He was said to be able to produce a limerick or light verse on any subject at a moment's notice. A staunch critic of any system that placed ideals ahead of individual human dignity, MacNeice insisted on the moral value of the individual in language redolent with care and precision. MacNeice was also a cogent and early critic of economic injustice throughout Ireland, and his Christmas sermons of 19 foreshadow criticisms of the capitalist state which have since become a hallmark of bishops’ letters and reports throughout the worldwide anglican communion. MacNeice was none the less an articulate defender of the Church of Ireland's assertion that it was the legitimate successor to the church of St Peter and St Patrick, and his examination of the moves to create a single reformed protestant church in India, Reunion: the open door – a call from Ireland, highlights the desirability and justification of episcopal succession. This act was the first significant public stance in a lifetime dedicated to reconciling all parties in Ireland to a common Christian effort to work and pray for peace and unity, in support of which cause he was one of the founders of the interdenominational League of Prayer for Ireland (1920–24). On Saturday 28 September, Covenant Day, MacNeice stood in his pulpit and identified the Ulster covenant as ‘a call to arms’, noting that the ‘Church of Christ cannot sound that call’ ( Carrickfergus and its contacts (1928), 72–3). It was in 1912 that MacNeice came to the attention of those outside his immediate circle. He returned to Ulster as bishop of Down and Connor and Dromore in 1934 (elected 11 December), and remained there (resident in Belfast at the bishop's palace, later the Culloden Hotel) until his death on 14 April 1942. Appointed canon and precentor of the diocese of Connor (1921) and archdeacon of Connor (1926), he remained at St Nicholas's until elected bishop of Cashel and Emly, Waterford and Lismore (29 April 1931), when he took up residence in Waterford. He was subsequently installed as rector of Holy Trinity church (1903), and next as rector of St Nicholas's church, Carrickfergus (1908). He instituted a weekly eucharist, criticised by some in the congregation as ‘the thin end of the wedge’ (Stallworthy, Louis MacNeice, 10). Richard Clarke and in 1900 curate of St Clement's church, Ballymacarett, of which he became rector in 1902. In 1899 he was appointed curate to Holy Trinity church, Belfast, as assistant to the Rev. On graduation in 1895, MacNeice accepted the position of curate of Cappoquin, Co. He graduated BA (1895), receiving the divinity testimonium (1896) and later the BD (1901) and DD ( jure dign.) (1931). This work was to allow him to save sufficient funds to enroll (1892) at TCD, a necessary prerequisite to ordination in the Church of Ireland, which he had resolved on at least by the age of 16. Galway, and then at Dr Benson's school in Rathmines, Co. He completed his schooling in Dublin and, at 17, took a position as a schoolmaster at the ICM boys' orphanage near Clifden, Co. He was educated in his father's school until 1879, when the family left Omey after a dispute with a catholic priest concerning the teaching of catholic catechism in the ICM school. The family used both ‘McNeice’ and ‘MacNeice’ up to c.1900 from 1903 at the latest, he always used ‘MacNeice’. Galway, third of ten children – eight of whom survived to adulthood – of William Lindsay MacNeice, schoolmaster of the Society of Irish Church Missions (ICM) school on the island, and Alice Jane MacNeice (née Howell). (1866–1942), Church of Ireland bishop, was born on Omey Island, Co.
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