![]() Miler said publicly that he would be "welcomed back" to Rome but there is no firm evidence of a deathbed reconversion. Pope Paul V legitimised his children in 1619. He made soundings with Rome in 1608 about returning to Catholicism and kept up contacts with his Franciscan brethren. A "double agent" is how one historian describes him. But while he dutifully denounced "papist" activity in his dioceses, he would also tip off Catholic clergy before the posse arrived. He worked closely with Dublin Castle officials in the undermining of the Desmond rebellion in Munster and uncovering rebels. For Catholics, Miler has the double black mark of being a "heretic" for taking the Oath of Supremacy to Elizabeth and for having been excommunicated. The rehabilitation process could be tricky. Rev Terri Woolgar in Canada can trace her ancestry back to Miler in an unbroken line of 12 generations. But to admirers he was "a great politician, a man of gravity and wisdom." To his critics, Miler was "irascible, wild and unstable". In his new scholarly book on Miler, published by Lisheen Publications, Roscrea, Fr Patrick Ryan, of the Spiritan congregation, prefers the milder epithet of "the enigma of Cashel". ![]() Canon Patrick Comerford of Christ Church and Anglican studies lecturer describes him as "the infamous Miler Magrath, one of the most corrupt pluralists in Irish Church history". The title of former Protestant bishop of Limerick Robert Wyse Jackson's book on Miler is Scoundrel of Cashel. ![]() "Notorious" is the epithet frequently used about him. Once when Miler asked why she refused to eat meat on Friday, she replied: “Because I do not wish to commit sin with you.” “Surely,” he retorted, “you have committed a far greater sin in coming to bed with me, a friar?”īoth Protestant and Catholic churches in Ireland are wary of endorsing Miler's role as an ecumenist or pluralist before it became respectable. His wife, Anny O’Meara of Toomevara, remained a staunch Catholic all her life. Miler nevertheless brought up his nine children as Catholic and secured lucrative posts for them in his Cashel holdings. While Rome left him technically in charge of Down and Connor for 10 years, Pope Gregory XIII, tiring of this double role, excommunicated him in 1580. He had also managed to add on the dioceses of Waterford and Lismore and later, Killala and Achonry, which spread his property portfolio even further. A year later she promoted him to be archbishop of Cashel, where he remained until his death in 1622 at the age of 100. Queen Elizabeth, who greatly admired him, appointed him Protestant bishop of nearby Clogher in 1570. His first episcopal post was Catholic bishop of Down and Connor in 1565. He managed to be simultaneously a Catholic and a Protestant bishop, a Franciscan friar with vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, a married man with nine children and a property magnate who would be the envy of Nama. It may be time to rehabilitate Miler Magrath as Ireland’s pioneering ecumenist.
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