Collegium Hibernorum De Urbe

 

	Another major contribution to the study of the Irish on the continent is The Irish College, Rome, 1628-1678, an edition of a manuscript history of the college written in 1678 by James Reilly SJ to mark its fiftieth anniversary.  Printed in Rome by the Pontifical Irish College, this sumptuously produced volume features colour photographs of the architecture and art of the early years of the college, an informative historical overview of seventeenth-century Irish ecclesiastics in Rome by Thomas O’Connor as well as a very detailed introduction to the text itself by John J. Hanly.  Among the alumni of the college whom O’Connor describes were the saintly scholar Oliver Plunkett and the combative rogue Terence O’Kelly, who complained a great deal during his student days and later, as vicar apostolic of Derry, ‘took to himself a mistress and lived publicly with their children’.
The history itself recounts such topics as the endowment of the college by Cardinal Ludovisi, the Jesuit take-over of the college administration, financial difficulties, and how various rectors dealt with them.  This volume suggests the riches in European archives yet to be mined for future histories.   Review by Dr Clare Carroll,  Queens College City University, New York published in Field Day Review, Spring 2005.
Review by Mary Ann Lyons Irish Historical Studies Vol. XXXIV No 135, May 2005 pp. 345-347 Department of History, St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra.  This particularly handsome volume, published to celebrate the 375th anniversary of the foundation of the Ludovisian Irish College in Rome, features an account of the college’s first fifty years which was published in the original Latin in Archivium Hibernicum, vol. xxvii (1964).  The author is believed to have been Father James Reilly, S.J., a student of the college (1662-7).  In this book an edited transcript of the original Latin text, prepared by Monsignor John J. Hanly, is presented alongside the first-ever English translation by the classics scholar Declan Lawell.  The first chapter details the circumstances surrounding the foundation of the college in 1628 by Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Gregory XV, and traces its development in the early years while it was under the direction of the Franciscans.  Predictably the author is fulsome inn his praise of Ludovisi and of Father Luke Wadding, who is portrayed as playing a pivotal role in persuading the cardinal to found the college and in devising a code of rules and regulations.              The second chapter traces the fortunes of the college community under the stewardship of fourteen Jesuit rectors during the period 1635-78.  This section is overwhelmingly concerned with describing successive rectors’ strategies in addressing the college’s extremely precarious financial state and their management of college property.  In this respect it mirrors the content of most contemporary Irish College archives throughout Europe.  When in 1635 the Jesuits assumed the rectorship, only five crowns remained in the coffers and sizeable debts had been accumulated.  The finances further deteriorated in 1639, when father William Malone, S.J., the rector, purchased a permanent residence for the college (now the Convitto di S. Tommaso) for 8,000 crowns.  The author is frank and unflattering in his assessment of successive rectors’ handling of the finances and portrays the 1650’s as a particularly dark chapter in the history of the college owing to maladministration and a decline in discipline.  In addition, he offers interesting comments on the rectors’ distinctive visions for the college and the Irish mission and also on their relations with the students.  Fifty years after its foundation the college is described as more financially secure, its community living in more comfortable accommodation and adhering to the highest standards in religious observance.              Chapter 3 features a description of the college chapel and a brief account of the library’s history, as well as a vignette on the practice of accommodating foreign lodgers on the premises.  All students were required to take an oath to return to Ireland, and various versions of this oath as taken by students during the first fifty years are reproduced in chapter 4 and in an appendix.  Unfortunately chapter 5, entitled ‘The rules of the college’ the author did not, in fact, insert the rules as he had intended, though Monsignor Hanly refers the reader to versions of the rules in an alternative collection in the college archives.              The sixth chapter, which profiles the students admitted to the college down to 1678, is the most fascinating.  In these cameo portraits, which become increasingly detailed from the 1640’s onwards, the author records standard information concerning each students admission and departure dates, his previous education and pursuit of studies in Rome, and his subsequent career.  Since it is often difficult to trace the whereabouts of Irish clerics beyond their ordination in continental colleges, this listing is especially valuable, enabling researchers to gauge the contribution of the college’s clerics to the Irish mission.  The author makes it clear that, despite the expectation that all graduates were to return to minister in Ireland, some remained on the Continent, where they either secured teaching posts at continental universities and seminaries, pursued pastoral careers or joined religious orders, notably the Jesuits.  Apart from major figures such as Oliver Plunkett, archbishop of Armagh and John Brennan, archbishop of Cashel, less eminent clerics and even those who left before ordination are profiled.              While palpably proud of his alma mater and often overtly defensive on delicate issues concerning students behaviour, the author is especially engaging in his discriminating yet balanced assessment of their character.  His severs censure of Bonaventure White, who was expelled in 1654 for a violent drunken attack on his fellow students, is balanced by warm praise for many others whom he commended for their excellent conduct.  He alludes to the college authorities’ practice of providing students with clothing, money and a breviary on their departure for Ireland, and cites instances when particularly sympathetic and generous treatment was afforded clerics who were in poor health.  Indeed, the text features many references to clerics suffering bad health and even records the death of a handful of students during the sojourn in Rome.              In perusing these profiles, the reader will note distinct patterns, including the dominance of students from Leinster and Munster, the recurrence of family names such as Creagh and Plunkett, the importance of family and patronage networks in facilitating admission to the college and dictating the course of a clerics career, and the strength of friendships formed between young clerical students such as John Brennan and Oliver Plunkett during their student days in Rome.              Its contemporary character makes this document especially valuable.  It captures vividly the antipathy that many seventeenth-century Irish Catholics felt towards the English monarchy for trying to spread ‘pestilence’ (i.e. Protestantism) among the Irish, while the latter are acclaimed for their steadfast adherence to the catholic faith.  One is also struck by the poignancy of remarks such as the following, made in relation to archbishop Oliver Plunkett just three years before his execution: ‘for eight years now he has exercised his pastoral office brilliantly, which such remarkable diplomatic skill that the catholic revere him as a man of authority, while Protestants respect him and do not make trouble for him (pp 135-7).             The text is complimented by a very fine history of the college during the period 1625-1690 by the Rev. Dr Thomas O’Connor.  His rich synthesis of archival and historiographical material forms the backdrop to the narrative of the college’s historical evolution in an era of profound religious reform and revival both on the continent and in Ireland, thereby deepening the reader’s appreciation of the significance of the college’s foundation.  Equally impressive is monsignor Hanly’s scholarly introduction to the manuscript history and his explanatory notes on the text.  The volume is enhanced by the incorporation of several beautifully reproduced colour plates and a comprehensive index.             All involved in the production of this publication are to be commended for making available this valuable archival resource which offers a wealth of insights into the experiences of this Irish clerical community in Rome and illuminates the contribution of its members to the Irish mission during the seventeenth century.

