Joyce, William

Joyce, William (d. 1501), archbishop of Tuam, was the natural son of a priest. He succeeded Walter Blake, formerly canon of Tuam and Annaghdown, as archbishop on 16 May 1485. The papal letters of appointment stated that he was to assume the office ‘notwithstanding the defect in his birth’ and that he was absolved of all sentences of excommunication, indicating that he may have been in trouble with the church authorities previously. Soon he was in dispute with William Bermingham, probably the archdeacon of Tuam, who Joyce claimed had withheld from him the Premonstratensian monastery at Tuam. On 5 May 1492 the pope ordered that the monastery be conveyed to the archbishop but exacted an oath of fealty from him first. Further trouble arose in 1501 about the same monastery, when Joyce complained that he could not maintain his archiepiscopal dignity as powerful laymen had withheld its revenues from him. An answer came from Rome, dated 15 December 1501, but it is unlikely that he received it as he died on 28 December that year. He was succeeded as archbishop of Tuam by a short-lived English successor, Philip Pinson (d. 1503).