UCD is home to a collection of some 5000 printed and handwritten items belonging to the Irish Franciscans, including a copy of the Annals of the Four Masters signed by Mícheál Ó Cléirigh OFM (d. 1643), and notes compiled by John Colgan OFM (d. 1658) as part of his research into Ireland’s history, place-lore, and saints. The printed collections are held in UCD Special Collections and the archival and manuscript collections are held in UCD Archives.
The contribution of friars like Colgan and Ó Cléirigh to the continuation of Irish historiography in the early modern period is legendary, but the Franciscans were not alone in this work; they relied on a large network of Irish scholars, including laymen (three of the ‘Four Masters’ were such), and other mendicant friars.
One of Colgan’s collaborators, for example, was the Dominican friar and Bishop of Kildare (1629–1644), Ross MacGeoghegan OP, a character of extraordinary energy and tenacity.
MacGeoghegan was born in Westmeath some time in the 1570s. His mother and father were both from Gaelic aristocratic backgrounds, and he was given a traditional education in Irish history and literature as well as attending various local grammar schools. He then followed a path to Europe taken by many young Irish Catholic men at the time. At first he attended the Irish College in Lisbon, then the Irish College in Salamanca. There he got to know the Dominican Order and entered the novitiate in the priory of San Esteban.
Priory of San Esteban, Salamanca, Spain (image author’s own)
Among the Spanish Dominicans, ‘Ross’ became ‘Roque’, and he was given the epithet, ‘Roque de la Cruz’ (‘Ross of the Cross’). In Salamanca he encountered Dominican life at its most rigorous and energetic. Standards in religious life were high, as were academic standards, and young MacGeoghegan was profoundly marked by this early formation. Later on, even in the straitened circumstances of Irish Dominican communities hiding from persecution, he aimed always to reach the heights of observance and mission he had witnessed in Salamanca.
After teaching theology in Spain for several years, MacGeoghegan was appointed superior of the Irish Dominicans in 1614, and sent by the Master of the Order to re-organise Dominican life in Ireland. Protracted persecution had led to a near total collapse in the Province. Many friars were living in small groups in the homes of lay supporters. One of MacGeoghegan’s reports mentions that no fewer than 31 Dominican priories stood empty. He lamented little, though, and quickly made do with what was available.
The Earl of Clanricarde was still a loyal friend to the friars in Athenry, so MacGeoghegan collaborated with him in establishing a base of operation in a forested area under the Earl’s control. In this hidden place novices were received (‘from the leading families’, one contemporary noted), and were sent on for formation in Spain. MacGeoghegan himself brought six of these young friars with him to Spain in 1618, and the following year he returned with eight others who were qualified and ready to teach philosophy and theology to new recruits in Ireland.
Even as persecution intensified, MacGeoghegan continued to labour. He established a novitiate at the beautiful lakeside priory in Urlaur, Co. Mayo, and ministered throughout the midlands and even in Dublin, reconciling numerous Protestants, including significant members of the political and ecclesiastical establishment. It was a dangerous game. In 1622 a government inquiry into ‘Romish buysop Surragates and preests in Meath Dioceese’ identified him as a ‘Dominican fryar’ based in the household of the Tyrrells. His activities might have been viewed dimly by authorities, but at the same time he was described by a Catholic chronicler as ‘our island’s brightest star’.
Although managing the Dominican mission in Ireland was undoubtedly stressful, MacGeoghegan found time to dream up a new project, based on a template already tested by the Irish Franciscans: the establishment of a college for Irish Dominican friars in Louvain, the great university town in Spanish Flanders. The Irish Dominican College founded there in 1626 would go on to thrive until the French Revolution forced its closure.
MacGeoghegan himself was forced to flee to Louvain when persecution intensified in Ireland. From that place he wrote a report on the state of Dominican mission in Ireland: there were now 11 functioning Dominican communities in Ireland, with novices being formed in seven of them. Some 50 Irish friars were teaching or studying in various Spanish houses, and 12 in the Irish Dominican College in Louvain. Even though there were turbulent times ahead, everything was now in place for the continued growth and health of the Irish Dominican mission: an extraordinary achievement, testifying to MacGeoghegan’s leadership.
