Thomas Dease was at one time

Roman Catholic Bishop of Meath The Diocese of Meath ( ga, Deoise na Mí) is a diocese of the Catholic Church that is located in the middle part of Ireland. It is one of eight suffragan dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Armagh. Thomas Deenihan has been bishop of the di ...

. Born in Ireland, 1568; died at Galway, 1651. He sprang from an ancient Irish family at one time possessing considerable landed property in

County Cavan County Cavan ( ; gle, Contae an Chabháin) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is part of the Border Region. It is named after the town of Cavan and is base ...

and

County Westmeath "Noble above nobility" , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Westmeath.svg , subdivision_type = Sovereign state, Country , subdivision_name = Republic of Ireland, Ireland , subdivision_type1 = Provinces o ...

. In youth he acquired some proficiency in the

Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

, in which language he wrote some poems. Having determined to become a priest, he proceeded to Paris, where after ordination he spent the first years of his priesthood. During this time he became rector of the Irish College in Paris. Dease returned to Ireland in 1621, having been appointed Bishop of Meath. Thomas Messingham succeeded him as rector. He was consecrated the following year. In spite of persecution and penal laws he continued loyal to England and preached loyalty to his flock. He regarded with disfavour the

Confederation of Kilkenny Confederate Ireland, also referred to as the Irish Catholic Confederation, was a period of Irish Catholic self-government between 1642 and 1649, during the Eleven Years' War. Formed by Catholic aristocrats, landed gentry, clergy and military ...

, and resisted all the arguments and entreaties of the primate to join it. This conduct brought him toleration, if not favour, from the Government, though it made him unpopular with his Catholic fellow-countrymen. And it specially annoyed the

nuncio An apostolic nuncio ( la, nuntius apostolicus; also known as a papal nuncio or simply as a nuncio) is an ecclesiastical diplomat, serving as an envoy or a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a state or to an international or ...

, Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, who charged him with having sown the seeds of enmity between the Confederate generals Thomas Preston and Owen Roe O'Neill. The news of Dease's death was therefore received, in 1648, by the nuncio with little regret. But the news turned out false, and the nuncio writing to Rome reported that the bishop still lived "to try the patience of the good".D'Alton, Edward. "Thomas Dease." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 20 January 2019

References

* Academic staff of the University of Paris 1568 births 1651 deaths Roman Catholic bishops of Meath 17th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland People of Elizabethan Ireland {{ireland-RC-bishop-stub