irish colleges

A brief history of Irish Colleges in the 17th century

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Gaelic script reading "Coláisde na nGaedheal" (Irish College) on the gates of the Pontifical Irish College, Ro

This post was inspired by a four-part series on the Irish Colleges shown in March 2015 on BBC2 NI. 

1592 was a pivotal year for Irish philosophy, the year it split along sectarian lines. In that year after decades of wrangling the University of Dublin was founded, along with its first (and only) college, Trinity College Dublin. However it was open only to those who accepted Elizabeth I as the head of the Church. Oxford and Cambridge were already effectively closed to Irish Catholics since graduands had to swear the Oath of Supremacy. This was only part of laws aimed at stamping out Catholicism in the kingdoms she ruled. In 1592 on a visit to Oxford, which was still a hotbed of Catholicism, Elizabeth I made clear in a speech that the requirement for the oath would not be relaxed.

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Catholic Scholasticism in Marsh’s Library

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Title page from "Collegii Salmanticensis ... theologicus Angelici Doctoris Diui Thomae complectens", 1637 © Marsh's Library (CC)
Title page from “Collegii Salmanticensis … theologicus Angelici Doctoris Diui Thomae complectens”, 1637
© Marsh’s Library (CC)

This book, Collegii Salmanticensis … theologicus Angelici Doctoris Diui Thomae complectens published in Madrid in 1637, is a collection of commentaries on the theology of the “Angelic Doctor”, Thomas Aquinas.  It was originally owned by Narcissus Marsh and is now part of the Marsh’s Library collection. The first Irish Colleges were set up with the support of Irish Jesuit priest James Archer in Salamanca (where this book was written) and Madrid (where it was printed) during the late 16th century.

Tradition of Scotist Scholars

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What kind of works in Philosophy did Scotus leave us? […] What is the current status of his works? The Opera omnia was first edited by my countryman of origin, Luke Wadding, who in the terrible seventeenth century departed Ireland and labored in Italy to edit Scotus and other Franciscan writers. Another Irishman, Maurice O’Fehily, living in Padua, Italy, had edited Scotus’s Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle in 1497, and published the work in Venice. But then, these and some Englishmen were continuing a tradition of scholars who, like Scotus, had gone to Paris in the early fourteenth century, scholars who with John Duns Scotus refused to obey Philip the Fair and with Scotus, had to leave Paris and go back to Oxford in the early fourteenth century namely Ricardus Hibernensis, Odo Hibernensis and Thomas Anglicus.

From Duns Scotus: A Brief Introduction to his Life and Thought by Jeremiah Hackett in “Studies in Scottish Literature” (1991).

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