Founder of the Irish College at Louvain

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 8, 22 February 1923, Page 13

Founder of the Irish College at Louvain

Ireland's place in the intellectual world was in the 17th century a recognised and conspicuous one (says Truth, New York). Its literati met the scholarship and learning of Europe with its "Republic of Letters," such as Archbishop Ussher and Sir James Ware in England, Archbishop Conroy and Bishop French in Spain and the Netherlands, Philip O'Sullivan Beave and Friar Dominic O'Daly in Portugal, Luke Wadding and Oliver Plunket at Rome, Rothe, Lynch and O'Reilly in France, Talbot and Molyneux in Holland and Flanders, and Flaherty and MacFirbiss at home. This galaxy excelled in theology, history, poetry, philosophy and science in a- prolific age which produced Baronius, Mendoza, Selden, Cassini, Boileau, Locke and Halley. In Ireland the Catholic Confederacy was waging war against King Charles and Cromwell to obtain the modest demand of freedom to worship God. Its results are sad reading for the Irish student who sees the end in the Williamite wars introducing Protestant ascendancy and reviving the old colonial system of governing Ireland by a garrison. The pale, whether Protestant or Catholic, had done its deeds of fraud and force, and was supplanted by the new ascendancy for evangelising the country to the new evangel. We can thank Cromwell for the dearth of genius at homo and its diffusion abroad. The same price was paid for a priest's head as that of a ravenous wild beast, and the schoolmaster was penalised, or, to use the words of A. M. Sullivan, "he was abroad." Education had been restricted to Protestants and aliens, and when the mere Irish strove for learning they were rewarded with stripes and banishment. Few Irishmen are more worthy of kindly remembrance than Florence Conroy, who sprang from the Herald Marshals of the Provincial Kings of Connaught, and lived in those dark and evil days. Florence was born in Galway, "the City of the Tribes," in 1560, at a sad time for Catholicity and nationality. 4

The Elizabethian and Nero-like laws were enforced by Perrot and Drury, and tracks of blood and ruin followed in their wake. The patriotic and saintly O’Hurley (Archbishop of Cashel) was taken prisoner, tortured and hanged. The Bishop of Mayo, O’Hey, had met a like fate, and the legislation grew more merciless day by day, until the Queen'could be said to have outdone the Mahommedans in cruelty and hatred. It was at this sad and dangerous epoch that Florence Conroy’s father took his son, like the patriarch of old, and offered him to the Lord as a priest. Florence acquired a preparatory education for his dangerous calling in one of the hedge schools of his native county, and was sent abroad for the completion of his studies. He finished his course in a Spanish Franciscan monastery, and was ordained priest there as a Recollect Friar. He enjoyed a general reputation for learning, and was considered the best authority on St; Augustine. The early frailties of the youth and the unwearied, sweet motherly care of Monica for her son invested him with undying interest for the son of St. Francis. ■ •

Friar Conroy was the best interpreter of Augustine in the 17th century. The religious controversy between the

schoolmen of that time was bound to draw the .learned Irish Friar into the limelight. The question of the Immaculate Conception formed the keen subject of debate, and Florence, with the love of his race for the stainless purity of Our Lady and the Franciscan traditions in its favor, turned to his favorite St. Augustine for aid. He drew such solid reasons for its affirmation out of the works of St. Augustine that theologians were delighted with his fame as one of their brightest examples. Philip 11. of Spain took notice of “Our Lady’s champion,” and as he was then fitting out his grand Armada to conquer Elizabeth, he was invited to sail with the royal fleet, and, moreover, was appointed Provincial of his Order in Ireland.

In 1588 the Armada started for its conquest of the merciless Queen, and was scattered by the Protestant winds, as recorded on the Drake monument at Plymouth, not by the prowess of the heretic.

It is not known how the Recollect Friar escaped in the general ruin and confusion of the Spanish fleet and in what way he returned to Spain, but, happily, he did not fall into English hands. In after years he wrote a book entitled Per eg Jericonthus, in allusion to his exciting experience in the destruction of the Armada. In 1593 he translated from Spanish into Irish a religious tract A Christian Instructed, a manuscript copy of which is in the Royal Irish Academy. It was written in very pure Irish, and was intended for general circulation in Ireland as an instruction and antidote for the persecuted Catholics at home.

