CENTENARY OF MAYNOOTH COLLEGE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXII, Issue 16, 16 August 1895, Page 17

CENTENARY OF MAYNOOTH COLLEGE.

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i'EW miles from Dublin — under the shadow of the ruined castle of the Geraldines — near Lucan, the birthplace of Patrick Sarsfield — not far from Chapelizod, where James slept before the battle of the Boyne — close to Ki'mainham, from which the knights of St John periodically assailed the Irishry, aa the soldiers of the Cross made war on ' infidel Turks and heathen Moors ' stands Maynoot.h, the great Catholic College of Ireland, one of the greatest ecclesiastical seminaries of the world. Brought into existence by the csccndant class in time of England's difficulty, cradled in a period of unrest and political trouble, Sx Patrick's was nursed and fostered by the Irish nation through an eventful century till it's life's early promise has been glor'ously realised in this day of joy and triumph. A feeling of exultation naturally fills the minds of alumni and professors, and of the hierarchy and clergy when, reviewing the past, they consider the career before a magnificent institution still, in a nation's life, only in the springtime of youth. The Irish people at Home and abroad, true to the faith once delivered by Patrick, join in spirit in the chorus of thanksgiving which, in the centennial year of a National College, ascends to the throne of God. The assemblage and solemn ceremonies at Majnooth College by association of ideas recall the days of Ireland's true glory, when thousands of conse-' crated voices harmoniously united in praising God in the great schools of the Island of Baints and Scholars. What a celebration ! Nearly fifty prelates and over ft thousand priests and students chanted a Te Deum to the God of Victories, against Whom there is no human wisdom and no human prudence. Trinity College, Dublin, was founded three centuries ago to Anglicise the youth-hood of Ireland. At the tercentenary in 1892 the patriotic sons which this game Trinity has given to our time could point with pride to the names of their illustrious predecessors, Gbattan and Burke, i on the honour roll of the country's history, and to the noble

part which men of Trinity played in the history of Ireland. Maynooth w«s founded to restrain or extinguish patrio ism among the Roman Catholic clergy. The design of the promoters has been utterly frustrated. The young Levites who issue from her halls are loyal to the heart's core to the C hair of Petkr, and are to be found in the forefront of the battle for a nation's right. This is as it should be. While the Ireland of history lasts, the Irish people will be true to the Soggarths who stood by their kith and kin in the days of sorrow, and in the long centuries, at the risk of life, broke the Bread of the Strong to a suffering people. Times have changed, but the old spirit remains. It is no longer necessary for the Catholic student to go abroad for his education ; noble colleges and seminaries stud the land, and towering above all is the College whose hundredth birthday is now being kept. The Irish, who loved learning and who loved their holy Faith, in the penal days sent^their sons to Louvain and Paris and Douay and Lisle and Bordeaux and Rouen and Salamanca and Borne. Continental Europe repaid Erin for the blessings of civilisation, which Columbanus and the early scholar monks had bestowed, by receiving her children and giving them the advantages denied at home. The Irish students upheld the credit of their race at the Universities of Europe. The name of Irishman was held in such honour that at the end of the last century nearly all who went abroad posed as Irishmen to secure the good-will of the people. The refinement of the young men, who added experi. ence gained by travel to learning, was in marked contrast to the coarseness and ignorance of many clergymen of the Establishment, whom absentee bishops, with absence of responsibility, appointed to benefices. Ihe prestige and power of the Irish priests was great. The thought then presented itself, " Why not educate these priests at home ? The penal dayß have taught the lesson that priests will not be wanting to minister to the Irish people. Better train them in their owa country where some kind of supervision can be exercised, than have them schooled in continenUl hotbeds of sedition." Thus spoke Charlemont to the Duke of Leinster in the grounds of Ranelagh, and the King and Parliament soon gave the thought practical shape by the passing of a Bill " for the better education of his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects." Secretary Pblham's famous Bill begins thus : " Whereas by the laws now in force in this kingdom, it is not lawful to endow any college or seminary for the education exclusively of persons professing the Roman Catholic religion, and it is now expedient that a seminary should be established for that purpose, be it enacted, etc." The Bill was read a first time April 24, 1795 ; a second time on April 28. The second reading was carried on May 8, and on June sth it received the Royal assent, and Maynooth was practically founded. Besides the desire to control, if possible, the political action of the Irish priesthood, another and potent reason influenced Gecrge 111. in giving his willing consent. He wanted soldiers and he wanted seamen. He wanted brave Irish soldiers and brave Irish men for his navy. The Catholic lelief Bill in 1792, and the £8000 a year first granted to Maynooth, through the Bill of 1795, were sops to the Irish people. But the law was repealed and a principle established, and successive years saw additional privileges granted. In 1845 the income of Maynooth was £26,300. The beginning of the institution was indeed humble. A small lecture hall in a small town and fifty students who lodged where they please , has changed into a veritable scholastic town with splendid buildings, a magnificent college church, and over 600 ecclesiastical students. From Maynooth thousands of well-trained, highly-educated priests have gone forth to continue the work of the scholar saints of Ireland. The sons of Maynooth are to be found in many Unds doing glorious work for holy Church, occupy ng distinguished positions in the hierarchy, as well as dumg the heroic duty of the missionary. We need not go for illustration far afield. Uur own departed Chief showed in his own life the mingling of patriotism and priestly devotion characteristic of the true sons of his Alma Mater. At the great gathering in June were to be found, besides two Cardinals, prelates and priests from England, Scotland, the Continent and America. Maynooth has a world-wide name, and distinguished men represented many nations at the centennial celebration of the great Irish semi naty. This occasional triumph is significant of past victory and of iuture success. We at the antipodes heartily join our brethren in other lands in congratulating the Irish priests and people on the celebration of the centenary of a glorious National College.

