The college was founded in 1607 by Florence Conry, Archbishop of Tuam, and Irish Franciscan Hugh MacCaghwell (Lecturer at the University of Salamanca, later Archbishop of Armagh),[1] with the support of Philip III of Spain, as an exile institution for the training of Irish Franciscan priests.

The Pastoral Irish College, Louvain (French: Collège pastoral irlandais / Collège des Hibernois / Latin: Collegium pastorale Hibernorum) established in 1622, by the archbishop of Dublin Eugene Matthews (and sanctioned in 1624 by a papal charter and financially by Pope Urban VII),[8] was under the supervision of the Franciscans, and affiliated to the university.

Closed down by the French invaders on 8 January 1797, the buildings were sold by public auction, later they were bought by the guardian Fr.

In 1925 the Irish Franciscans again acquired the site (technically it was owned until 1973 by the Catholic University to issues of foreign organisation ownership), it needed repairs since it had been damaged during the great war, helped by Rev James J. Ryan and his friend from his University days Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier,[10] and helped by funding from Irish-born American philanthropist Marquis Martin Maloney.

Following the German invasion in 1940, students were transferred to the Franciscan (St. Anthony's,) College in Galway, where an extra wing was built to accommodate them (and students who would have otherwise gone to Rome)[12] and the Louvain college was entrusted to Belgian friars, with the Irish province resuming control in 1948, using it for their own educational purposes until 1983.

2007 saw a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the foundation of St Anthony's, the Irish Franciscan College, in Louvain, with events in Ireland[13][14] and Leuven to commemorate it.

[18] in 1984 the Irish Franciscans, before leaving the college, established the Leuven Institute of Ireland in Europe, a not for profit organisation which operates the former college as an international residential centre for education, training and research in European and international affairs, in fulfilment of its mission to maximise promotion, positive exposure and opportunities for the island of Ireland.

[23] Edmund Dougan OFM, (former professor and guardian of the Irish College) served as Parish Priest at St. Anthony's from 1987 to 1995.

Others include Captain Sorley MacDonnell (1586-1632), Flemish priest Francis Bougher (died 1706) and chronicler Michael O'Clery.