Kelly, Denis (1852–1924), catholic bishop of Ross, was born 29 February 1852 at Killaneave, near Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, eldest son of William Kelly and his wife, Bridget (née Butler). He was educated at St Flannan's College, Ennis, Co. Clare (the Killaloe diocesan seminary), and the Irish College in Paris, where he won first prize in classics, mathematics, mental philosophy, theology, and canon law. He was ordained in Paris on 17 March 1877. After a few months as a curate in Roscrea, Kelly was appointed to the staff of St Flannan's College, becoming vice-president in 1881, and president in 1890 after his predecessor became bishop of Killaloe. (On this occasion Kelly himself was seriously considered for the see.) In testimony before the 1887 education endowments commission and the 1899 intermediate education commission he criticised the funding system known as ‘payment by results’ as ‘a prostitution of the brightest intellects of the country’ (Freeman's Journal, 18 and 19 Apr. 1924). In 1893 he served on a viceregal commission on primary education.
On 29 March 1897 Kelly was appointed bishop of Ross, being the choice of the majority of the clergy; he was consecrated on 9 May. Kelly is alleged never to have visited the diocese before his election, though he was a friend of his predecessor; the choice represented a reaction against Monsignor John O'Leary, prominent in the land agitations of the 1880s, who had dominated the diocese under the previous bishop. After his installation Kelly rapidly became identified with the conservative nationalism of the urban elite, represented by the Skibbereen Eagle, as distinct from a more populist brand of nationalism, espoused by the rival Southern Star; local critics regarded him as a cold, distant figure, who thought Ross too small for his talents and who was preoccupied with attempts to secure a more prestigious see. An early clash with the Star (then edited by D. D. Sheehan (qv), later an MP) was precipitated by Kelly's intense opposition to an ex-Parnellite candidate who was standing in the 1899 county council elections. Kelly became the most fervent supporter of John Redmond (qv) among the Irish catholic hierarchy, and actively opposed the Cork-based nationalist faction led by William O'Brien (qv).
Kelly's principal reputation was as an administrator and financial expert. He was a member of the congested districts board and the council of agriculture (which advised the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction). He served on the poor law commission of 1906–9 (he was co-author of the Irish section of its report), he advised the Home Rule Party on financial questions and served on the 1911 cabinet committee dealing with home rule finance, and he was a member of the commission on Irish forestry, 1917–18. He advised on the wartime Corn Production Act, and was credited with securing a guaranteed minimum wage for agricultural labourers. (Critics suggested his service on commissions was prompted by a desire to spend as little time as possible in Skibbereen.)
Kelly's support for home rule manifested itself in strong views on the Irish economy. He believed that Ireland should seek a repopulated rural society in which craft industries serviced an export-orientated agriculture – Ireland as ‘Britain's market garden’. He opposed increasing British government reliance on direct taxation and state welfare as unsuited to Irish circumstances: both at national and local level he favoured reducing taxation and expenditure to keep down the cost of capital. He argued that old age pensions should be reduced under home rule, and disliked the prospect of long-term British subsidies to Ireland on the grounds that personal and national self-reliance were more important than material welfare. He publicly defended the infamous ‘quarter-acre (Gregory) clause’ (this provided that anyone in possession of a quarter acre or more was not entitled to assistance under the poor law) on the grounds that it encouraged self-reliance and kept poverty from becoming pauperism. He denigrated emigrants as irrational people who wilfully endangered their souls.
At local level Kelly chaired the board of management of the Cork asylum and the County Cork infirmary. As bishop of Ross he was ex officio chairman of the governors of Baltimore Fishery School (the only Irish industrial school operated by a diocese rather than a religious order) and strove to obtain greater recognition for the training it provided; he campaigned successfully for the extension of Baltimore pier and the bridging of the Lee in Cork city (which made it easier to convey fish and agricultural produce by rail to inland markets). He must, however, share responsibility for the scandalous living conditions revealed by official inquiries into the school in the late 1930s. Kelly advocated the extension of technical instruction and sponsored technical classes in Skibbereen; a technical school, opened in the town after his death, was named after him.
In 1916 Kelly denounced the Easter rising as ‘murder pure and simple’ (O'Regan, 49), adding that it would make Britain less likely to grant financial concessions to Ireland under home rule. In 1917–18 he served on the Irish convention, where he impressed the delegates with his financial knowledge. He was absent from the convention's later stages through illness, but he sent a letter supporting Redmond's proposal to accept fiscal restraints on a home rule government in exchange for an end to partition; his fellow advocate of home rule Stephen Gwynn (qv) believed that if Kelly had been present in person he might have been able to prevent the rejection of this compromise.
Kelly supported the Irish Parliamentary Party even after 1918, though this left him increasingly isolated in west Cork. He declared that the IRA was bringing down the curse of Cain on the country, compared Sinn Féin to the Bolsheviks, and described the socialism of Constance Markievicz (qv) as a threat to the faith of St Patrick. There is a persistent tradition that at a bishops' meeting on 21 June 1921 he used the threat of a public expression of dissent to block a proposal that the catholic hierarchy should formally recognise the dáil (as requested by Éamon de Valera (qv)). Kelly died in Dublin on 18 April 1924. His career represents many of the virtues and limitations of the conservative and paternalistic arcadianism that dominated episcopal thinking in the first half of the twentieth century.