a list of churches granted by Eugenius, the last Irish bishop of
Clonard, to the monastery of St. Thomas the Martyr, Dublin.[65] They are
scattered over the three deaneries of Dunshaughlin, Skreen and Trim.
Thus Eugenius had absorbed into his diocese the bishoprics of those
three places. Another document tells us that this same Eugenius
consecrated the church of Duleek;[66] which implies that the diocese of
Duleek was also suppressed. Thus by 1191, the year of Eugenius's
death--within eighty years of the Synod of Rathbreasail, and before the
Anglo-Normans had captured the ecclesiastical domination of Meath--the
diocese of Clonard had expanded to four times its original size. Its
bishop ruled the whole area of the modern county of Meath which lies
south of the Boyne and Blackwater.

Simon Rochfort, the first English bishop, stretched his arm further. We
have a charter of his, which may be dated before 1202, confirming to St.
Thomas's Abbey a number of churches in his diocese.[67] It includes
most, if not all, of the churches granted by his predecessor, but adds
others. Among these are some in the deanery of Slane. The bishopric of
Slane had been absorbed.

The rapid extension of his diocese towards the north suggested to
Rochfort the desirability of having for his headquarters a more central
place than Clonard. So in 1202 he translated the see to Newtown, near
Trim,[68] and began to call himself Bishop of Meath. Ten years later, as
we know, this "impudent bishop" captured the diocese of Kells.[69] The
bishop of Meath (no longer of Clonard) from his see at Newtown had the
oversight of nearly the whole of the modern county. Within the confines
of his diocese were the seven older dioceses of Clonard, Dunshaughlin,
Skreen, Trim, Duleek, Slane and Kells. This was probably the whole of
the eastern diocese as designed by the Synod of Usnagh.

But the policy of annexation still went forward apace. Another document
enables us to measure the progress of half a century. It is a concordat
concerning metropolitical visitations, between the archbishop of Armagh
and Rochfort's third successor, Hugh de Tachmon. It is dated 9th April,
1265.[70] The tenor of the concordat does not concern us: it is
important for our purpose because it proves that in 1265 there were
eleven rural deaneries in the diocese of Meath. Four more petty dioceses
had been suppressed, Mullingar, Loxewdy, Ardnurcher and Fore. The
diocese was co-extensive with that