Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mey, John
MEY, JOHN (d. 1456), archbishop of Armagh, was official of the court of Meath, and vicar of the parish churches of Delvin and Kilmessan, co. Meath, before 1444, when he was made by papal provision archbishop of Armagh; he was consecrated on 20 June, and enthroned by the dean, Charles O'Neillan, on 9 July 1444. Like his predecessors, he was much obstructed in the exercise of his primatial rights within the diocese of Dublin, and refused in consequence to attend parliament there. By a deed dated 19 Nov. 1455 Mey, with the consent of his dean and chapter, annexed his mensal tithes of Rathcoole to the choir of St. Anne's Chapel in St. Peter's Church, Drogheda, to which he also added his mensal portion of the tithes in Drummyng Church. About the same time the lord lieutenant, James Butler, earl of Ormonde and Wiltshire [q. v.], appointed Mey his deputy, but the archbishop did not maintain order very successfully. The English government ordered Ormonde to perform the duties himself, and on his refusal directed the Earl of Kildare to supersede him. Mey died in 1456.
[Ware's Ireland, i. 86; Cotton's Fasti, iii. 16; Gams's Series Episcoporum; Cox's Hibernia Anglicana, i. 163–4; Brady's Episcopal Succession, i. 215; Stuart's Armagh, pp. 198–9; Wright's Hist. of Ireland, i. 240.]