After quoting these words in substance from the Augustinian chronicler, Dr. Renehan adds: “After the most diligent inquiry I could make at Ivrea, wherever I could hope for any little information, particularly at the episcopal palace (where I was received with marked respect, as a priest from the country that sent out the B. Thaddeus), and of the Bishop’s secretary, the vicar-general, and many others, whose kind attention I can never forget, I could find no vestige of any other Thaddeus, called after the city (_Eporedia_), but our own blessed Irish bishop; and I was assured, over and over again, that he was the only Thaddeus known in its annals, or who ever had any connection with the town, by birth, residence, death—or any way known to the present generation”. It is not then unreasonable to suppose that the Thaddeus so celebrated in the Augustinian Order was no other than our Bishop. True, Elsius gives 1502 for the date of the friar’s demise; but Elsius is never to be trusted in dates, and the printer may easily take MCCCCXCII. (the true date), for MCCCCCII. Indeed, 1492 is not so different from 1502 that an error may not have crept in.
Dr. Renehan’s theory, then, with regard to B. Thaddeus, fully detailed in the letter to the Bishop of Ivrea, was this:—
Thaddeus M’Carthy was born in Kerry, where the M’Carthy More branch of the family resided, and where, in the monastery of Irialac (now Muckross), or in Ennisfallen (see _Archdall_), the princes of the house were always buried. The young Thaddeus went abroad at an early age, and embraced the monastic life. His virtues and piety soon attracted the notice of his religious brethren, as manifest from their chronicles. They became in time known to the ruling Pontiff, Innocent VIII., who raised him to the episcopal dignity. The B. Thaddeus repaired to Rome in the first place, to receive consecration and jurisdiction from the successor of St. Peter, imitating in this the example of our great patron saint. He stopped at Ivrea, probably on his way home, fell sick there, and died, God witnessing to His servant by signs and wonders. The silence of our annalists is thus accounted for to a great extent by the long residence of B. Thaddeus abroad. This theory is remarkably borne out by the independent notice in last _Record_. Having little to help us to arrive at any correct notion of the saintly bishop’s life beyond the epitaph and the slender tradition at Ivrea, we entirely subscribe to this view. Other sources of information may be opened, now that we have ventured to bring, for the first time, the name of B. Thaddeus before the Irish Catholic people; and for this service, little as it is, and entirely unworthy of our saintly bishop, we still expect his blessing in full measure.