Review by Mons Patrick J. Corish, DD, MRIA Professor Emeritus of History, St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Ireland

The Furrow, Jan, 2004

The Irish College, Rome, 16-28-1678. Rome: Pontifical Irish College. Dublin: Veritas.

It is a good thing to keep anniversaries and for the Pontifical Irish College, Rome the three hundred and seventy-fifth is as good as any.  It is certainly aptly commemorated by this splendid edition of a manuscript in the College archives written to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary in 1678.

The text is already known to historians, as it was edited by Mgr John Hanly in Archivium Hibernicum xxvii (1964).  He contributes an introduction and notes to this reprint, and there is a facing-page English translation by Declan Lawell.  The wider historical background is explored by Dr Thomas O’Connor in ‘The Irish College, Rome in the Age of Religious Renewal 1625-1690’.

The seminary and the seminary priest was among the abiding legacies of the Council of Trent (Cum adolescentium aetas, 15 July 1563).  When this decree was issued there may have been some uncertainty as to the direction the new Queen Elizabeth might be taking, but the uncertainty was soon resolved and there would be no seminaries in Ireland.  We begin to find Irish students for the priesthood all over Catholic Europe, first as individuals, but gradually coalescing into a network of Irish seminaries, slowly and painfully because the home island was politically divided, resources were scarce and patrons hard to find.  Patronage of Philip II made Salamanca possible in 1592, but in Rome Pope Gregory XIII, that  great founder of seminaries, had diverted the money set aside for an Irish seminary to the doomed expedition of James Fitzmaurice in 1579.  There was an element of the fortuitous in the favourable circumstances which in 1 January 1628 allowed six young Irish seminarians to settle in a house of their own in Rome.

The manuscript edited here throws a clear light of the next fifty years.  The author is not named, but it is in the hand of James Reilly, S.J.  He was a student from 1662 to 1667, and then, as numbers of them did, he joined the Jesuits.  He was confessor and prefect of studies in the College from 1675 to at least 1683, and so had the College documentation at his disposal to add to his personal recollections and the recollections of others.  He describes the foundation of the College, and gives an account of its superiors, all Jesuit by the will of its founding patron, Cardinal Ludovisi, rather more of them Italian than Irish, each appointed for a term of three years only and not always serving it out.

