Irish colleges

Irish colleges, the continental seminaries, founded in the wake of the Council of Trent, which trained the Catholic clerical elite in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The first Irish college was founded with Philip II's encouragement at Salamanca in 1592 by the Jesuit Thomas White. A similar college was founded in Lisbon the following year. In 1611 there were twelve Irish colleges in Spain, France, and the Low Countries; by 1690 there were 30 colleges throughout the Continent.

Many colleges were run by religious orders. The Dominicans, Capuchins, Augustinians, and Carmelites all had colleges, but the Franciscans and Jesuits played the leading role. The Franciscan college of St Anthony's, Louvain, which cut a font for printing in Irish in 1611 and became famous for its devotional publications, was the most politicized. Jesuit colleges were accused of picking the brightest students and, even where they were not in control, their famous ratio studiorum influenced the courses of logic, philosophy, and theology on offer.

Ireland's regional and ethnic problems were prominently exhibited amongst staff and students. Salamanca was accused of favouring Munster students and denying places to Ulster and Connacht. Despite the advent of St Anthony's, Louvain, Leinster kept a strong grip on the Low Country establishments. There was trouble between students at Douai, Antwerp, Bordeaux, and St Isidore's in Rome. These regional biases were accentuated by endowments specifying sponsorship of students from particular parishes or dioceses.

Long‐term finance was problematic. Colleges in Spanish realms had grants from the crown or local universities and occasionally received contributions from municipalities, local alms, and Irish regiments. However, the financial difficulties of the Spanish monarchy in the 17th century hit the colleges hard, especially in the Low Countries. The establishment of the Irish brigade in France's army, and the presence of a rich expatriate merchant community, ensured that the French colleges were reasonably well endowed after 1691.

Under Tridentine rules priests needed dismissorial letters from diocesan colleges signed by the ordaining local bishop to get a parish. This was impossible with priests educated abroad. By 1600 40 priests were returning home each year. In 1623 college superiors were given permission to ordain clergy, which led to complaints from Irish bishops. After the Restoration many priests were ordained in Ireland on condition of going to the Continent for further education. Their resort led to the foundation of a second Paris college (1677) and another at Nantes (1689).

Circumstances conspired against the Irish colleges in the late 18th century. In 1764 and 1767 the Jesuits were expelled from France and Spain and in 1773 the pope himself suppressed the order. French colleges survived the first religious dissolutions of the French Revolution only to find themselves suppressed in 1793. Maynooth was founded as a counter‐revolutionary alternative in 1795.

Today Paris's Irish College is available to visiting academics and students; St Anthony's Louvain, is a conference centre for Irish businessmen and policy‐makers in the European Union; only the Roman college still operates as a seminary.

Bibliography

Walsh, T. J. , The Irish Continental College Movement (1973)

Hiram Morgan