Early Life
Magrath became a Franciscan priest and spent his early life in Rome - "on the Capitoline" - whence he was sent on a mission to Ireland. It was believed that, on passing through England, he displayed his Catholic letters of authorisation in order to demand bribes for accepting the Reformation. In any case, he appears to have satisfied the authorities that his position as a Catholic bishop in Ireland would not preclude his valid assent to the Act of Supremacy.
In October 1565, Magrath was appointed Roman Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor, although the temporalities were ruled over by his kinsman Shane O'Neill, chief of the O'Neill clan, whom he visited in 1566. In May 1567 he attended on the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Henry Sidney, at Drogheda, where he agreed to conform to the reformed faith and to hold his See of the Crown. However, in 1569 John Merriman was appointed the Protestant Bishop of Down and Connor, and Magrath held on to the Catholic See, before he was finally deprived of Down and Connor by Rome in 1580 for heresy and other matters; thus he had enjoyed dual appointments as Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland prelate for nine years.
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