Within a few years, MacGeoghegan was back in Ireland, having been appointed Bishop of Kildare in 1629. He implemented as far as possible the ideals of the Council of Trent in local schools and parishes, putting his life at risk on many occasions for the sake of his ministry. One contemporary Dominican describes the bishop’s peripatetic existence with a certain amount of colour: ‘he endured the plots and persecution of heretics who thirsted for his blood… and was forced to wander here and there in various regions… through much sweat and many labours… through sobbing and weeping’. The risks were certainly real: MacGeoghegan’s cousin, Arthur MacGeoghegan OP, was executed in London during this time.
In the midst of all these troubles, though, MacGeoghegan managed to engage in some local history, at the request of John Colgan. UCD-OFM MS A 31 is a collection of Colgan’s notes on Irish placenames and saints, including notes sent to him by various research correspondents. In a later publication Colgan mentioned this network of researchers, noting their occasional unreliability: information was ‘promised by many but sent by few’.
Ross MacGeoghegan, in any case, was one who followed through on his promise for information on Kildare. In a letter dated 4 October 1638 (the feast of St Francis, incidentally), MacGeoghegan apologised to Colgan for his delay in replying to a letter dated 15 April. He explained that the current atmosphere of persecution made local inquiries difficult, but he was sending a preliminary list—now ‘item 6’ in UCD-OFM MS A 31—and promised further information following an upcoming visitation of the diocese.
UCD-OFM MS A31, item 6, f[1]r, title page beginning ‘Descriptio Ecclesiarum Diocesis Kildariensis’
The list MacGeoghegan sent to Colgan was entitled, ‘A description of the Church of Kildare, and nearly all the churches, chapels, and holy places in the whole Diocese of Kildare’. It is written in Latin, in italic script, but when MacGeoghegan listed a place name in Irish, he switched script too, a typical practice of bilingual Irish writing at this time.
UCD-OFM MS A31, item 6, f[1]r, example of script switching
The list is fairly straightforward, with little expansive comment. There are two interesting points to note, however. The first is the emphasis on early Irish saints, consistent with Colgan’s own interests. MacGeoghegan noted that the Church of Kildare was founded ‘soon after the coming of St Patrick to Ireland’, and that its patron is St Brigid. Curiously, there is no mention of St Conleth, and instead we are told—in contradiction with Cogitosus’ ‘Life of Brigid’—that Kildare’s first two bishops were Lon (‘Lonius’) and Ivor (‘Iverus’).
The second noteworthy feature of this list is its emphasis on continuity with the late medieval Church. At the time MacGeoghegan was writing, the Catholic community possessed very few of its medieval properties, and the local ecclesiastical infrastructure was threadbare: there were just 3 native Kildare men in active priestly ministry when MacGeoghegan arrived to begin his episcopate. Still, the memory of late medieval Catholic structures was preserved: ‘In this church of Kildare [i.e. the cathedral] there were in the past four or five officials, namely an Archdeacon, Dean, Chancellor, Treasurer, and Cantor: there were four Canons, eight Prebends, and College of Canons near the church itself’. Religious houses, long since suppressed, are listed too: hospitals, houses of canons regular and knights hospitaller, Dominican priories, and Franciscan friaries. One can sense here not only the curiosity of an antiquarian, but the enthusiasm of a restorer of Catholic life.
That desire for a return to historic sites was satisfied a few years later, when, in the wake of the 1641 rising, the cathedral of Kildare was restored to Catholic use and Bishop MacGeoghegan presided at the liturgy on the ancient site of Brigid’s monastery.
Death came for him three years later when he was preaching in the restored Franciscan church of Multyfarnham. He was buried there in the tomb of his ancestors, a Dominican among Franciscans.
Franciscan Abbey, Multyfarnham, Co. Westmeath (image author’s own)
This guest blog post was written by Conor McDonough OP, St Saviour’s Priory, Dublin.
Further reading:
Tomás S.R. Ó Floinn OP, ‘MacGeoghegan, Ross (Rossa Mac Eochagáin)’, Dictionary of Irish Biography (https://www.dib.ie/biography/macgeoghegan-ross-rossa-mac-eochagain-a5210, accessed 3/9/24).
Canice Mooney OFM, ‘Colgan’s inquiries about Irish place-names’, Celtica 1 (1950), pp. 294–296.
Hugh Fenning OP, ‘“Brevis et Summaria Relatio”: An Unpublished Account of Dominican Martyrs and Exiles, 1656’, Collectanea Hibernica 34/35 (1993), pp. 34–58.
Éamonn de hÓir, ‘Blúire Cillseanchais faoi Fhairche Chill Dara’, Dinnseanchas 2 (1966), pp. 29–39.
Well done. Michael Byrne, Offaly History