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Agar, Charles

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Agar, John

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an Irish prelate of the last century, was born in Gowran Castle, in the County of Kilkenny, and educated in Westminster School, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford. Having entered into holy orders, he was appointed first chaplain to the duke of Northumberland while lord- lieutenant of Ireland in 1763, from which situation he was promoted to the deanery of Kilmore, and to the see of Cloyne in 1768. In 1779 he was translated to that of Cashel, over which he presided for twenty years. During that time he restored all the old churches and cathedrals in his diocese and built eleven new churches. In 1795 he was elevated to the peerage as baron Somerton, and yet higher as viscount Somerton in 1800. In 1801 he was translated to the archbishopric of Dublin, and was one of the representative spiritual peers in the first imperial parliament. In 1806 he was dignified with the title of earl of Normanton. In 1807 he and the' other prelates of the Established Church were commanded by his majesty to make a minute return of the state of the. Irish Church, in their respective provinces and .sees; and in a visitation of the same year he directed, a too- long-deferred regard for-the working clergy, that the incumbents of the diocese should, for the future, pay to their curates seventy-five pounds per annum instead of fifty pounds, as before allowed. In 1808 he was the promoter of a bill for securing the estates and funds devised by the Rev.: Richard Daniel, and to apply the profits to the relief of the poor of St. Luke's parish in the city of,Dublin; the support the Hospital for Incurables, and other, charitable institutions. He died July 14, 1809. See D'Alton, Memoirs of the Archbishops of Dublin, p. 349.