Part 14

Most of these institutions were in France, and they were closed and desecrated by the French Revolution, which expelled their inmates, profaned their altars, and confiscated their possessions. The Irish bishops, in consequence, found themselves confronted with an alarming situation. The foreign supply of priests was entirely cut off and the laws of Parliament prohibited their education at home. In this extremity they applied to the government, asking permission to found seminaries for educating young men to discharge the duties of Roman Catholic clergymen in the kingdom. William Pitt, then prime minister, was persuaded that it was safer for England to grant this request than to permit the young priests to imbibe the hatred of England and the democratic and revolutionary principles that pervaded society on the Continent. Edmund Burke and Earl Fitzwilliam acted in behalf of the bishops, and the latter was instructed by the prime minister to supervise the establishment of a new institution. Dr. Hussey, confidential agent of the English government in Dublin, was appointed the first president. He is described as a scholar, statesman, diplomatist, and orator; he had a checkered and eventful career; he undertook many things and excelled in them all. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, a preacher of remarkable power, and the intimate friend of such statesmen as Edmund Burke. He had the confidence of William Pitt and was the trusted agent of princes and statesmen. He was a native of County Meath, was educated at the ancient University of Salamanca of Spain, and originally entered a Trappist monastery, but left it shortly after and became chaplain of the Spanish embassy in London. The British government, recognizing his ability and integrity, sent Dr. Hussey on two confidential missions to the court of Spain, and rewarded his success by granting him a liberal pension for life and appointing him as confidential agent of the government in its negotiations with the bishops, and afterward to be president of the first Catholic theological seminary in Ireland. After two years at the head of the institution he was appointed bishop of Waterford, where he remained until his death in 1803.

Instruction was commenced in a private house belonging to an agent of the Duke of Leinster. The foundations of a new building were laid on the 20th of April, 1796, and seven months later it was opened with fifty students on the roll. The Duke of Leinster, although a Protestant, anxious to have the college on his estate, made very liberal terms, and successive generations of the house of Kildare, of which he is the representative, have been not only friendly but generous to the institution.

Everything about the college reminds the student of the famous class of Geraldines. The ancient castle of the Kildares, built by Maurice Fitzgerald the Invader, and enlarged by John, the sixth earl, in the year 1426, stands at the gate, and on either side of the main walk are fine old yew-trees planted more than seven hundred years ago. According to local legends that vain and reckless youth, "Silken Thomas," sat beneath its spreading branches and played his harp three hundred and seventy-five years ago, on the evening before he started for Dublin to relinquish his trust as temporary viceroy and assault the castle. His five uncles were hanged at Tyburn mainly because they were Catholics. At the fall of the house the sole surviving heir was saved by his tutor, a Catholic priest, who afterward became Bishop of Kildare. Several generations later the earls of Kildare and the dukes of Leinster became Protestants, but they always advocated the emancipation of their Catholic fellow-countrymen, and have always been fair and honorable in their dealings with the institution.

It was a difficult task to get a faculty in those days, as there had not been a Catholic college in Ireland for centuries. But the French Revolution had cast upon the shores of Ireland many competent exiles, who were placed in charge of the various departments, and among the clergy of Ireland were found a sufficient number of scholars to complete the staff of instructors. The Revolution of 1798 broke out two years after the college was opened, and many of the students were stirred by aspirations which caused their expulsion. It was a test that many felt to be very severe; but the faculty were determined to keep faith with the government, and sixteen students were expelled. In 1803, the year of Emmet's insurrection, there was a good deal of insubordination, which has been described as a "ground swell from the outside agitation." Six students were expelled, one of whom, Michael Collins, afterward became Bishop of Cloyne.

The original grant of Parliament was $40,000 a year. In 1807 this was increased to $65,000, which was expended in buildings. It was afterwards reduced, and until 1840 was about $50,000. At that time there were four hundred students, who could not be properly accommodated. In 1844 the trustees drew up and forwarded to the government a strong memorial, which was read in the House of Commons by Sir Robert Peel, who declared that such a state of things was discreditable to the nation and that Parliament should either cut Maynooth College adrift altogether, or maintain it in a manner worthy of the state. In the face of resolute opposition of a majority of his own party, he carried through a proposal to give the sum of $30,000 for new buildings and an annual grant of $26,360 for the maintenance of the college. Mr. Gladstone supported the prime minister, Mr. Disraeli, then leader of the opposition, attacking the bill fiercely. Thomas Babington Macaulay and Dr. Whately, the rhetorician, both made eloquent and convincing speeches in its support. In 1869, when the bill to dissolve the relations between the Protestant church in Ireland and the government was passed, Mr. Gladstone, then prime minister, was compelled to treat Maynooth College on the same terms that he gave the Irish Episcopal branch of the Established Church, and the Presbyterian, giving each a sum of money equal to fourteen installments of its annual grants.

