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Irish Colleges in Europe

  • 20-06-2013 5:59pm
    #1
    Seanchai
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,401 ✭✭✭


    I find this subject fascinating, so much so that I spent much of yesterday walking around the Irish College in Salamanca. It is part of the University of Salamanca in a place known to the Spanish as Fonseca. To my surprise, despite the fame of the Irish College of Salamanca (the hugely important archives of which were transferred to NUIM in 1951, when Salamanca closed), it has only been in Fonseca since 1821. It was originally founded in 1592, and had two other locations between then and 1821. Does anybody know where, precisely, those locations were? I was at a loss yesterday trying to find them in Salamanca (it made the search for Aodh Rua's plaque in Valladolid the previous day seem easy!).

    The number of colleges is surprising - Santiago de Compostela, Alcalá de Henares, Seville & Madrid being another four Irish colleges in Spain alone. Other Irish colleges existed in Italy, France, Portugal and Belgium (and, I think, Prague) that I know of. But is there any physical remnant left of these colleges in, say, Santiago de Compostela? Or Madrid? Or Alcalá de Henares? Or Seville?

    I've been to the Irish College's building in Leuven and its famous entrance in Irish, which is still very much alive.

    My main question: has anybody written an academic study of all of the Irish Colleges and their respective histories? I know studies have been made on individual colleges, but a study of the rise and fall of all of them?


Comments

  • #2
    Ravelleman
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 3,635 CMod ✭✭✭✭Ravelleman


    I spend a lot of time in Castile so this is moderately interesting.

    My first question is, do you speak Spanish to any reasonable degree?

    I've never heard of the the Irish College being referred to as anything but 'el colegio de los irlandeses' in my time in Salamanca but 'Fonseca' may well also be used.

    I imagine that you have read this.


  • #3
    Ravelleman
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 3,635 CMod ✭✭✭✭Ravelleman


    Also, I hope you have enjoyed or are enjoying your time in Old Castile. I spend most of my time in Salamanca, Valladolid and Zamora (León) so they are close to my heart.


  • #4
    nuac
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭nuac


    The Irish Colleges were a great network.

    Anything published on the Irish College in Rome, especially around the time of the war of independence here.?

    I heard that the College and it's Rector Mons O'Hagan and others there acted as an embassy for Sinn Fein during the war of independence, to counter the influence of the British Embassy to the Vatican


  • #5
    Seanchai
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,401 ✭✭✭Seanchai


    Ravelleman wrote: »
    I spend a lot of time in Castile so this is moderately interesting.

    My first question is, do you speak Spanish to any reasonable degree?

    I've never heard of the the Irish College being referred to as anything but 'el colegio de los irlandeses' in my time in Salamanca but 'Fonseca' may well also be used.

    I imagine that you have read this.

    I have the verbal basics, as in I've survived for a couple of months in Spain away from the tourist destinations. However, when I said Colegio de los Irlandeses a couple of people corrected me, or perhaps interpreted it more familiarly as Fonseca (but they also recognised it by its Irish College name). When I realised that the Irish College has been in Fonseca only since 1821 and that it has had many other uses, including as a Galician college, this made more sense.

    Thanks for the Tom O'Connor article. I'll give it a read.


  • #6
    Seanchai
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,401 ✭✭✭Seanchai


    When the Salamanca archives are published online (as intended by NUIM in the link in the op) it will be a huge addition to Irish historical study. It will open a European connection that has been submerged for the past few centuries. Denis J. O’Doherty already translated and transcribed many of the Salamanca records (from 1597 to 1619) back in Archivium Hibernicum in 1913, a source which very, very few historians of early modern Ireland, who generally have a strong anglocentric bent, consult.

    In them you'll find the names of local schools across Ireland, teachers, and the subjects taught in those underground Catholic schools. It's a fantastic, unparalleled social history, showing links from Irish schools to people and schools across the continent (when the students entered Douai, Salamanca etc they had to recount their education in detail until that time). I just can think of an overall study of all the European colleges.


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  • #7
    Seanchai
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,401 ✭✭✭Seanchai


    Ravelleman wrote: »
    Also, I hope you have enjoyed or are enjoying your time in Old Castile. I spend most of my time in Salamanca, Valladolid and Zamora (León) so they are close to my heart.

    I went out to Simancas Castle on Tuesday morning. Simancas was where Aodh Rua Ó Dónaill died - in a letter to Carew somebody named James Blake claimed credit for poisoning him but it's not clear that this is what really happened. Anyway, there's a plaque in a courtyard of Simancas Castle in Irish and in Spanish acknowledging Aodh Rua's connection with it. It cost €18.50 to get a taxi to it from Valladolid, and the taxi driver waited so I gave him €30 when we got back to Valladolid.

    I finally found the commemoration plaque to Aodh Rua in Valladolid, where he was buried (in the same Franciscan cemetery as Christopher Columbus was originally buried in, although none of the Irish sources point that out. Thank you to the hotel manager for putting me on the road to researching that angle). However, the confusing thing was that while the Franciscan friary was in reality on one side of Plaza Mayor (opposite El Corte Inglés), the plaque and reconstructed Franciscan monastery were made on the other side of the Plaza Mayor. I took loads of photos of everything so I may put them up here later.


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