ROSS, DIOCESE OF. - Diocese in County Cork in southern Ireland. It is in the ecclesiastical province of Cashel and in the civil province of Munster. The diocese comprises 11 parishes, 29 secular priests, and 8 religious. There are also 5 communities of nuns and sisters, totaling 104 members. The total population of the diocese in 1947 was 25,011 inhabitants, of whom 23,598 were Catholics.
The first bishop was St. Fachtna, whose feast is celebrated on 14 August; he died around the year 600. Until 1650 the diocese had its own bishop, but from then until 1850 Ross was governed by vicars or by apostolic administrators. From 1748 to 1850 Ross was united with the Diocese of Cloyne. Among the most notable bishops of the diocese were Thaddeus McCarthy (1482–88), who died at Ivrea in 1492 and was beatified in 1895; Thomas O'Herlihy (1562–80), a man of great holiness who suffered much for the Catholic faith and attended the Council of Trent; Owen McEgan, who died for the faith in 1602; and Boetius McEgan, who was hanged at Carrigadrohid in 1650. With the consecration of William Keane as Bishop of Ross in 1851, the diocese regained its autonomy. Bishop Michael O'Hea took part in the Vatican Council in 1869. The cathedral church is at Skibbereen.