He was educated at Mount Melleray Abbey, Seminary, County Waterford, and at St Colman's College, Fermoy, Co. Cork, afterwards studying at Rome, where he was ordained in 1869.
On his return to Ireland he was appointed professor of Classics at St. Colman's, where he remained about three years.
A few months before his death, he had been chosen by the Government on the recommendation of the Council of the Royal Irish Academy to edit the Annals of Tighearnach.
He often spoke critically of his predecessors, for instance of John Colgan, the O'Clerys, Eugene O'Curry, etc., and of contemporary scholars.
[1] A letter of his criticising a favourable review of John Salmon's Ancient Irish Church as a Witness to Catholic Doctrine in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record (August, 1897, 166-170) led to a controversy between these two Catholic scholars, which was carried on in that periodical the following year.