Conroy was continually seeking assistance for his native land, and was supported by the King of Spain in all his projects. In 1602 Hugh Roe O’Donnell, Prince of Tryconnell, arrived at Coruna to interest King Philip in a last rally for Ireland. He met the King at Zamora and retired to Semancas to await the fitting out of a new Armada.

Friar Conroy attended as chaplain to the Irish Prince, who grew deadly ill and was supposed to have been poisoned by English spies. His death was most edifying, and he received all the rites of the Church from Conroy. The chaplain was heart-broken that the hopes of Ireland were thus rudely shattered once again and Kinsale lay unavenged. The chaplain buried his Prince with the Franciscans in the Cathedral of Valladolid, where King Philip built a fair monument over his remains.

Archbishop O’Higgins of Tuam, returning from a visit to Rome, died at Antwerp in 1690, and Friar Conroy was appointed to the vacant See.

The penal laws were in full force in Ireland since 1605. The “Act of Uniformity” was passed when bishops and priests were ordered to leave the kingdom under pain of imprisonment or death.

The Archbishop found useful work in Spain, and started the project of an Irish college on the Continent, which was the means of preserving the faith by sending priests to Ireland for over a century. King Philip was induced by Archbishop Conroy to favor this scheme. It was arranged that the college should be built at Louvain under the patronage of St. Anthony of Padua. In 1616 the cornerstone was laid by the Archduke Albert, Governor of the Netherlands, and his wife, Infanta Isabella, daughter of King Philip.

The cost of erection was borne by the magnificent Infanta Isabella to whom the Irish Church owes a deep debt of gratitude. What hallowed Irish memories are connected with St. Anthony’s, Louvain?

The four masters whom Irish history so lovingly depicts walked in its cloisters. Ward and Colgan, French and Walsh either studied or lectured within its hallowed walls. The captivating eloquence of Kirwan took its first flight there, which, in later times, captivated Burke and Grattan.

The Church was in chains in Ireland, and Catholic teachers were enslaved or exiled. So St. Anthony’s had an Irish press set up within its walls and issued historical and religious pamphlets for dissemination in Ireland, where the priests’ instruction had ceased, and the Church was drowned in blood. Its Irish press habituated Continental scholars and linguists with the “language of the Gael.” Grotius, Bochart, and Leibnitz may have learned Gaelic

from the teachers and books of St, Anthony’s, Louvain. The Archbishop found time outside his cloister and

court duties of seeing to the establishment and discipline

of the new college which was so vital for the interests of his fatherland. Wherever ho saw a possibility of a political alliance for Ireland he left nothing undone to foster it. Next to his love of God came that of his country, in whose cause he was unwearied. He corresponded with the illustrious exiles in Rome, and did not cease to exert himself even when events occurred so often to frustrate his plans. In 1618 he presented Philip O’Sullivan Bearc’s Relation of Ireland and the Numbers of Irish' Therein, to the Council of Spain and made a masterly exposure of the barbarities practiced by England against Irish Catholics. But Spain’s day of greatness had passed, and divisions existed in Church and State, and the vagaries of the King showed that he inherited the infirmity of mind and blood of Joanna. . „ ,

In 1623 Prince Charles Stuart was an aspirant for the hand of the Infanta, in marriage, and held out some hopes for freedom of conscience, but with the frustration of his hopes forgot his good resolutions. In 1624 the entire nation was engrossed in trying to win back the Netherlands, and thoughts of nothing else but Spanish supremacy engrossed the authorities. The Archbishop, baffled in his hopes of Spanish intervention in Irish affairs, ceased to take any more interest in Spanish politics, and withdrew to St. Anthony's, Louvain, to prepare his two books on St. Augustine. (Ccmmcmentanes on St. Augustine and Doctrines of St. Awjvshnc.) - 4hX> '