Author: De Courcy, Richard
Biography:
DE COURCY, Richard (1744-1803: Rogal)
His parents are unknown. He was distantly related to Lord Kinsale’s family and may have been born in Cork—certainly in Ireland. He entered Trinity College Dublin on 8 Jul 1764 but there is no record of his completing a degree. He was ordained deacon in 1767 and was Curate to Walter Shirley, Rector of Loughrea, Galway. He was invited to preach at St. Andrew’s, Dublin, but his Methodist-Calvinist sympathies led him to be excluded and refused ordination as priest by Archbishop Smythe. Walter Shirley appealed to his cousin, Selina (Shirley) Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, who secured his ordination in 1768 and invited him to England where he became one of her preachers. He came under the influence of George Whitefield and was invited to London. In 1770 he became Curate of Shawbury and then Vicar of St. Alkmund’s, Shrewsbury in 1774. John Wesley recommended him to Viscountess Glenorchy for St. Mary’s Chapel, Edinburgh, in 1771. He married Jane Dicken on 17 Jan. 1775 at Hodnet, Shropshire. They had six children, three of whom predeceased him. He opposed Joseph Priestley, Socinians, Unitarians, and all liberal theology, and launched a sustained attack on them in Christ Crucified (1791). His sermon, Self-Defence not Inconsistent with the Precepts of Religion (1798), preached at Hawkstone Chapel, was admired and his obituary notice praised his anti-Jacobin politics. He died on 4 Nov. 1803 at the Mount, near Shrewsbury, and was buried at Shawbury. In addition to the works listed here, he edited A Collection of Psalms and Hymns (1775, 4th edn. 1793). Sermons (1805) appeared posthumously. (Rogal 1: 427-8; A. C. H. Seymour, The Life and Times of Selina Countess of Huntingdon [1839], 1: 217 et passim; GM Nov. 1803, 1094-5; Evangelical Magazine Mar. 1804, 97-104; Alumni Dublinensis [1924]; Aris’ Birmingham Gazette 5 Sept. 1803, 14 Nov. 1803) AA