On Thursday the Bth inst, a solemn Offloe for the Dead and High Mass of Requiem were celebrated In St Joseph's Cathedral, -' Dunedio, for the repose of the soul of the late Mr Patrick Murphy, » father of the Bey Father Marphy of this mission. At the Office the chanters were the Very Bey Father Lynch and the Bey Father J, O'Neill (Milton). The lessons were read by the Very Bey Fathers Mackay (Oamarn), and O'Leary (Lawrence) and the Bey Father Hunt (South Duaedia). The celebrant of the Mass was the Bey Father Marphy ; deacon, the Bey Father McMnllan(Oamara) ; sub* deacon the Bey J. O'Donnell (Palmerston South) ; Master of cere* monies the Bey Father Howard. There ware also present the Bey Fathers Newport (Port Chalmers), and P. O'Neill (Gore). The music proper to the occasion was snog, with great sweetness and solemnity, by the choir of the Dominican nuns. Notwithstanding the early hoar, 7 a.m., and the unsatisfactory state of the weather, which still remained cold and showery, the church was filled by a congregation anxiouß to bdow their sympathy and respect for a priest who deservedly held, and had long since won, a very high place in their affection and esteem. With a view to reducing the debt on the Convent of Mercy at Westport — which gives the good nuns so heavy a burden of a nx ieiy> in addition to the cares imposed upon them by their arduous and responsible calling— the Bey Father Walsbe has let m foot an artunion, which will be drtwn on January Ist, 1896. A large number of valuable and handsome prizes have been provided. The undertaking recommends itstlf to all the friends of religion and Catholic education, and it is hoped that it will be taken np and aided by them in a manner to insure the success that is so much needed ani so well deserved. The Imperial Parliament was opened on Monday. Mr Gaily was re-elected Speaker without opposition. The only detail of the Government policy announced is a proposed expenditure of £60,000 in the purchase of cordite. Absit omen. The death of th« Very Bey D<jaa Geaghegan, which occurred suddenly at Eyneton, Victoria, on Sunday night, July 28, has been the ciuse of a very widespread regret. Daan Geoguegan, who was in the 73rd year of his age, was a native of Dublin, and had arrivtd in Victoria in 1850. " Among the pioneer priests of the colony (says the Advocate) there were not a few who are gratefully and reverently remembered for their great missionary zeal and the services they rendered the infant Church in Australia, Tbere are a few of these pioneers whose names will be always inseparably associated with its trials, its struggles, and its successes, and in that list the name of Dean Geoghegan will have a place of honour. In the days of bis prime he never spared himself in the work of God ; he was alert, eager, and earnest ia the performance of it. He was ever active so long as health and strength remained to him ; ever more than willing to help or raice by all means in bis power suffering or fallen humanity, and ever prompt to acknow ed^e, by djet or k'nily worl, that his fellow-creatures, without dis'inc too, had all claims on his beneficence." The late Bey Thomas W. Keating, of M^uat Carmel (says the Sydney Freeman's Journal) who met with the fatal railway accident at Parramatta, and at whose obsequies the Cardinal-Archbiabop and sixty priests were present, was a son o^ the late Robert Keating, Ireland. Father Keating was born at Bally, luby, County Tipperary, and received his first course of education at Mount Melleray. From thence he passed t) All Hallows' College, where he was ordained. Tnere are two brothers living and one married sister, Mrs O'Brien, in Bally luby. It is not generally known that the deceased was a nephew of t h e great and patriotic Archdeacon M'Eoroo, whose name is his orically linked with Archpriest John Joseph Terry'a as one of the founders of the Church in Australia. While placing this fact on record it ia of interest to note that the Archdeacon has two relatives still living in New B>uth Wales— his aunt, Mrs Thomas Hanly, of 379 Dowling street, Moore Park, and his nephew, Archdeacon D'Arcy, of Wei i gton. An ugly incident attendant on the execoti. n last Monday at lavercargill, was the fall of a bay from a roof 30 feet high. The poor chap got his ekull fractured. It is to be hoped — notwithstanding the natural suspicion of an attempt to play the part of a Peeping Tom— that the results may not prove fatal. Some interest of a peculiar kind has bean excited in Sydney by a paragraph telegraphed from Adelaide, which describes the new Governor of the Colony — Viscount Hampden - as a used-up man about town. Spencer's Weekly ascribes the description to Mr Archibild Forbes, whom our coatempirary accredits with powers of faithful portraiture. But in this, it is to be feared, there is little consolation. Princb BismA.bck is accredited as an authority for assigning to the conflicting interests of England and Bussia the part of preaerv-

ing the peace of Europe. France and Germany mast respectively keep aloof, it is implied, so that these powers may play the part of holding one another in check. In ao article on recent banking returns, the West Coast Times concludes with a sentence which will scarcely find favour in some banking quarters :— " Of the New Zealand banks the National Beems to be the most progressive and is evidently meeting with the most general favour." The Rev Joseph Cook, an Armerican divine, who lately visited this Colony from Sydney, on returning the other day to that city, gave rather an indifferent account of our political situation. The effect of State Socialism, an anwiae use of his political power by the working man, and a disposition to rely unduly on the Government, he said, made capital shy, or drove it away, the Colony's great want too, namely population, was hindered by the determination of the working man to prevent immigration. The poll tax, however, of which Mr Cook also made mention, ia proposed only for Asiatics, and this is a matter with which, ia his own country, the rev gentleman cannot have been unfamiliar. What, it would be interesting to know, was his attitude towards tht antiChinese agitation in the United States, and what were his motives for it?