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Adam Loftus (archbishop)

The Most Reverend
Adam Loftus
Archbishop of Dublin
and Primate of Ireland
Archbishop Loftus.jpg
Church Church of Ireland
Province Dublin
Diocese Dublin and Glendalough
Installed 9 August 1567
Term ended 5 April 1605
Predecessor Hugh Curwen
Successor Thomas Jones
Other posts Archbishop of Armagh (2 March 1563 – 9 August 1567)
Personal details
Born 1533
Yorkshire Dales, England
Died 5 April 1605 (age 71/72)
Dublin, Ireland
Nationality English
Denomination Anglican
Parents Edward Loftus
Spouse Jane Purdon (m. c. 1560)
Children Dudley Loftus and 10 others
Alma mater Trinity College, Cambridge

Adam Loftus (c. 1533 – 5 April 1605) was Archbishop of Armagh, and later Dublin, and Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1581. He was also the first Provost of Trinity College, Dublin.

Adam Loftus was born in 1533, the second son of a monastic bailiff, Edward Loftus, in the heart of the English Yorkshire Dales. Edward died when Loftus was only eight years old, leaving his estates to his elder brother Robert Loftus. Edward Loftus had made his living through the Catholic Church, but the son embraced the Protestant faith early in his development. He was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he reportedly attracted the notice of the young Queen Elizabeth, as much by his physique as through the power of his intellect, having shone before her in oratory. This encounter may never have happened, but Loftus certainly met with the Queen more than once, and she became his patron for the rest of her reign. At Cambridge Loftus took holy orders as a Catholic priest and was appointed rector of Outwell St Clement in Norfolk. He came to the attention of the Catholic Queen Mary (1553–58), who named him vicar of Gedney, Lincolnshire. On Elizabeth's accession in 1558 he declared himself Anglican.

Loftus made the acquaintance of the Queen's favourite Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex and served as his chaplain in Ireland in 1560. In 1561 he became chaplain to Alexander Craik, Bishop of Kildare and Dean of St Patrick's in Dublin. Later that year he was appointed rector of Painstown in Meath, and evidently earned a reputation as a learned and discreet advisor to the English authorities in Dublin. In 1563, he was consecrated archbishop of Armagh at the unprecedented age of 28 by Hugh Curwen, Archbishop of Dublin.


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