Irish Colleges is the collective name used for approximately 34 centres of education for Irish Catholic clergy and lay people opened on continental Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
Irish Colleges is the collective name used for approximately 34 centres of education for Irish Catholic clergy and lay people opened on continental Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
The Colleges were set up to educate Roman Catholics from Ireland in their own religion following the takeover of the country by the Protestant English state in the Tudor conquest of Ireland. Irish Catholics also left the country to pursue military careers in the Flight of the Wild Geese.
The first Irish Colleges were established in Spain in the 1580s under the supervision of the Jesuit priest James Archer, in Salamanca and Madrid .
There were several early Irish Colleges in Southern Netherlands. St. Patrick Irish college of Douai was founded in 1603 by Christopher Cusack, [1] with the support of Philip III of Spain. The Irish College at Douai was integrated to the Faculty of Theology of the University of Douai in 1610. St Anthony's College, the Irish Franciscan College in Leuven, was co-founded in May 1607 by Aodh Mac Cathmhaoil (also known as Aodh Mac Aingil) and Flaithri Ó Maolconaire, Irish Franciscan, theologian and aide to Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill. The College was founded under the patronage of Philip III of Spain. There was also an Irish Dominican College at Leuven from 1624 until 1797. [2]
The Irish College in Paris was co-founded in 1605 by John Lee and John de l'Escalopier, President of the Parlement of Paris.
More Colleges were established in Rome (1625), Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Lille, Antwerp and then Prague (1631). [3] Some of the Colleges fell out of use in the late 18th century as the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics in Ireland were relaxed.
Irish colleges were important centres for the writing of Irish history and the preservation of Ireland’s rich cultural traditions. Mícheál Ó Cléirigh was sent from an Irish college to Ireland to compile the Annals of the Four Masters , an important chronicle of Irish history. Within the colleges, printing press in the Irish language were established and a collection of the lives of Irish saints was produced. Irish colleges were also helpful for the Irish resistance during the Nine Years' War in Ireland and later exile on the European continent.
On 16 October 1802, Irish colleges located in Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Douai, Lille, Antwerp, Leuven and Paris were merged under a unique administration, alongside the Scottish College in Douai and Scots College in Paris.
In 1951 The Salamanca Archive, documents relating to the Irish Colleges in Spain were given to the Irish Church and deposited in St. Patrick's College, Maynooth. [4]
In the last decade, the Irish Government has financed the renovation of the premises of the Irish College in Paris which now serves as an Irish Cultural Centre and a residence for Irish students, writers and artists. The Pontifical Irish College in Rome continues to be used for the education and training of Roman Catholic clergy. In 1983 the Irish College in Leuven was made available by the Irish Franciscans for development as a secular resource. The Leuven Institute for Ireland in Europe is now located on the premises.
Lille and Douai were part of the Spanish Netherlands when they were established.
Catholic higher education includes universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher education privately run by the Catholic Church, typically by religious institutes. Those tied to the Holy See are specifically called pontifical universities.
St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth, is a pontifical Catholic university in the town of Maynooth near Dublin, Ireland. The college and national seminary on its grounds are often referred to as Maynooth College.
A Pontifical University or Athenaeum is an ecclesiastical university established or approved directly by the Holy See, composed of three main ecclesiastical faculties and at least one other faculty. These academic institutes deal specifically with Christian revelation and related disciplines, and the Church's mission of spreading the Gospel, as proclaimed in the apostolic constitution Sapientiachristiana. As of 2018, they are governed by the apostolic constitution Veritatis gaudium issued by Pope Francis on 8 December 2017.
Luke Wadding, O.F.M., was an Irish Franciscan friar and historian.
The University of Douai was a former university in Douai, France. With a medieval heritage of scholarly activities in Douai, the university was established in 1559 and lectures started in 1562. It closed from 1795 to 1808. In 1887, it was transferred as University of Lille 27 km away from Douai.
Thomas Stapleton was an English Catholic priest and controversialist.
Aodh Mac Cathmhaoil, O.F.M., was an Irish Franciscan theologian and Archbishop of Armagh. He was known by Irish speakers at Leuven (Louvain) by the honorary name Aodh Mac Aingil, and it was under this title that he published the Irish work Scáthán Shacramuinte na hAthridhe.
