THE PATRIARCH OF THE IRISH COLLEGE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 16, Issue 46, 16 March 1894, Page 4

THE PATRIARCH OF THE IRISH COLLEGE.

(Rome correspondent of the Pilot.) On January 1 the Most Rev Dr Tobiai Kirby, Titular Archbishop of Ephesue, celebrated his ninetieth birthday. A number of bis mort

intimate friends were invited to dinner on this occasion at the Irish College, at St Agatha of the Qotbe, in Rome, of which he had bean first the vice-rector under the late Cardinal Collen, and then the rector (or many years, until his retirement n couple of years ago. Amongst thoso invited on this remarkable occasion were the Very R°v William Walsh, 0.5.A., assistant of tbe Order, whose fiftieth year of profession as an Angustinian friar was celebrated on December 23 ; the Very Rev Father Hickey, 0.P., Prior of St Clement's College of the Irish Dominicans until a few weeks ago ; tbe Rev Father Sioibaldi, of the Vicariate of Rome ; the Rev Peter Paul Mackey, 0.P., who is one of the learned ediiors of tbe new edition of tbe works of St Thomas Aquinas, in the comae of publication at tbe expense and by tbe order of Pope Leo XIII. ; William Osborne Christmap, E-q, of Wbittfield, Oameriere di Spada and Cappa of his Holiness, and P. L. Connellan, Rome correspondent of the Pilot.

The rector of tbe college, who has just been beeu appointed Monsigncr by the spontaneous act of Leo XIII., ia proposing the health of Moosignor Kit by, referred to the extraordinary natura of the occasion those present wete celebrating, and drew attention to the fact that Monsignor Rirby had been the friend of Daniel O'Oonnell in life, and bad been p-esent io tbe Irish College when the heart of tbe Liberator, so touchingly bequeathed to Borne, was brongbt, in tbe silver case in which it is enclosed, to be laid in tbe Church of St Agatha, where the young students fiom Ireland form guardians around tbe memorable relic. He also referred to the friendship existing between tbe late Cardinal Cullen and Monsignor Kirby, and noted that be was the contemporary of men whose names s uod far away to our ears.

And looking at tbe venerable Archbishop, who until very recently was tbe acting rector of this college, and who still preserves all bis lucidity of mind and nearly all his original physical activity, one might regard him as the contemporary of tbe men who have made modern Europe and whose names are prominent in Us history, Momignor Kirby was born before Napoleon I. was crowned Emperor at Notre Dame in Paris, that coronation at which Pope Pius VII, assisted ; and before th» new Emperor again crowned bimaalf in th*

Cathedral of Milan, taking from its shrine the Iron Crown— so-ca lied because it contains in an interior band one of the nails used to fasten Christ to the Cross on Calvary— and placing this sacred crown upon his bead, saying at tbc same uwe ; " God bath given it to me ; woe to him that touches it." Whilst this great terror of Earope was proceeding on bis magnificent career like a brilliaot meteor on its path, to rain and exaction at Waterloo, the young Irish child was growing up, and was in his twelfth year when the conquerer of Europe! defeated, and the prisoner of his worst enemy, England, was on bis way to 8t Helena, there to eat out his heart daring six years, until merciful death pot an end to his sufferings. The young Kirby wa« twenty-five yetrs old when Daniel O'Coonell's victory of Catholic Emancipation w»s won, and a show of equality was bestowed upon Catholic*. His earlier years were passed under the revolting tyranny of England in Ireland after the Act of Union, and be has lived to tee Home Rule a certainty and its achievement aa a palpable working fact, within what Mr Gladstone would term " measurable distance." Aa a student in Borne the young Kirby was at th« Irish College in the Via degli Hibernesi, or Hibernians' street, when the youthful Francis Mahony, better known to the world as " Father Prout," was a resident there ; not a student, for he did not stay long enough to study much. It was here, according to a tradition which Monsignor Kirby remembers prevailed about that time, that young Mahony wrote npon tbe walls of the room he occupied tht first star zas of one of his most celebrated songs, " The bells of Shandon," if I mistake not. Thtt Borne should have a street named •ft«r the Irish— a nam« which still endures in epite of the many changes in street nomenclature in Borne— is not so much to be wondertd at, for Borne was always well-intentioned and kindly disposed to Inland in the days of her trouble. It is more surprising to find, as the late Cardinal Newman tells us, that in Oxford there was, from the earliest time, even a street called " Irishman's street " ; though, he addp, " and the Irish were included there under the 'Nation' of the Southern English." Amongst those who came in contact with tbe student Kirby was a young man, also an ecclesiastical student of distinguished family and remarkable abilities. Providence has destined this young man for a great career ; be is now Leo XIII. They bad entered upon a concursus together. The essay of tbe young Pecci gained the prize, but that of Kirby was of s very high order. A few years ago the Pontiff asked Monsignor Kirby what had become of that essay of his written over half a century previous, which he remembered a 9 an excellent production. Tbe essay had been put away amongßt paperp. and still existed. The Pope had it published at his own expense. There is probably no one in Borne whom Leo XIII. IB more pleased to see at the Vatican than the Archbishop of Epbesu*. If the Pope sees him at a distance during an audience he calls out in quite a vigorous voice and eager tone, " Kirby 1 Kirby !" and brings bim, with au almost youthful joy, to a place beside himself. The Pontiff is somewhat more than six years tbe junior of the Archbishop.

When Montigoor Kirby began his earliest journey to Rome, distance was not annihilated, as it is now, by the application of steam to travel. Neither by sea nor land was tbe j >urnej an easy oneGas was unknown in many cities ; and aa to electricity, much younger men that Moneignor Kirby have seen it leave tbe laboratory or the physicist's collection of entertaining toys to become the general illuminant of the civilised world .

Tbat the old man of ninety Benns but slightly t fleeted by the burden of years, was soon made evident. He replied to the speech of Monsignor Kelly, and to another most eloquent and affectionate one made by Father Walsb, in a vigorous and indeed humorous manner.

P. L. JONNBtLAN