The Irish standard., 1906-11-17
How Well 1t Shapes and Directs the Spirit
ual and intellectual Life of the Irish
People.
Founded in the Year 1875 the COLLEGE, Of
Maynooth is Now Over One Hun
dred Years Old.

no college Of any kind at home. and
they We're too poor to establish one,
even If they were permitted to do so.
The Continental colleges were closed
against them; many Of their inmates.
as they we'll knew. had barely escaped
with their lives from tho fury Of ths
soldiers of revolutionary France. In
this great need. after much hesitation,
they resolved to petition the govern
ment for license to open a Catholic
college. Pftt's Government received
the petition favorably through 4
wholesome fear for their own interests,
| Tho French were making headwav nm
the Continent, the United 1rishmen'
were beginning to organize at home;
and 1t was feared that a union be-
| tween the Protestants and Catholics
| might be fatal to the British con-
nection. Moreover, if priests were to
be educated at all, the Government
| would prefer, and SO would the Bish
ops. to have them educated In Ireland,
rather than in the atmosphere Of the
French Revolution. So. by the advice
and influence of Pitt, Edmund Burke.
Lord Fitzwiliam, and other statesmen.
tho venal and bigoted Irish Parliament
consented to give grant of $4,000 a
year, for the establishment of the
new Royal College, and the Act re-
ceived the Royal assent on June S,
1895.
Tho trustees. amongst. whom vera
the heads of the Church, with a few
Catholic noblemen and high. legal Of
ficials, held their first meeting on the
25th of the same month, and chose as
the first president of the new college
the courageous and accomplished DR..
Hussey, who had long enjoyed the in
innate friendship Of Edmund Burke.
| Their next care was to select a site,
and deferring to the earnest wish Of
the Duke of Leinster, the trustees
chose to locate the new academy In
Maynooth, not far from the Dukes
mansion at Carton
| II was a historic site, teen1ing at
once with the most glorious and tragicI
memories OF the Geraldines, Thsj
, grand old keep Of their proudesd
stronghold stood then, as 1t still stands.
OH the right, beside the entrance gate
of the college. On the left is a church,
into whose walls is built all that now
remains Of college founded by the
eighth Lord Of Kildare for the main
tenance and education of Catholic
priests, in the opening years Of the
reign of Henry VIII. A few PAGES
within the gate there grows an ancient
and wide-spreading yew-planted, 1t, is,
said, by Maurice the Invader, the first ],
Of the Irish. Geraldines, some seven\
hundred years ago-under whose
branches the ill-fated Silken Thomas
played his Irish harp on the last night
that he ever spent in the halls Of his
forefathers. The ancient barbican of
u
the old castle still remains over which
Skefington hung, on Good Friday, in
the year 1885, some thirty-seven ward
ers who manned it's walls when it was
traitorously surrendered by Parese the
foster brother Of ,sillzen Thomas. He
sold it for gold, which he got; but
when it was weighed out, skefington:.
said: I'VE promised him his gold,
but not his life; let him now swing
with the rest"
So Maynooth was chosen as the site: Z
and the first stone of the new college
buildings was laid by Earl Camden,
the Lord Lieutenat, on April 20. 1895,
in the presence Of a vast assemblaga
The people rejoiced on that suspicious
day, as If 1t were the Inauguration of !:
a new era for the spersecuted Catholics
Of Ireland; but their dream = sa1, Of 81 shsppi-