Ferns, Diocese of

FERNS, Diocese of. - In Ireland. It comprises within its 3,000 sq. km. of surface almost the whole county of Wexford and a part of that of Wicklow. It is a suffragan of Dublin. It has a population of 98,421 inhabitants, of whom 92,639 are Catholics (1936), with 42 parishes, 137 secular priests and 13 regulars, a seminary (St. Peter's College at Wexford), 8 male religious communities and 25 female ones.

St. Aidan c. 598 was the first bishop; his holy successors Mochna, Molling and Killan had almost a supremacy over the bishops of the region of Leinster. Later the bishops took their designation either from F. or from Wexford, as, for example, Macleoin O' Donegan (1125), or from Hy Kinsellag, as Bishop O' Cathan (1135). Bishop Ailbe O' Molloy took part in the Lateran Council of 1215. Bishop Patrick Barret transferred his residence to New Ross from 1400 to 1415; while at the beginning of the 16th century Bishop Comyn settled at Fethard Castle; later at Wexford and after 1809 at Enniscorthy; at present the episcopal residence is at Summerhill near Wexford. Father Dixon, exiled in Australia, of which he was the first apostolic prefect, belonged to the diocese of F. at the beginning of the 19th century. The city of F. suffered many devastations during the 9th and 10th centuries at the hands of the Scandinavians. There survive remains of the abbey of St. Mary in F., founded by the Canons Regular after 1160. Bishop O'Lynam founded the church of St. Peter in 1060.