Thomas Barnard

Thomas Barnard, M.A. (1726–1806) was an Anglican clergyman who served in the Church of Ireland as Bishop of Killaloe and Kilfenora (1780–1794) and Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe (1794–1806).

Born in 1726, he was the eldest son of Dr. William Barnard, Bishop of Raphoe (later of Derry). He was educated at Westminster School, where he was admitted a King's Scholar in 1741. He afterwards became a member of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1756, Master of Arts in 1760 and Bachelor of Divinity in 1769.

He was successively Vicar of Maghera (1751–1760), Archdeacon of Derry (1760–1769), and Dean of St Columb's Cathedral, Derry (1769–1780). He was nominated Bishop of Killaloe and Kilfenora by the crown on 29 January and consecrated bishop at the Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle on 20 February 1780. The principal consecrator was Charles Agar, Archbishop of Cashel, and the principal co-consecrators were William Newcome, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore and Isaac Mann, Bishop of Cork and Ross. Fourteen years later, he translated to the bishopric of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe; having been nominated to the see on 14 August and by letters patent on 12 September 1794.

He was a member of the Literary Club, and well known as the friend of Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Bishop Thomas Percy, and other literary characters of his day.

He died in his 80th year, at Wimbledon in Surrey, on 7 June 1806.

Reference

• Cotton, Henry (1851). The Province of Munster. Fasti Ecclesiae Hiberniae: The Succession of the Prelates and Members of the Cathedral Bodies of Ireland. Volume 1 (2nd ed.). Dublin: Hodges and Smith. pp. 390–391, 472. http://www.archive.org/details/fastiecclesiaehi01cottuoft. 
• Cotton, Henry (1849). The Province of Ulster. Fasti Ecclesiae Hiberniae: The Succession of the Prelates and Members of the Cathedral Bodies of Ireland. Volume 3. Dublin: Hodges and Smith. pp. 334, 338. http://www.archive.org/details/fastiecclesiae03cottuoft. 
• DNB
• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S. et al., eds (1986). Handbook of British Chronology (3rd, reprinted 2003 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 397, 401. ISBN 0-521-56350-X.