In the fifteenth century there were about forty friaries of TOR Friars in Ireland, made up of small groups of clerical and lay brothers.

[6] The Franciscan Brothers of the Third Order Regular are noted for their having secretly taught the boys of the Catholic population of Ireland for decades in the underground "bog schools".

The Order did not formerly re-emerge again in Ireland until the early 1800s at Merchant's Quay in Dublin with a group of secular tertiaries of the Friar Minor's church of Adam and Eve.

They established a monastery and school at Milltown, Dublin in 1818, after the relaxation of the Penal Laws which had forbidden Catholic education.

In 1820 they transferred their monastery to Mountbellew in County Galway, where the Bellew family had invited them and had donated land and a house to get established.

In the course of the nineteenth century, Brothers from the Irish communities established foundations in the United States, which became independent Institutes in their own right.

[9] Prior to 1906, three separate and independent communities of men of the Third Order Regular existed in the United States.

These were located in Brooklyn, New York (1858); Loretto, Pennsylvania (1847); and Spalding, Nebraska, which came about from a school founded for Native American boys (ca.

Thus, in May 1906, a petition was then sent to the minister general, Angelus de Mattia, asking for union with the friars of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis in Italy.

The following December 8, the minister general, Angelo, signed a decree of union of the Spalding community with the Third Order Regular.

In January 1907, he formally petitioned the Holy See to allow the establishment of a community of the Order in Nebraska, and to receive the vows of any qualified Brothers there.

The Brothers were received into the Order by Stanislaus Dujmoric, of the Province of Dalmatia, who had been sent as the official delegate of the minister general to supervise the merger.

[10] As their own union could not be effected, some of the Brooklyn Brothers determined to ask for a dispensation from their religious vows in order to join the friars in Nebraska.

Relying heavily upon the teaching experience of the New York Brothers, the community opened Spalding College in January 1908.

During that year of upheaval for the Brooklyn foundation, the diocesan community of Franciscan Brothers at Loretto—now in the new Diocese of Altoona—also sought incorporation with the Third Order Regular friars with the approval of their bishop, the Eugene A. Garvey.

To oversee this process, the minister general in Rome sent Jerome Zazzara, as his delegate, assisted by Anthony Balastieri.

The following month, Jerome also accepted the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Altoona, Pennsylvania, and took on the office of pastor himself.

The Minister General was unable to oversee the proceedings due to the hostilities between the United States and Italy during World War I.

Five years later, the Dalmatian friar, Dujmoric, who had supervised the union of the Spalding community into the order was now minister general.

Friars from the Spanish Province were invited to the United States to work with the Spanish-speaking populations of Texas and New York.

A number of the brothers in Brooklyn also sought to join the congregation in Italy, but were denied permission by the local bishop, who was concerned that he might lose their services as teachers.