Irish Manuscript Tradition

St. Anthony's College, Louvain

The first Franciscans arrived in Ireland in the mid 13th century. They were linked with the great households including the O'Neill's and the O'Donnell's with Red Hugh becoming one of their most famous patrons. They lost much of their land holdings during the Protestant Reformation, when their order was outlawed and the monasteries were closed.

The Plantation of Ulster had a detrimental effect on the Franciscans, destroying their last places of refuge in the north. Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire was a Franciscan friar (later Archbishop of Tuam), who accompanied Red Hugh to Simancas in 1602. He was instrumental in the setting up of the Irish Franciscan College in Louvain in Belgium. Founded in April 1607, the college had Philip III as its patron. (The College was part of the University founded in the early 15th century).

St. Anthony's became renowned for the excellence of its teachers and the number of writings produced by its scholars, who were the first to print in the Irish language. The College continued to supply friars to Ireland throughout the 17th and 18th centuries but was closed by the Napoleonic invasion in 1793 and the friars were scattered. The building was eventually sold in 1822. A large collection of the Friary's work was salvaged and brought to Ireland by Father Francis Walsh. It remained for some time at the Franciscan Archives in Killiney before being transferred to the Archives Department of University College Dublin. (Some of the collection is also preserved in Brussels). The College building was brought back by the Irish Franciscan order in 1925.

Back