1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Magee, William

MAGEE, WILLIAM (1766–1831), archbishop of Dublin, was born at Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was elected fellow in 1788. He was ordained in 1790. Two sermons, preached in the college chapel in 1798 and 1799, form the basis of his Discourses on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement and Sacrifice (1801), a polemic against Unitarian theology which was answered by Lant Carpenter. Magee was appointed professor of mathematics and senior fellow of Trinity in 1800, but in 1812 he resigned, and undertook the charge of the livings of Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, and Killeleagh, Co. Down. Next year he became dean of Cork. He was well known as a preacher and promoter of the Irish reformation, and in 1819 he was consecrated bishop of Raphoe. In 1822 the archbishop of Dublin was translated to Armagh, and Magee succeeded him at Dublin. Though in most respects a tolerant man, he steadily opposed the movement for Catholic Emancipation. He died on the 18th of August 1831.

A memoir of his life is included with the Works of the Most Reverend William Magee, D.D. (1842), by A. H. Kenney.