celebration of Easter about this period assumed wide proportions. For a time Cumian held aloof; but after a year's consideration he was instrumental in calling a synod at Leighlin to discuss the question. The synod despatched messengers to Rome; and upon their return and report in about three years' time, it was decided to adopt the Roman usage. Cumian, as the chief mover in the matter, was reproved by his old friends the monks of Iona. They declared that he was a heretic—a deserter of the traditions of his ancestors. These feelings subsided in time, and upon the next vacancy (in 657) he was elected to succeed in the government of Iona. After adorning the position by his learning and sanctity for twelve years, he died in 669. Some religious works are attributed to him. It is to be remarked that the southern Irish Church conformed to the Roman Easter sooner than the northern and Dalriad, and that, in consequence for many years there existed the strongest feelings of antipathy between the ecclesiastics of the two sections. 339
Cunningham, John, an actor, who gained a reputation as a poet, was born in Dublin in 1729, and died at Newcastle 18th September 1773, aged about 44. At twelve years of age several of his fugitive pieces, not without merit, had found a place in the papers of his native city. Johnson says: "Although Cunningham cannot be admitted to a very high rank among poets, he may be allowed to possess a considerable share of genius. His poems have peculiar sweetness and elegance; his sentiments are generally natural, and his language simple and appropriate to his subject, except in some of his longer pieces where he accumulates epithets that appear to be laboured." He is now almost forgotten, although his tombstone avers that "his works will remain a monument for ages." 198
Curran, John Oliver, M.B., was born at Trooperfield, near Lisburn, 30th April 1819. He studied at the Universities of Glasgow and Dublin, and took his degree of M.B. in 1843. After walking the Paris hospitals, he returned to Ireland, and in 1846 became a licentiate of the King and Queen's College of Physicians. He soon took his place as a prominent medical practitioner and lecturer, a contributor to medical literature, a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and of most of the literary and scientific societies of Dublin. He fell a victim to the frightful typhus of the Famine, 28th September 1847, aged 28. He was a vegetarian from the time when, a child of four years, a friend bantered him with pet- ting animals and eating their kind, 115
Curran, John Philpot, was born at Newmarket, County of Cork, 24th July 1750. His father was Seneschal of the Manor of Newmarket; his mother, Sarah Philpot, a woman of culture and feeling, had her memory stored with Irish legends. Her recitals cultivated the imaginative faculties of her son, and the tender love between them continued strong through life. We do not hear much of his brothers and sisters. Curran grew up a rough country lad, speaking Irish as well as English, fonder of amusement than of books. Mr. Boyse, a neighbouring clergyman, early took a liking to the boy, gave him a preliminary education, and then sent him to Midleton school, chiefly at his own cost. He entered Trinity College as a sizar, and obtained a scholarship in 1770. He was intended for the Church, and studied divinity, but never wrote more than two sermons—one for his friend "Dick Stack" (afterwards a Fellow of the (College and author of a Treatise on Optics), the other preached by himself in. the College Chapel as a task. In the college rows between "town and gown " he was a foremost combatant—in short, we are told, he was "the wittiest and dreamiest, the most classical and ambitious of the scamps of Trinity College." On coming of age he abandoned all thoughts of entering the Church, and, having graduated, went to London and entered at the Middle Temple. His address and utterance were then so defective that he was known as "Stuttering Jack Curran." By constant practice, declaiming before a looking-glass, and studying Shakspere and Bolingbroke, he overcame natural deficiencies, and great was the surprise of the members of a debating club he occasionally attended, when one evening " Orator Mum "completely silenced an orator who had theretofore carried all before him. Thenceforward he was a constant speaker in debating societies, where from his utterances in favour of Catholic rights he was called "The Little Jesuit of St. Omers." During his second year in London he married his cousin, Miss Creagh. Her fortune and some money supplied by his family supported them until he was called to the Irish Bar in 1775. He used to say, his wife and children were the chief furniture of his apartments, and as to rent it stood much the same chance of liquidation as the National Debt. On the occasion of his first appearance, making a motion before the Chancellor at the old Courts in Dublin, his original nervousness overmastered him, and he had to resign the case into the hands of a friend. His brilliant talents soon asserted themselves,