The interest upon that sum at three and one-half per cent is not sufficient for the proper support of so large an institution, but the college has had many generous friends, and with economy has been able not only to maintain itself but to strengthen its position, enlarge its facilities, and give its students better accommodations and greater advantages year by year. The several bishops of Ireland have raised funds to endow many scholarships, so that the expenses incidental to student life have been very much reduced for those who are unable to pay the full fee. Nevertheless, there is great anxiety among the trustees and the professors to extend the buildings, add several chairs to the faculty, and obtain more endowments.

Maynooth is the rendezvous of the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland, being conveniently located and accessible to all the bishops. They meet here frequently to discuss ecclesiastical matters and determine upon church policies. His Eminence Cardinal Logue is president of the board of trustees. His Grace the Most Rev. William J. Walsh, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin, is vice-president. The Archbishop of Cashel, the Archbishop of Tuam, and twelve bishops make up the board. The president of the college is the Right Rev. Mgr. Mannix, D.D.; the vice-president is the Very Rev. Thomas P. Gilmartin, D.D., and the deans of the different schools are the Rev. Thomas T. Gilmartin, D.D., Rev. James Macginley, D.D., and the Rev. Patrick Morrisroe.

Religion is a live thing in Ireland, and the Roman Catholic churches are always filled to overflowing at every service with as many men as women, which is unusual in other countries. In Ireland the situation seems to be different, and the congregations are invariably composed about equally of the two sexes. The Church of Ireland is comparatively weak in numbers, and has more houses of worship than it needs, having inherited many of them from the confiscation edicts of the English kings. Naturally they are not so well filled, but the Roman Catholics are compelled to have three or four services every Sunday in order to accommodate the worshipers, and the priest is invariably the most influential man in the parish. He enters directly into the life of his parishioners, the parish boundaries are sharply divided, and his jurisdiction is so well defined that he knows all the sheep and all the goats that belong to his flock, over whom he exercises a parental as well as a spiritual care. They come to him in all their troubles and in their joys. He advises them about social, political, commercial, domestic, and personal as well as spiritual affairs, and is the court of highest resort in all disputes and family matters. No other authority reaches so far or is rooted so deep in the community, and this peculiar relation grows closer with years.

I formed a high opinion of the Irish priesthood from the examples I was able to meet and to know. They impressed me as an unusually high class of men intellectually as well as spiritually, and every one must admire their devotion, their sincerity, and their self-sacrifice. Some of them naturally become dictatorial, for it is often necessary for them to assume an air of authority to preserve discipline in their parishes, but I think that is more or less the rule in other countries and in all denominations. You cannot talk back to a judge or a school-teacher or a parson. And that is undoubtedly the ground for the charge so frequently made that Ireland is "priest ridden." But the average of intelligence, culture, and efficiency among the Irish priesthood is probably higher than it is in any other country, and their influence is correspondingly greater. There is a great deal of criticism in certain quarters about the activity of the Irish priests in politics and that I found to be largely a misrepresentation. Many of the priests do take an active part in political affairs, but it is entirely a matter of individual taste and inclination, and the proportion is probably no larger than it is among ministers of all denominations in the United States. Those who are well posted on this subject assured me that about one-third of the total number of Catholic priests habitually interest themselves in political affairs, local as well as national; a still larger number take an active part in educational matters, and about one-half of them let politics entirely alone. This is probably a fair estimate and will apply to the clergy of the Church of Ireland and the nonconformist denominations with equal accuracy, although they are much less numerous than the Roman Catholic clergy.

It is always interesting to attend mass at a Roman Catholic church on Sunday in Ireland, particularly in the smaller towns and country parishes, where everybody except those who are too infirm to come out is present in his best clothes, and, no matter how poor he may be, no one passes the man who stands with a box at the entrance without dropping in something, most of them only a penny or a halfpenny, but none without an offering. The appearance of the people, and particularly the women, is in striking contrast to that on week-days, and I am told that this depends very largely upon the priests, many of whom insist that every man, woman, and child shall have a suit of Sunday clothes and "wash up" before coming to the house of God.

