Power Le Poer Trench

The Most Revd and Hon Power Le Poer Trench DD
Archbishop of Tuam
Power Le Poer Trench, portrait by Richard James Lane (engraver), after a painting by Clemintina Robertson.
Archdiocese	Tuam
Installed	1819
Term ended	1839
Predecessor	William Beresford, Archbishop of Tuam
Successor	Thomas Plunket, Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry
Orders
Consecration	21 November 1802
Personal details
Birth name	Power Le Poer Trench
Born	10 June 1770
Died	25 March 1839 (aged 68)
Nationality	Irish
Parents	William Trench, 1st Earl of Clancarty and Anne Gardiner
Spouse	Anne Taylor
Children	2 sons and 6 daughters
Previous post	Bishop of Waterford and Lismore 1802–1810 Bishop of Elphin 1810–1819

Power Le Poer Trench D.D. (1770–1839) was an Anglican clergyman who served in the Church of Ireland as firstly Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, then Bishop of Elphin and finally Archbishop of Tuam.

He was the second son of William Trench, 1st Earl of Clancarty, and younger brother of Richard Trench, 2nd Earl of Clancarty. Born in Sackville Street, Dublin, on 10 June 1770, he was first educated at a preparatory school at Putney, whence he went for a short time to Harrow, and afterwards at the academy of Mr. Ralph at Castlebar, in the immediate neighbourhood of his home. Trench matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin, on 2 July 1787, where his tutor was Matthew Young, afterwards bishop of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh, and graduated B.A. on 13 July 1791. Later in the same year (27 November) Trench was ordained deacon, and, having received priest's orders on 24 June 1792, he was in the same month inducted into the benefice of Creagh, in which his father's residence and the great fair town of Ballinasloe were situated. In the following year (5 November 1793) he was presented to the benefice of Rawdenstown, co. Meath. He obtained a faculty to hold the two cures together, and combined with their clerical duties the business of agent on his father's Galway estate. Trench was a man of great bodily strength and a fine horseman, and retained to the end of his days a fondness for field sports. During the Irish Rebellion of 1798 he acted as a captain in the local yeomanry raised by his father to resist the French invading army under Humbert.

In 1802 Trench was appointed to the see of Waterford, in succession to Richard Marlay, and was consecrated on 21 November 1802. In 1810 he was translated to the bishopric of Elpin, and, on the death of Archbishop Beresford, was on 4 October 1819 advanced to the archiepiscopal see of Tuam. In May 1834, on the death of James Verschoyle, the united sees of Killala and Achonry were, under the provisions of the Irish Church Temporalities Act, added to the charge of Trench. By the same act the archdiocese of Tuam was reduced, on Trench's death, to an ordinary bishopric.