John Dongan

John Dongan [Donegan, Donnegan, Donkan, Duncan] (died 1413) was a medieval Manx prelate. After holding the position of Archdeacon of Down, he held three successive bishoprics, Man and the Isles (Sodor), then the see of Derry and lastly, Down.

He resigned his last bishopric in 1413, and died afterwards at an unrecorded date. He was the last bishop of the united diocese of Sodor, which split into the "Scottish" and "Irish" (Manx) parts because of the Western Schism.

Bishop of Man and the Isles According to the Manx Chronicle, he was a native Manxman. Despite this, the earliest major ecclesiastical position he is recorded to have obtained was Irish: in 1368 Pope Urban V appointed him Archdeacon of Down. (Dongan was originally Donnagáin and found in the south-Ulster / north-Leinster area . In the following years Dongan worked as a papal tax-collector and nuncio in Ireland. He did not immediately make it back to the British Isles, because while returning from Avignon he was kidnapped.

He is not known to have returned to the Isle of Man until 25 January 1377, when he is said to have celebrated his first Mass at St Germanus' Cathedral, Peel. Charter evidence confirming two Manx churches to Whithorn Priory, reveals that on 5 February he held a "general chapter", which may have involved a general investigation of church landholdings in the diocese in his role as papal nuncio and tax-collector for the diocese, two roles he had received in addition to the bishopric of Sodor in 1374.

Although Dongan retained de facto episcopal authority in the Isle of Man, this marked, in the words of one historian, the "final rift between the Hebrides and the Isle of Man within the diocese".

These developments meant that Dongan's already poor diocese was minuscule, too small really to necessitate a full-time bishop, and so Dongan's episcopal status was put to use elsewhere by busier prelates. In the early 1390s he is found in England acting as a kind of deputy to various English bishops. On 14 January 1390, for instance, he is found working on the commission of the Bishop of Salisbury. He held this position for only three years, as on 16 September 1394 he was translated to the bishopric of Down, also in the province of Armagh.

As the bishop of Down, his most notable role was his diplomatic interactions on behalf of the English crown with the native Gaelic leaders of Ireland and Scotland. In 1405 he was given this role and appointed "keeper of the liberty of Ulster". This is the last notice of him, so it is unclear when exactly he died, though it is presumed to be soon afterwards.