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Life
1660-1720; b. Tipper, Co. Kildare, ed. Irish College in Paris and Univ. of Paris; ord. 1682; tutor to son of earl of Antrim in London, 1695; parish priest of St. Michan’s, Dublin, 1697 or 1698, remaining there for forty years; involved in disputes with John Clayton, the Protestant rector of St. Michan’s, and with Archbishop Synge of Tuam; engaged on translation of New Testament, incurring Vatican ire; A Brief History of St. Patrick’s Purgatory (Dublin 1718); issued The Case of the Catholics in Ireland (Dublin 1724), in response to the Popery Bill; supported Bishop Synge’s motion for a special loyalty oath adapted to Catholics; was imprisoned in Dublin Castle; d. 3 March, Bull Lane, Dublin; called by Lecky ‘probably the ablest priest living in Ireland’. RR ODNB DIW FDA WJM
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Works
A Modest and True Account of the Chief Points in Controversie between Roman Catholics and Protestants ... (Lon and Antwerp 1699; rep. Antwerp 1700); Prayers and Meditations (Dublin 1705); Rules and Godly Instructions (1716); A Cathecism for the Use of the Parish (1718); A New History of the World (Dublin 1720); The Case of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland (Dublin 1724). rep. with Hugh O’Reily’s Impartial History of Ireland (1754); Letters to His Grace, Edward Lord Archb. of Tuam in answer to his Charitable Address (Dublin 1728).
See also The New Testament of Our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ (1719) [copy in Marsh’s Library contains a second title page bearing the imprint, London: for J. Moore 1718).
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Criticism
Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica (1821), p.449; Patrick Fagan, The Second City: Portrait of Dublin 1700-69 (Branar, Dublin 1986), pp.134-58; Patrick Fagan, Dublin’s Turbulent Priest: Cornelius Nary 1658-1738 (Dublin: RIA 1991), vii, 224pp.
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Commentary
Maureen Wall, Catholic Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, Cllected Essays, ed. Gerard O’Brien (1989), Cornelius Nary’s Case of the Roman Catholics of Ireland (1724) includes a report of a conversation between Lord Galway and Lord Drogheda, the former seeking support for a stringent anti-Catholic bill. When the latter objects that if the papists are driven out there will be none to hew wood and draw water, the former promises to bring in thirty thousand Protestant families in three months after. Lord Drogheda’s answer, ‘For that very reason,’ rejoined the Earl, ‘I will be against the Bill; for there is not one of them but wears a sword and thinks himslef as good a gentleman as I am; and possibly would offer to fight me, should I find fault with him.’ The Protestant immigrants in question were Palatine Hugeunots (p.6.) [Cont.]
Maureen Wall, Catholic Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, Cllected Essays (1989) - cont.: Dr Cornelius Nary, parish priest of St Michan’s, c.1700-38, and Dr Edward Synge sustained a religious controversy. Dr. Synge published A Charitable Address to the Catholics of Ireland and Nary replied in a printed tract. The controversary continued and Nary collected the tracts and had them republished in 1728 (idem, 53). Further: Nary’s Case of Roman Catholics &c (1724) gives a detailed account of the grievances of traders and shopkeepers. (p.179, n.9.). [Cont.]
Wall's Bibliography cites Cornelius Nary, The case of the Roman Catholics of Ireland humbly represented to both houses of pariament in 1724 in relation to a bill now under consideration (appended to Hugh Reily’s Genuine History of Ireland,, 1762), pp.127-8 [‘It is well-known that the Roman Catholic merchants carry on more than half the trade of the kingdom, and pay more custom and duty for imported goods than all the protestants in it.’ [n.p.] And see note: Nary was fighting the battle of the clergy not the laity when he referred to their wealth in this pamphlet (1724).
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Joseph Th. Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fior-Ghael: Studies in the Idea of Irish Nationality, Its Development and Literary Expression Prior To The Nineteenth Century (Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co. 1986), p.299, cites Cornelius Nary, Prayers and meditations (Dublin 1705); Rules and godly instructions (1716); A cathecism for the use of the parish (1718).
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References
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, 857, 858; selects The Case of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland (1724), which states the case of the betrayal over the articles of the Treaty of Limerick arguing in effect that the Catholics adhered to the principle of loyalty to the monarch (as James II was rex nunquam moritur) and also the case against the oaths of allegiance; BIOG, 956. [Works as supra.]
Royal Irish Academy publisher’s notice on Patrick Fagan, Dublin’s Turbulent Priest: Cornelius Nary (RIA 1992), in Books Ireland (Dec. 1991), describes Nary as arguably one of the more prominent Catholic figures in early decades of the eighteenth century illuminates the position of Catholicism in Dublin between 17[?]0 and 1740, showing that despite the harshness of the law a surprising level of practical toleration operated’ (p.250).
Emerald Isle Books (Cat. No. 95) lists Robert Moore, A Vindication of A Letter Directed to Dr. Nery Concerning Transubstantiation [&c.] (Dublin: Christopher Dickson 1717), 16pp.
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Notes
Marsh’s Library: According to Bishop Donnelly in Short history of the dublin parishes, Nary conducted his research for the New Testament in Marsh’s Library[adjac. St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin]. See Muriel McCarthy and Caroline Sherwood-Smith, Hibernia Resurgens [Irish Books in Marsh’s Library] (1994), p.82.
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