912.6.6 Jardín Botánico
2.7 BIENESTAR UNIVERSITARIO
2.7.1 Responsabilidad social
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eight from the province of Dublin and eight from the province of Tuam. Six of the twelve bishops appointed to dioceses in the province of Armagh were educated in Spanish territories, three were educated in Rome and two were educated in France.29 Bishops appointed to dioceses located in the province of Tuam were also drawn largely from the Spanish colleges. Three of the eight bishops were known to have been
educated in Spain. The place of education for two other bishops is unknown but given their close links with the Spanish military it is probable that they too were educated in Spain or Flanders.30 Only one bishop is known to have been educated in France, Hugh MacDermot, vicar apostolic of Achonry (1683-1707). As for John Dooley, vicar apostolic of Killala (1676-1678), he received his licentiate in canon law from the University of Paris and a doctorate in canon law at Galway in the presence of the papal nuncio, Giovanni Battista Rinuccini. This is the only known example of a senior Irish ecclesiastic being awarded an advanced degree in canon law in Ireland at this time.31
Bishops appointed to dioceses in the province of Dublin had the most diversified educational background of all the provinces. Three of these bishops were educated on the Iberian Peninsula, two in Portugal and one in Spain. Two were educated in Flanders and both of these were appointed to the diocese of Kildare. Patrick Dempsey, vicar apostolic of Kildare (1671) was president of the Irish College (Lille) at the time of his appointment (1665-1682).32 The Dempseys were part of the strong Leinster contingent educated at Lille, three of the college’s rectors in the seventeenth century were drawn from the Dempsey family. Another vicar apostolic, Gerard Tellin (1683) was educated at Tournai and then transferred to the Irish College (Rome) where he was ordained in 1680. His nomination was strongly opposed by the Dublin chapter owing to his inexperience: he had been ordained only three years previously.33 The other two
29 The Franciscan Patrick Tyrrell was educated at the University of Alcalá and then undertook his
theology courses at St. Isidore’s in Rome under the celebrated Luke Wadding.
30 John Burke was appointed vicar apostolic to Killala in 1671. In an undated letter to Propaganda
Fide Burke was recommended to a vacant diocese in Ireland by Cardinal Camillo Massimo, papal nuncio to Spain (1654-1656); given the tenure of Massimo this recommendation was placed between 1654 and 1656. A supporting letter to Camillo’s letter was provided by the king of Spain, Philip IV (1621-1665). Philip stated that Burke had spent seven years serving as a chaplain in the Spanish military (FV, vol. 15, ff 102-104 (A.P.F., Rome: microfilm, N.L.I. p5535). Maurice Durcan was appointed vicar apostolic to Achonry in 1677. He already had earned a doctorate in theology when he signed the Déclaration (1651) against Jansenism (Brockliss and Ferté, ‘Prosopography of Irish clerics’, p. 146). Durcan also had a distinctive ‘Spanish resume’ having served as chaplain to troops in Spanish Flanders (FV, vol. 13, f. 459 (A.P.F., Rome: microfilm, N.L.I. p5533).
31 SC Irlanda, vol. 3, ff 499-500 (A.P.F., Rome: microfilm, N.L.I. p5339).
32 Lille was part of Spanish Flanders until 1668 when it was ceded to France as part of the Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle.
33 J. Anthony Gaughan, The archbishops, bishops and priests who served in the Archdiocese of Dublin
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bishops appointed to the province of Dublin were educated at France. Phelan of Ossory received his education following the collapse of the Confederate Association, first undertaking a degree in canon law at Paris and then transferring to Rheims where he earned a doctorate in theology.34 After 1669, there were only three bishops appointed to dioceses in the province of Cashel: O’Molony, Brenan of Waterford and Creagh of Cork and Cloyne. Both Brenan and Creagh were educated at Rome and both were later translated to archiepiscopal sees.35
Although the 1670s were a period of significant growth for the Irish Church, political instability at home highlighted the stark reality that educational opportunities and centres on the Continent would have to be part of the long-term Catholic survival strategy.36 This strategy had a profound impact on the educational profile of Irish bishops. Many of the bishops mentioned above undertook degree programmes on the Continent as a result of the continuing political unrest and uncertainty in Ireland. A continental education was henceforth a pre-requisite for episcopal preferment in Ireland and this was tied to the maintenance of the continental college network. On the eve of James II’s accession, as more resources were directed towards the Irish colleges in France, the Irish episcopate was poised to become more French-centred. Ultimately this change in educational profile had a profound impact on how the Irish episcopate viewed royal and papal authority. The distinctly ‘Roman’ appointments of the 1670s were about to be engulfed by a decidedly royalist episcopal generation.