Then there is a note on each seminarian in turn, the official record of arrival, progress and departure being usually supplemented by some more personal details.  Inevitably, these are most colourful when dealing with the problems – Terence Kelly, one of the original students, who seems to have worn the tridentine reform very lightly, or James Stafford, who entered in 1653, self-willed and a bit of a fool, or Hugh McKean, who came in 1675, self-willed and more than a bit of a knave.  But the routine comes to life too-the little establishment with its funds to support seven students, with three Jesuits and two lay servants, no doubt welcoming the paying lodgers (convictores) as soon as the building could  be adapted so as to keep them apart from the seminary community.

Review by Reamonn O Muiri, Editor

Seanchas Ard Mhacha, Vol. 20 No 1  

COLLEGIUM HIBERNORUM DE URBE: An early Manuscript Account of the Irish College, Rome, 1628-1678.

Published by the Pontifical Irish College, Rome. 2003. Pp228.

This handsome volume was launched in 2003 at a history conference in the Pontifical Irish College, Rome, in the presence of Her Excellency, Mrs Mary McAleese, President of Ireland.  It is a worthy memorial of the 375^th anniversary of the College.  Here we have a valuable account of the first fifty years of the Irish College in Rome written in Latin, and described as ‘The 1678 Manuscript History of the Ludovisian Irish College, Rome’.  It is practically certain that it was written by Fr James Reilly, S.J., nephew of Archbishop Edmund O’Reilly, and a student of the College from 1662 to 1667. The Latin text has been edited by Mgr John J. Hanly and the translation was provided by Declan Lawell.  It tells the story of a great effort under difficult circumstances to provide priests for the Irish mission, which in the seventeenth century ministered to a people who suffered war, plantation and persecution.

It is an enthralling account precisely because it is contemporary and the author while making a great effort to provide the facts does not hesitate to lend his own emotion and judgement.  It covers the early foundation due to the zeal of Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi with the advice of Fr Luke Wadding, O.F.M., and in that period it was continually under the watchful eye of the great Franciscan rectors.  It was entrusted to the Society of Jesus in 1635 and from 1635 to 1678, in the ‘manuscript history’ was under the rectorship of succeeding Italian and Irish Jesuits.  It is a wonderful insight into the aspirations of these rectors and their hard task to administer and maintain property, pay debts and care for the students.  Of great interest are the conditions of student life and the character sketches James Reilly gives of the students who were mainly from Munster and Leinster but there were a few from Connacht and from Ulster including well-known figures such as Terence Kelly of Derry, Ronan Maginn of Down & Connor and Henry Hughes of Armagh.  Here is his portrait of Henry Hughes.

Henry Louis Hughes, from Ulster, studied humanities in Brussels, Belgium.  He came to Rome by invitation in 1668, presented the viaticum oath on 24 October and took the college oath on 11 August 1669.  He strenuously devoted himself to philosophy and theology for seven years and defended theses in each with distinction for his ability and learning on completion of the respective courses and as a result was awarded the doctorate in theology at the Roman College with universal acclaim.  He left the college as a priest in 1675 and travelled to Ireland where he now lectures in moral theology to younger priests.  During his earlier years in the college he was inclined to be somewhat restless, but after his ordination to the priesthood, two years that is before his departure, he so turned over a new leaf in terms of prudence, self-restraint and exceptional saintliness, that he turned out to be a new man altogether and an example to the others of a priest aspiring to perfection.

Students took an oath to return to Ireland and they were provided with some help for their journey on leaving the college.  Not all of them returned.  Some joined the Jesuits, a few other religious orders and some pursued pastoral or educational work on the European mainland.

In 1639 the students moved to a new abode for their college, now the Convitto di S. Tommaso, a Dominican-run hostel for student priests attending the Dominican University, the ‘Angelicum’.  I had the privilege of staying four months there due to the great hospitality of Fr Luke Dempsey O.P. during my sabbatical year 1994.  There in that college in the Via degl’Ibernesi I could sense the atmosphere of the days of the great alumni James Cusack, Oliver Plunkett and John Brenan, and reading this book now I feel I myself was an echo of the past, the college having for a period kept some lodgers to augment their income.

This souvenir book splendidly printed in marble-like paper and gold embossed red cover is greatly enhanced by a fine essay from Fr Thomas O’ Connor entitled ‘The Irish College, Rome in the Age of Religious Renewal.  And that that is twinned with another fine essay by Mgr John J. Hanly on people and places mentioned in the text.  There are pieces in the ‘history’ on the chapel, library and the college building, besides an appendix of ‘formulae of oaths as normally taken by students’.  This book in another wonderful addition to the present blossoming of studies of the Irish colleges in mainland Europe.

Molaim go mòr an lèann nua

Réamonn ò Muirì