Tanner's early life is unknown; he left Ireland by 1559, and reached Italy via Spain. In 1565 he was a Catholic priest in Rome, and entered the Society of Jesus.[1] After a year at the Roman College he was sent to Dillingen University in 1567, and became doctor of divinity. His health, however, failed and he left the Society. In 1574 he was again at Rome, and the See of Cork and Cloyne being vacant, he was appointed to it, 5 November 1574, and was consecrated at Rome.[2]
In May, 1575, Tanner set out for Ireland with exceptional faculties for his own diocese and for those of Cashel, Dublin, and its suffragan sees in the absence of their respective prelates. Not long after his reaching Ireland he was captured while exercising his functions at Clonmel, and was thrown into prison; here, as Holing tells, he was visited by a Protestant bishop whom he reconciled to the Church. A few days later he was himself released through the influence of a noble earl.[2]
Edmund Hogan, Distinguished Irishmen of the 16th Century (London, 1894)
William Maziere Brady, Episcopal Succession in Great Britain and Ireland (Rome, 1876–1877)
Francis Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, I (Dublin, 1874)
Anthony Bruodin, Propugnaculum catholicœ veritatis (Prague, 1669)
External links
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1912). "Edmund Tanner". Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company.