William Reeves (bishop)

William Reeves (16 March 1815 – 12 January 1892) was an Irish antiquarian and the Church of Ireland Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore from 1886 until his death.

In October 1830, he entered Trinity College Dublin, where he quickly gained a prize for Hebrew and was elected a Scholar in classics in 1833.

[3] In 1844, Reeves rediscovered the lost site of Nendrum Monastery when he visited Mahee Island in Strangford Lough, County Down, searching for churches recorded in 1306, and recognised the remains of a round tower.

Reeves resided in Ballymena from 1841 to 1858,[9] when he was appointed vicar of Lusk following the success of his edition of Adomnán's Life of Saint Columba (1857), for which the Royal Irish Academy had awarded him their Cunningham Medal in 1858.

[2] Reeves's edition of Adomnán's Life of Columba has been called "the best and fullest collection of materials on the early Irish Church in one volume".

[3] With regard to the Celtic Church, Reeves himself described Adomnán's work as – ...an inestimable literary relic... perhaps, with all its defects, the most valuable monument of that ancient institution which has escaped the ravages of time.

[14] Reeves was a friend of Margaret Stokes and with his colleague Todd is credited with setting off her interest in Irish antiquities.

[2][22] In November 1889, Reeves had bought the important collection of Irish manuscripts of Robert Shipboy MacAdam (1808–1895), a Belfast business man and archaeologist.

William Reeves (1892) contains sections relating to the Royal Irish Academy, Scotland, Ireland, the Athanasian Creed, the Utrecht Psalter, the Old Testament, and 'Household Furniture'.