Education of the Irish episcopal corps, 1685-1766
As detailed in the previous chapters, after James II’s accession the primary criterion for potential episcopal candidates was their demonstrable loyalty to the Stuarts. This requirement did not always sit well with the Brussels nuncios and members of
Propaganda Fide who preferred a more thorough-going papal loyalty from Irish bishops. Consequently, it set something of a challenge for candidates for the Irish episcopacy. From 1685, with a Catholic monarch on the throne of Ireland, the criterion of papal loyalty had henceforth to be accommodated in the context of fidelity to the Stuarts and their interests. One might argue that if their loyalty to the Stuarts enabled them to secure a promotion, once promoted, Irish bishops had to be able to govern and also to manage the sometimes conflicting loyalty due to the supreme Pontiff and the agencies of
34 John Hanly (ed.), The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, 1625-1681 (Dublin, 1979), p. 9.
35 Peter Creagh was initially educated at the Jesuit College (Portiers) under his uncle, Edward Creagh.
He then transferred to Rome where he studied under another relative, John Creagh.
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ecclesiastical government in Rome. Consequently, it is important to assess in a nuanced way how the formation of the Jacobite generation of bishops reflected these complex realities. As we shall see, this Jacobite cohort was the most diverse of all the episcopal cohorts appointed during the period covered by this study (1657-1829).
Given the strong emphasis placed on loyalty to the Stuarts after 1685, it should come as no surprise that many of the nominations made by James II and later by his son, the so called pretender, James III, tended to be clerics associated with France, initially the great continental supporter of the Catholic Stuarts. Between 1685 and 1766, forty-eight bishops appointed under the Stuart nomination had been educated in France with most coming from the province of Cashel. Statistically, the Cashel bishops accounted for 44% of the French-educated Irish bishops. This high proportion of French-educated bishops is confirmed by Brockliss and Ferté’s statistical analysis of Irish clerics educated in France where the majority of Irish clerics came from the province of Cashel. Take, for example, the Irish College at Toulouse, where Cashel clerics comprised 95.4% of the student population from 1690-1740 and 84.6% of the student population from 1740-1789.37 The Cashel student population at Bordeaux was slightly lower with about 60% of the student population coming from the province.38 However, not all of the Irish colleges were monopolised by Cashel clerics. It ought to be noted that the Irish College at Lille, for instance, was established exclusively for students from the civil province of Leinster and was dominated by them.39
As illustrated by Chart 3.2, French-educated bishops comprised a much smaller percentage of the Irish episcopal corps in the other three provinces. There were noticeable absences of French educated bishops from the five northern and eastern dioceses of: Clogher, Kilmore, Meath, Dublin and Ferns. With regards to Clogher, the reason for the paucity of French-educated bishops may be explained by the MacMahon and O’Reilly families’ historical association with Flanders and Rome. Looking at the remaining four dioceses mentioned, the family connection cannot explain why there
37 L. W. B. Brockliss and Patrick Ferté, ‘Irish clerics in France in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries: a statistical analysis’ in R.I.A., lxxxixC (1987), pp 527-72, at p. 560.
38 Ibid., p. 561.
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were no French-educated bishops.40 If there is any discernable pattern, it might be that an Iberian education was preferred in these dioceses. Twelve bishops were educated in Portugal and Spain, one at Prague and the remaining three at Leuven and Rome.
Dublin was something of a special case for the Stuarts. With their close French affiliations, James III was conscious that the appointment of French-educated bishops might be viewed negatively by the Dublin and London administration.41 When Dublin became vacant in 1723 on the death of Edmund Byrne, archbishop of Dublin (1707- 1723), his successor Dominic Edward Murphy was the choice of neither the local nobility nor senior Catholic ecclesiastics. However, he gained James’ nomination as a compromise candidate when it became apparent that he was more palatable to the Dublin administration than the other possible nominee, Bernard Dunne. This was a fact that the exiled Stuarts could not ignore. Although Dunne had strong Jacobite sympathies and used Jacobite networks in his efforts to return to Ireland as bishop, his exclusively French résumé was a determining factor in him being passed over for the Dublin vacancy.42 In a letter to John Ingleton, Jacobite agent regarding ecclesiastical matters,
40 Between 1657 and 1749, there were no French-educated archbishops of Armagh. O’Reilly of
Armagh was educated in Antwerp, Leuven and Douai; however, Douai was part of the Spanish Low Countries until 1668 when it was ceded to France with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
41 Francophobia on the part of the Irish and English administration was largely shaped by the policies
of Louis XIV and his quest to be a ‘universal monarch’ at the end of the seventeenth century. As Tony Claydon has shown, the bellicose language used by English pamphleteers had a profound impact in shaping English attitudes of the French. Although there was a ‘thaw’ in English-French relations between 1716 and 1731, these characterisation had become too engrained in the English psyche, a mistrust that lasted well into the nineteenth century (Tony Claydon, Europe and the making of England, 1660-1760 (Cambridge, 2007), pp 152-219).
42 Dunne was educated at Paris and had earned a doctorate in theology (1695). After completing his
studies he remained in France where he was named curé of Boynes located in north-central France. Flanders France Bohemia Iberian
Pen. Italy Mixed Ukw
Armagh 5 13 2 5 8 6 2 Cashel 0 21 0 3 4 0 1 Dublin 1 6 0 9 1 1 0 Tuam 2 8 3 6 2 1 1 0 5 10 15 20 25