d'Ambriéres, René and Ó Ciosáin, Eamon
(2008)
Irish bishops and clergy in exile in
mid-seventeenth-century France.
Irish Historical Studies, XXXVI (141).
pp. 16-37.
ISSN 0021-1214
Abstract
After the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, hundreds of Catholic priests and
religious were forced into exile on the Continent, with many seeking refuge
in France, Spain and the Spanish Low Countries. For some, refuge was temporary
while awaiting political developments and toleration in the home country; for
others, it was permanent. The sheer numbers involved- in the hundreds (see
below)- mark this as a new phenomenon in the migration of Irish Catholics to
France. Although large numbers of Irish soldiers arrived there in the late 1630s
and again from 1651 onwards, as Ireland was cleared of regiments connected with
the Confederation of Kilkenny, the volume of priests and seminarians migrating
to France had hitherto been on a much smaller scale than that of the military.
This changed in the years after Cromwell's campaign in Ireland when groups of
diocesan clergy left for France in large numbers- ordained clergy and professed
nuns, rather than seminarians - representing a new departure in terms of the
migrating population. This article uses John Lynch's De praesulibus Hiberniae and
Richard O'Farrell and Richard O'Connell's Commentarius Rinuccinianus, both
contemporary documents by Irish exiles living in France (Lynch and O'Connell
resided in Brittany and Paris respectively), to trace the movements and experiences
of the prelates and clergy who sought refuge in France, in addition to a range of
French archival sources.1 While it is not possible, given the constraints of space,
to study the lives of each of these men in detail, material from Irish, French and
Roman sources is utilised to explore the principal issues facing exiled Irish clergy
in France. Combining sources from several locations enables comparisons to be
made, and the documentation yielded by the various strands of inquiry is mutually
enriching, providing a considerable number of significant case studies.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Irish bishops; clergy; exile; mid-seventeenth-century; France; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures > French |
| Item ID: |
7790 |
| Depositing User: |
Eamon O'Ciosain
|
| Date Deposited: |
20 Jan 2017 12:28 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Irish Historical Studies |
| Publisher: |
Antrim W. & G. Baird Ltd |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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