Bishop of Ferns

Ferns is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Ireland in south-eastern Ireland (province of Leinster; roughly coterminous with County Wexford). It was founded by St. Aidan or Maedoc.During the later medieval period the church at New Ross enjoyed quasi-cathedral status.

Bishops of Ferns to the Reformation

All bishops were in union with Rome until the Reformation under King Henry VIII.

*Saint Moling (?-696)
* Patrick Barrett (1400-1415)

Post-Reformation Anglican bishops

* Alexander Devereux (1539-1566)
* John Devereux (1566-1578)
* James Proctor (1579, not consecrated)
* Hugh Allen (1582-1599, translated from Down; also bishop of Leighlin from 1597)

Anglican bishops of Ferns and Leighlin

* Robert Grave 1600
* Nicholas Stafford (1601-1604)
* Thomas Ram (1605-1634) Ram succeeded in consolidating the revenues of the post-Reformation diocese which had been squandered notably by the Devereux family.
* Robert Price 1660/1661-1666)
* Richard Boyle (1666-1683)
* Narcissus Marsh (1683-1691; subsequently successively Bishop of Cashel and Ossory, Archbishop of Dublin, Archbishop of Armagh). Marsh was a noted pluralist but also a collector of Oriental Manuscripts. Exeter College, Oxford and the Bodleian received his benefactions. He also founded Marsh's Library in Dublin to house what had originally been Edward Stillingfleet's collection.
* Bartholomew Vigors (1691- 1722
* Josiah Hort (1722-1727 (translated to Kilmore)
* John Hoadly (1727-1730; translated to Dublin and subsequently to Armagh) Hoadly, a son of the Hanoverian bishop who sparked the Bangorian Controversy, vigorously defended Gilbert Burnet's writings.
* Arthur Price (1730; translated from Clonfert; translated to Meath)
* Edward Synge (1734-1740; translated from Cloyne, previously Clonfert; translated to Elphin) Synge, a member of a major clerical dynasty, became a fashionable writer.
* George Stone (1740-1743; translated to Kildare; subsequently Bishop of Derry and Raphoe and archbishop of Armagh)
* William Cottrell (1733-1744)
* Robert Downes (1744-1752; translated to Down)
* John Garnet (1752-1758; translated from Clogher)
* William Carmichael (1758; translated from Clonfert; translated to Meath)
* Thomas Salmon (1758-1759)
* Richard Robinson (1759-1761; translated from Killala; translated to Kildare; subsequently archbishop of Armagh) Robinson built the Armagh Observatory and was a noted benefactor of Christ Church, Oxford
* Charles Jackson (1761-1765; translated to Kildare)
* Edward Young (1765-1772; translated from Dromore)
* Joseph Dean Bourke (1772-1782; translated to Tuam)
* Walter Cope (1782-1787; translated from Clonfert)
* William Preston (1787--1798: translated from Killala)
* Euseby Cleaver (1789-1809; translated from Cork; translated to Dublin) note Cleaver was forced to flee by the insurrection in the south-east in 1798 - his palace was plundered - and passed much of his exile at Beaumaris, Anglesey. He was deposed from Dublin for alleged insanity.
* Percy Jocelyn (1809- 1820 translated to Clogher) Jocelyn's career at Clogher was tumultuous leading to a deposition for buggery.
* Robert Ponsonby Tottenham Loftus (1820-1822; translated from Killaloe; translated to Clogher)
* Thomas Elrington (1822- 1835)

The Anglican see of Ferns and Leighlin was united with that of Ossory in 1842.

References

* "Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques" t.xvi, 1967