William Maziere Brady

William Maziere Brady (8 January 1825 – 19 March 1894) was an Irish priest, ecclesiastical historian and journalist who converted to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism.

Life Born in Dublin, on 8 January 1825, he was a nephew of Sir Maziere Brady, 1st Baronet, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and youngest son of Sir Nicholas W. Brady who, whilst Lord Mayor of Dublin, was knighted by King George IV during his visit to that city. His mother was Catherine Hodgson, daughter of Peter Hodgson, Comptroller of Customs for the Port of Dublin. William Maziere Brady entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1842, received the degree of B.A. in 1848, B. D. in 1858, and D. D. in 1863.

In 1848, he was appointed Anglican curate of Maynooth and, in 1849, curate of Kilkeedy, County Limerick. In 1851, he became curate of St Dolough's, Dublin, and in the same year Rector of Farrahy, County Cork. Brady acted as chaplain to several successive viceroys, and, in 1861, became Vicar of Clonfert, County Cork.

When the Irish Church Act 1869 was passed, Brady went to Rome, where he examined the Vatican archives for information touching the ecclesiastical affairs of England, Ireland, and Scotland. He shortly resigned his benefices as Vicar of Donoughpatrick, and Rector of Kilbery, County Meath, to which he had been promoted from Cork, and in May 1873, was received into the Catholic Church by Tobias Kirby, Rector of the Irish College at Rome. During his stay in Rome, he acted as correspondent of the London Tablet, and issued a pamphlet on The Pope's Anti-Parnellite Circular (London, 1883). He had a share in the political controversies of the day and corresponded with William Ewart Gladstone and other statesmen. He died of apoplexy in Rome, 19 March 1894, "Facts or Fiction; The alleged Conversion of the Irish Bishops to the Reformed Religion at the Accession of Queen Elizabeth and the Assumed Descent of the Present Established Hierarchy from the Ancient Irish Church Disproved" (1866), which went through five editions "State Papers concerning the Irish Church in the time of Queen Elizabeth" (1868)