SOME INSCRIPTIONS FROM LOUVAIN

New Zealand Tablet, 10 June 1915, Page 47

SOME INSCRIPTIONS FROM LOUVAIN

During my last visit to Louvain, then a city of peace and study, I spent an afternoon copying the memorials in the old Irish College of St. Anthony of Padua (writes Mr. Shane Leslie in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record). The college was founded by Archbishop Florence Conry, who was born in Galway, 1560." The Annals of the Four Masters record that he was Hugh Roe O'Donnell's confessor. He read St. Augustine's works seven times. ' One wonders how many people in the world have read them even once!' exclaims Mr. Leslie. The Archbishop wrote a Compendium to St. Augustine, and also The Mirror of Religion, one of the first Irish books printed on the Continent. He was made Archbishop of Tuam by Pope Paul V., but. was never able to visit his see. Mr. Leslie gives the Latin inscription to the Archbishop, and the English translation. It is the most conspicuous inscription in the old chapel of the college, and reads as follows:—'--. The most illustrious and reverend Father Florence Conry, of Counaught, of the regular observance of the Minor Order, Archbishop of Tuam, formerly of the Irish Province, for his great piety, doctrine, and prudence most worthy of eternal memory. Owing to his solicitude to restore the orthodox faith in Ireland this College of St. Anthony of Padua was founded by the munificence of Philip 111., King of Spain, in the year 1606. - Broken by his varied labors for faith and fatherland, he died piously in the Convent of St. Francis at Madrid, in the year 1629, fourteen days to the kalends of December, in'the sixty-ninth year of his age, and the twenty-second of the archiepiscopate. In the year 1654 the grateful Fathers of this college placed this where his bones were translated from Spain, and await the reward of immortality.' Other inscriptions of peculiar interest are: ' Here lies as he wished, the very noble Lord Dominic Lynch, from the noble family of the Lynches of Galway, Lieutenant-Colonel of Lally's Irish Brigade, who endured much and with honor for his Sovereign, Charles Stuart, in Scotland, and was afterwards wounded at the battle of Lafe.lt, the 21st day of July, 1747, and died in Louvain the 28th day of August in the same year.' 'Here lies as he wished, the most illustrious and reverend Sir, Brother Dominic, of the noble family of Burke, of the holy Order of Preachers, Bishop of Elphin, in Ireland, who suffered many things for his God and King, and died in exile in this college at Louvain of St. Anthony of Padua, of the Friars Minors of Ireland, on the day of January, in the year 1704, and at the age of severity-five. There are also inscriptions to 'the venerable Father Francis Stuart, librarian and archivist, whom envious death snatched in the flower of his youth, in the twentyseventh year of his age ;' and to ' the venerable Father Simon O'Reilly, reader in philosophy, working librarian and archivist;' 'John Baptist O'Donnell, jubilate reader,' and 'Francis Tully, reader in sacred theology.' But most unique of all the inscriptions that Mr. Leslie copied is that which tells of: —• ' The most" excellent Lady Rose O'Dogherty, the daughter and sister of the princes of Inishowen. To the character of her high blood she added prudence and splendid marriages, marrying first the noble hero, Lord Caffary O'Donnell, a cousin of the Prince of Tir Connell, secondly the- most excellent Lord Owen O'Neill,

Commander in Chief of the Catholic army in Ulster. She endured both kinds of fortune,-and considering her misery, studied to win heaven .by her good deeds; . She died at Brussels, more than seventy years old/ on November 1, in the year-1660. With her first-born, Hugh O’Donnell, she for waits the Resurrection of the Flesh.’,/