Author: Pope, R. T.
Biography:
POPE, Richard Thomas Pembroke (1799-1859: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born in Cork to Thomas Pope and his wife Catherine Baker. He studied at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1822, MA 1839) and was ordained on 14 Apr. 1822. He was appointed to the parish of Stranorlar in County Donegal. Pope was recruited by the Bible Society to advocate for Protestant beliefs. He took part in a public debate with Father Thomas Maguire, parish priest of Innismagrath; the resulting publication, Authenticated Report of the Discussion Which Took Place Between R. T. Pope and T. Maguire, in the Lecture Room of the Dublin Institution, was first issued in 1827 and went through many editions, some with variant titles. (Philip Dixon Hardy [q.v.] was one of the witnesses to the report; the BL copy includes the “authentication” and witness signatures in manuscript.) However the conflict broke his health and he moved to Bron Menai, Caernarfon in North Wales. There he married Mary Thomas of Bangor on 25 Feb. 1834; they had two sons and two daughters. A year before his death he was well enough to return to Ireland where he preached at the Mariners’ Church in Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire). He died on 7 Feb. 1859 of a lung infection at his residence in Martello Terrace, Kingstown, and was interred in the cemetery in Monkstown, Dublin. His wife died in Wales in 1892. His other publication, which he worked on for many years, is Roman Misquotation (1840). (ancestry.co.uk 17 Jan. 2022; Catalogue of Graduates; Belfast Newsletter 10 Feb. 1859; North Wales Chronicle 19 Feb. 1859; North Wales Chronicle 19 Mar. 1892) SR