The Irish College was a seminary at Douai, France, for Irish Roman Catholics in exile on the continent of Europe to study for the priesthood, modelled on the English College there. Dedicated to St. Patrick, the college was sometimes referred to as St. Patrick's College, Douai.
Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire, was an Irish Franciscan and theologian, founder of the College of St Anthony of Padua, Leuven, and Archbishop of Tuam.
Patrick Fleming O.F.M. was an Irish Franciscan scholar, who was murdered near Prague in the course of the Thirty Years' War.
The Irish College in Paris was for three centuries a major Roman Catholic educational establishment for Irish students. It was founded in the late 16th century, and closed down by the French government in the early 20th century. From 1945 to 1997, the Polish seminary in Paris was housed in the building. It is now an Irish cultural centre, the Centre Culturel Irlandais.
Francis Nugent was an Irish priest of the Franciscan Capuchin Order. He was the founder of the Irish and the Rhenish Provinces of the Order.
Aodh Buidhe Mac an Bhaird, O.F.M., was an Irish Franciscan friar who was a noted poet, historian and hagiographer. He is considered the founder of Irish archaeology.
Sant'Isidoro a Capo le Case is a Catholic church, monastic complex and college run by the Franciscan Order in the Ludovisi district on the Pincian Hill in Rome. It contains the Cappella Da Sylva, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who also designed the funerary monument of his son Paolo Valentino Bernini in it. Since 2017 San Patrizio a Villa Ludovisi became the national church of the United States, Sant'Isidoro has become the National Church of Ireland in Rome.
An ecclesiastical university is a special type of higher education school recognised by the Canon law of the Catholic Church. It is one of two types of universities recognised, the other type being the Catholic university. Every single ecclesiastical university is a pontifical university, while only a few Catholic universities are pontifical.
Irish College at Lisbon or St Patrick's College, Lisbon was set up during the Penal Times, by a group of Irish Jesuits, supported by a number of Portuguese Nobles, in Lisbon.
The Irish College of St Anthony, in Leuven, Belgium, known in Irish: Coláiste na nGael i Lobháin, Latin: Hibernorum Collegii S. Antonii de Padua Lovanii, French: Collège des Irlandais à Louvain and Dutch: Iers College Leuven, has been a centre of Irish learning on the European Continent since the early 17th century. The college was dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua.
Irish College Bordeaux– established in 1603, set up under the leadership of Rev. Dermot McCarthy, invited by Cardinal François de Sourdis, Archbishop of Bordeaux to set up an Irish College in the city, and affiliated to the University of Bordeaux. McCarthy arrived with forty students from Ireland in November 1603. Pope Paul V, recognised it with a papal bull of the 26 April 1617. Due to an increase in the number of students, in 1618, a number of students were sent to other colleges. Alumni and staff were buried in the Irish Church, St. Eutrope, Bordeaux, which was given to the Irish. Students studied in the Jesuit College. Rector Rev. Dr. Thadee O Mahony developed the college, and recognising the support of Anne of Austria, they renamed the chapel Saint-Anne-la-Royal. Following endowment in 1654, alumni were granted French naturalisation, which meant a number of alumni stayed and ministered in France. The Irish College in Toulouse (1618-1793) was a sister college also supported by Anne of Austria, it followed the Bordeaux statues until it was constituted with its own statues.
Irish College, Antwerp, was an Irish Pastoral College, dedicated to St. Patrick for Irish Secular Priests, which opened circa 1600 during the Penal Laws in Antwerp, in what is now Belgium. It was a satellite college of the Irish College, Douai. The College was redeveloped in 1629 by Lawrence Sedgrave a Leinster priest who bought the premises. Students attended lectures at the Jesuit college at Antwerp, where Irish Jesuit was a professor Fr. Richard Archdeacon (Arsdekin), S.J. taught, later from 1716 students studied at the Antwerp Diocesean Seminary in Schoenmarkt.
Irish College, Madrid was one of the Irish Colleges founded on continental Europe to train Catholic priests for Ireland during the Penal Laws. The college was founded by Theobald Stapleton in 1629. A Hospital and church was also established along with the college.
