Vol. 5, pp.86-87; cites Nicholas Murphy, ‘The Very Reverend Matthew Kelly’, in Irish Ecclesiastical Record [3rd ser.], XVII (1896), pp.704-13, and Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, II (1972), esp.968.

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References

There is a Matthew Kelly Wikipedia page - online. Note: the page is at variance in details with the Dictionary of Irish Biography (RIA) notice and incls. extra detail of his literary relations - viz., "[...] He made large collections for a work on The Ecclesiastical Annals of Ireland from the Invasion to the Reformation, as a continuation of the work of John Lanigan, and was superintending the publication of the Collections on Irish Church History by Laurence Renehan. [Here cites his editions of Cambrensis Eversus, Apologia pro Hibernia, and Historiæ Catholicæ Iberniæ Compendium.] He also translated Jean Edmé Auguste Gosselin’s Power of the Popes during the Middle Ages, London, 1853 (Vol. I of the Library of Translations from Select Foreign Literature), and published a Calendar of Irish Saints, the Martyrology of Tullagh; with Notices of the Patron Saints of Ireland. And Select Poems and Hymns Dublin, 1857. Bibl.: ‘Matthew Kelly’, Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900).

Note: John Lanigan (1758-1825) and Jean-Edmé-Auguste Gosselin (1787-1858) are cross-referenced in Wikipedia; for John Lanigan [q.v.] in RICORSO, see supra.

Brian Cleeve & Ann Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers [rev. 1 vol. edn.] (Dublin: Lilliput 1985) , gives bio-dates 1803-58 and some minor vars. in a shorter entry.

Library of Herbert Bell, Belfast holds D. McCarthy, ed., Kelly, Dissertations Chiefly on Irish Church History (Dublin 1864).

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