The Christian Brothers Educational Order of the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland was organized in Waterford in 1802 by Edmund Rice, a wealthy merchant who lamented the number of neglected boys he saw in the streets and consulted Bishop Hussey, the first president of Maynooth College, as to what he could do to rescue them. Mr. Rice sold his business and opened a free school in his residence while a large building was being erected for his use. The cornerstone was laid June 1, 1802. It was finished the next year, was called Mount Zion, and is still in operation, although very much enlarged. It has been the father house and headquarters of the Irish Christian Brothers from the beginning. Within a few years similar schools were opened in Dungarvan, Limerick, Cork, Dublin, and later in every city and town in Ireland. In 1820 the order was chartered by the Pope, and it has grown until there are now more than one thousand brothers, all engaged in teaching day schools of various standards, from primary instruction up to colleges. They have technical and trade schools, commercial schools, orphanages, and schools for the deaf and dumb and the blind all over the world, in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, India, Gibraltar, and one house in New York. It is independent of the American order of Christian Brothers, which was founded in France in the seventeenth century by St. John Baptiste de la Salle, a French abbé who was canonized by the Pope about four years ago.

In Ireland the Christian Brothers receive no grant from the government, and all their primary schools are free. Tuition is charged at the secondary and technical schools and the remainder of the support comes from legacies, private and public contributions, collections in churches, and other sources.

Edmund Rice died in 1844 at the age of eighty-two, and is buried in Waterford cemetery, with this simple epitaph:

BROTHER EDWARD IGNATIUS RICE, Founder of Christian Schools In Ireland and England.

Carton House, the seat of the earls of Kildare, is on the opposite side of Maynooth from the college. It is the present home of Maurice Fitzgerald, Duke of Leinster, a young man who came of age in March, 1908. He carries more rank and titles than any other person in Ireland, and has more money than any Irishman except Dublin's titled brewer. He spends much of his time at Carton House, which looks like a Florentine palace, but is completely modernized and fitted up with electric light, telephones, and elevators, and stands upon an eminence in the center of a park inclosed within eight miles of stone wall ten feet high. It is a drive of three miles from his front gate to the threshold of his front door, and there are more than thirty miles of macadamized roadway within the demesne. There are hills and dales, twelve lakes, and four waterfalls, one of them thirty-nine feet high. There is a garden of sixty acres laid out in the French style, with fourteen or fifteen fountains and many arbors, kiosks, and pergolas. There are meadows, pastures, vegetable gardens, and fields of oats and other grain, but three-fourths of the park is primeval forest, that has never heard the sound of an axe, and most of the trees are as old as history. I am told that no private park in the world surpasses the grounds of Carton House. Among other curiosities is a cottage built entirely of shells, to commemorate a visit of Queen Victoria, who describes her experiences in "Leaves from Our Life," and tells of jaunting cars, Irish jigs, and bagpipes. The shell cottage is now used as a museum to contain the family relics.

The young duke has several other residences. One of them is Kilkea Castle, County Kildare, which came into the family in the thirteenth century, with ninety thousand acres of farm land, which has just been sold to his tenants under the Wyndham Land Act for more than $6,000,000. The Duke of Leinster has also disposed of his farming lands in the neighborhood of Maynooth for more than $800,000. The estates commission, which has the responsibility of carrying out the provisions of the land act, has purchased more land from him than from any other landlord, and he has received from them in payment nearly one-fourth of the entire amount of money that has been paid under the act by the government. He has a plain but spacious town house on Dominick Street, Dublin, and Mrs. John W. Mackay now occupies his London residence, 6 Carlton House Terrace, under a long lease. His wealth is estimated at $50,000,000. He is unmarried, and has no attachments so far as known. His accumulation of titles is even greater than his wealth. He is the sixth duke of Leinster, which title dates from 1761, and was bestowed by Queen Anne; he is the twenty-fifth earl of Kildare, which title dates from 1316; and the thirty-first baron of Offlay, a title that has been in the family since 1168. He is the premier duke, the premier marquis, the premier earl, and the premier baron; the head of the Irish nobility. And all this rank and responsibility is borne by a frail boy of twenty-one.

He spent the winter of 1907-8 in America, incognito, under the name of Maurice Fitzgerald. He and his tutor visited Quebec, Montreal, and Ottawa, and all the principal cities in the United States. They inspected Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago, and Stanford University, for the young duke has recently taken a degree at Oxford, and was naturally curious to see some American institutions. He spent some time in New York, and was in Washington for a couple of days without disclosing his rank. He enjoyed himself immensely during the entire journey and escaped all the matchmakers, the lion hunters, and the society cormorants. He was not in search of a wife, but was seeking health and completing his education. I am told that he is an exceedingly sensible young fellow, modest, intelligent, thoughtful, and studious. He does not need to marry for wealth nor for position. He can pick his own wife, and has plenty of time to consider the choice.

