BELLINGS, Richard. — Irish statesman and historian, born in Dublin, the year unknown, died in 1677. A member of the Irish Parliament by virtue of his marriage to a daughter of Viscount Mountgarret, he served in 1642 as secretary to the Supreme Council. As a zealous Catholic, he was sent to Rome in 1644 to request from Innocent X a papal nuncio for Ireland (cf. Pastor, XIV, 1, pp. 120, 122), which was granted. With the advent of the Cromwellians, his property was confiscated and he was forced to take refuge in France. Later he was able to return to his homeland and recover his fortune.
His principal work is a defense of Irish Catholics (Vindiciae Catholicorum Hiberniae, lib. II, Paris 1650). In 1772 there appeared for the first time a history of Ireland covering the years 1641–48, which was later republished with notes and documents from the original manuscript by J. T. Gilbert under the title History of the Irish Confederation and the War in Ireland, 1641–48 (4 vols., Dublin 1882–85).