Sir,—I was intrigued to read Richard Roche’s letter concerning Alexis Stafford in the summer 1996 issue of History Ireland. During the turbulent struggle between James II and William III, Dublin city was under Jacobite control under the so-called ‘patriot parliament’ in 1689. A Roman Catholic priest, Alexius Stafford, was ‘intruded into the Deanery by James II and seems to have been in possession for a short time’ according to Canon J.B. Leslie’s unpublished Fasti of Christ Church Cathedral (a typescript is preserved in the Representative Church Body Library). Masses were said and, interestingly, the tabernacle and candlesticks used have survived in the cathedral crypt.
Stafford has been described as a ‘scholar-warrior’ by Kenneth Milne, who has been researching this period for a proposed cathedral history to be published in 2000. Another source refers to him as ‘the celebrated Doctor Alexius Stafford, doctor of the civil and canon laws, dean of Christ Church, master in chancery, member of parliament, and preacher to the King’s Inns, likewise chaplain [to King James’s Royal Regiment of Irish Foot Guards]’. He died at the battle of Aughrim ‘with crucifix in hand…loudly calling on his fellow soldiers to secure the blessings of religion and property by steadiness and attention to discipline’.
A particularly interesting manuscript which survives in the cathedral records in the RCB Library is what both Henry Cotton and Canon Leslie in their respective Fasti refer to as the ‘Acts of Alexius Stafford’. This man was, without doubt, an interesting character about whom I am sure we will find out more in the continuing researches at Christ Church.—Yours etc.,
STUART KINSELLA
(Hon. Sec. of Contributors)
Christ Church Cathedral,
Dublin 8.