Thomas O'Brien

James Thomas O'Brien (1792–1874), was an Irish clergyman. He was Church of Ireland Bishop of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin from 1842 to 1874. Early life O'Brien, born at New Ross, County Wexford, in September 1792, was the son of Michael Burke O'Brien, a corporation officer, with the title of deputy sovereign of New Ross, who died in 1826. His mother, Dorothy, was the daughter of Thomas Kough. The father, who came originally from County Clare, was descended, although himself a Protestant, from a Roman Catholic branch of the great O'Brien family, which had been deprived of its property by the penal laws; he was well educated, but more imprudent than provident. The son was educated at the endowed school of New Ross, and entered Trinity College Dublin, as a pensioner in November 1810. A portion of the cost of his education was defrayed by the borough of New Ross; in September 1826 he refunded the amount, £116, and was voted the freedom of the borough and a gold box. O'Brien obtained a scholarship at Trinity College in 1813, graduated B.A., and took the gold medal in 1815. He was especially distinguished in mathematics. Career In 1820, O'Brien obtained a fellowship of Trinity, and took holy orders. He was awarded the degree of D.D. in 1830. He was one of the six Trinity College Dublin preachers from 1828 till 1842, and became Archbishop King's lecturer in 1833, when the divinity school in the college was thoroughly reorganised.