Irish College at Salamanca

The religious persecution under Elizabeth and James I lead to the suppression of the monastic schools in Ireland in which the clergy for the most part received their education.

It became necessary, therefore, to seek education abroad, and many colleges for the training of the secular clergy were founded on the Continent, at Rome, in Spain and Portugal, in Belgium, and in France.

That same year, the King gave Father Thomas White permission to bring ten students from Valladolid to Salamanca, where they were provided with a stipend so that they could continue their studies.

[3] The college eventually invested in property such as olive groves and vineyards in order to have a more stable source of income and produced its own food from a small farm.

Before returning to Ireland, newly ordained priests could apply to the king for the viaticum, approximately 100 ducats to cover travel expenses.

In Alcalá, anciently Complutum, famous for its university, and for its polyglot edition of the Bible, the Irish College of San Jorge at Alcalá de Henares was founded in 1649 (reestablishing the Irish presence in the town, where an earlier College had existed), by a Portuguese nobleman named George Sylveira, a descendant, through his mother, of the MacDonnells of Ulster.

Patrick Curtis, (known as Don Patricio Cortés), subsequently Bishop of Armagh, held office from 1781 to 1812 and rendered valuable service to the Duke of Wellington during the Peninsular War.

[5] The Irish returned after the war, and in 1838, through the good offices of the English Ambassador, George Villiers, the town council gave them the use of the Fonseca Palace.

In 1910 the Irish students at Salamanca numbered about thirty and attended lectures at the diocesan seminary in lieu of a theology faculty of the university.

It was made the cause of complaint that Father White, S.J., was unwilling to receive students from Ulster and Connaught, and the exiled Irish chiefs, O'Neill and O'Donnell, presented a remonstrance on the subject to the King of Spain.