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Daniel Delany DD (February 1747, in Paddock, Mountrath, Laois, Ireland – 9 July 1814, in Tullow, County Carlow) was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. Educated at the Irish College in Paris, he taught at the English Boys College of St Omer, 265 kilometres north of Paris.
In 1783, Delany was appointed coadjutor to James Keeffe, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. Together, they established St. Patrick's, Carlow College. Delany later founded the Brigidine Sisters in 1807, and the Patrician Brothers in 1808.
As the public practice of Catholicism was outlawed by British Law at the time, in 1763, with the help of a good Protestant friend, the sixteen-year-old Delany was smuggled out of Ireland to Paris to study for the priesthood at the Irish College in Paris. He was ordained a priest around 1770. For the next five or six years Delany taught rhetoric at the English College at Saint-Omer in France. The Bishop Daniel Delany Story Carlow Nationalist, 6 February 2015.
Father Delany returned to Ireland in 1776 or 1777, disguised as a layman since priests were still outlawed. He was so appalled at the state of Ireland that he was tempted to return to France.
Soon after arriving, he was stationed at Tullow as assistant priest to Bishop James Keeffe. Catholic education in Ireland had been denied to the people of Ireland since the seventeenth century; in consequence, much of the population suffered from poverty, hunger and drunkenness. Delany tried to bring back the traditional Catholic education to the community. He started by the establishment of for the youth of Tullow. "Bishop Daniel Delany", The Brothers of St. Patrick He also formed a youth band to help teach his students hymns. Minehan csb, Rita. "From the Acorn to the Oak" Soon older people in the community started to join these classes.
In 1784, Delany organized a procession through Tullow for the Feast of Corpus Christi. He also decided to start ringing the Angelus bell, which hadn't been done for a century. This caused some consternation, with Bishop Keeffe, concerned it would lead to trouble. With the death of Bishop Keeffe in 1787 Bishop Delany was appointed Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin on 17 February 1788.
Sometime after 1794, his mother died, leaving him all her property. Delany invested a portion of this property left to him and the interest went to charities. Delany also distributed prayer books to children on the day of their first communion. He started a circulating library and was responsible for the building of a church in both Tullow (1805) and Mountrath (1810).
In 1807 Delany refounded the Congregation of St. Brigid, the Brigidine Sisters, and in 1808, the Congregation of The Brothers of St. Patrick in Tullow, County Carlow. In the convent gardens, Delany planted an oak sapling from Kildare. It is still there today. Today many of the Brigidine communities have an oak tree growing from the seed of an oak tree in Kildare.
Bishop Delany died at two in the morning on 9 July 1814. He had been seriously ill for some months and was being cared for by the Brigidine Sisters in their convent. He is buried in his Tullow church.
The Delany Archive which holds the archives of the diocese of Kildare & Leighlin, the Patrician Brothers, Brigidine Sisters and Carlow College is located in Carlow College Delaney Archive The Patrician Brothers in Sydney named the Delany Foundation after him. http://www.patricianbrothers.org Patrician Brothers Website.
Schools Named After Daniel Delany
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