Robert Whittey

Robert Whittey, or Whitty (1370–1458) was a Bishop of Ferns in Ireland, notable for his long tenure of the see, and his great age at death.

[2] At that time the town of New Ross, which his predecessor Patrick Barrett had made the effective centre of the diocese in preference to Ferns itself, had long been under a papal interdict, as a punishment for a riot which resulted in the killing of several monks of the Order of Crutched Friars by the townspeople.

[3] The Bishop worked hard to have the interdict lifted and was finally successful in 1435 in persuading Pope Eugenius IV to grant absolution to the townspeople of New Ross.

Accordingly, a statute of 1450 excused him from any further attendance at sessions of parliament or meetings of the Great Council, due to his "age and infirmity".

[4][non-primary source needed] In 1456 he was apparently well enough to sit on a three-man commission to choose the High Sheriff of Wexford.