The duke has been very carefully brought up and educated. His mother died when he was nine years old. She was Lady Hermione Duncombe, daughter of the Earl of Faversham. His father died at the age of forty-two, when he was fourteen. The present duke inherits his delicate, frail constitution, and has symptoms of tuberculosis, which has been the death of many Geraldines. To preserve himself from its dreaded grasp he has lived an outdoor life under the care of a physician, and every preventive that medical science can devise has been used for his protection. Since the death of his mother he has been under the care of three aunts,--Lady Cynthia Graham, Lady Ulrica Duncombe, and Lady Helen Vincent,--his tutor, Rev. the Marquis of Normanby, and his trustee, the Earl of Faversham. He has had governesses and tutors, spent two years at Eton and three years at Oxford, although his studies have been frequently interrupted by sea voyages and camping tours in the mountains for his health. He has a brother, Desmond, two years his junior, and another, Edward, who is fourteen years old.

The Duke of Leinster is prepared to take his proper place in public life, and has recently been appointed master of the horse to the Earl of Aberdeen, lord lieutenant of Ireland. His acceptance of this post indicates that he is a liberal in politics and a home ruler; and, indeed, the tendency of his education has been in that direction. His tutors and trustees are all home rulers and liberals. He is in training for the viceregal throne of Ireland, which so many of his ancestors have occupied, and that is his ambition. If Ireland should be granted autonomy under the plan proposed by Mr. Gladstone twenty-five years ago and demanded as their ultimatum by the Irish national party, the Duke of Leinster will be the most available candidate for lord lieutenant, and for many reasons his selection would be agreeable to those most interested on both sides of St. George's Channel. His advent in politics is an event of great importance, and therefore will be watched with anxiety.

The mansion at Maynooth is an immense building of more than two hundred rooms, sumptuously furnished. There are fourteen drawing-rooms, and the banqueting hall will seat three hundred people. The library contains one of the largest and most valuable collections of books in Ireland, and the pictures are of great value as well as artistic interest.

The Leinster coat of arms is a monkey stantant with plain collar and chained; motto, "Crom-a-boo" ("To Victory"). This is the only coat of arms, I am told, that has ever borne a monkey in the design, and it was adopted by John Fitzthomas Fitzgerald in 1316 for romantic reasons. While an infant he was in the castle of Woodstock, now owned by the Duke of Marlborough, which caught fire. In the confusion the child was forgotten, and when the family and servants remembered him and started a search they found the nursery in ruins. But on one of the towers was a gigantic ape, a pet of the family, carefully holding the young earl in its arms. The animal, with extraordinary intelligence, had crawled through the smoke, rescued the baby and carried it to the top of the tower. When he grew to manhood the earl discarded the family coat of arms and adopted a monkey for his crest, which has been retained to this day, and wherever you find a tomb of a Fitzgerald you will see the figure of a monkey at the feet of the effigy or under the inscription.

Fitzthomas Fitzgerald, the child thus miraculously saved, was the hero of many romances and adventures, and for his eminent services to the crown King Edward II. created him the first Earl of Kildare, May 14, 1316. He was the ancestor of the famous earls, dukes, and marquesses of Ormonde and the earls, dukes, and marquesses of Desmond, although those branches of the family afterward became the rivals and the foes of the Kildares. The Duke of Leinster, by reason of the marriages of his ancestors and collateral members of the family, is related to almost every noble in the kingdom.

The Fitzgeralds are descended from the Gherardini family of Florence, one of whom passed over into Normandy in the tenth century and thence to England, where he became a favorite of Edward the Confessor, and was appointed castellan of Windsor and warden of the forests of the king. In 1078 he is mentioned in Doomsday Book as the owner of enormous areas of land in England and Wales. In 1168 Maurice Fitzgerald, whose name was anglicized and who was the father of the Irish branch of the family, accompanied Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, better known as Strongbow, in the invasion of Ireland and was granted large estates. He died at Wexford in 1177 and was buried in the Abbey of the Grey Friars outside the walls of that town. One of his sons became Baron of Offlay, another became Baron of Nass, and Thomas, the third, was the ancestor of the earls of Desmond. The next earl was a man of great piety. In 1216 he introduced into Ireland the Order of the Franciscans and built them an abbey at Youghal. In 1229 he induced the Dominicans to send a band of missionaries and built them an abbey at Adair. And his son was equally devoted to the church.

The castle at Maynooth, which for several centuries was one of the largest and strongest in Ireland, was built by Gerald, the fifth earl, in 1427, whose second son was the founder of the house of Ormonde and was created earl of that name.

For sixteen generations the earls of Kildare were the most active men in Ireland, and the history of their adventures would fill a book as big as a dictionary. There was always "something doing" wherever they went; they were on all sides of all questions and were sometimes fighting each other as fiercely as the family foes. They led rebellions against their sovereign, have suffered imprisonment, and have been executed at Tyburn and the Tower. They have been the boldest and most powerful defenders of British authority in Ireland and several times have saved the island to the British throne. More lords lieutenants have come from the Kildares than from any other family, and among the long list of earls have been some splendid characters.