Born: 1544, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 1583, Madrid, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 1563, Waterford City, County Waterford
Died: 31 January 1599, Spain

◆ In Chronological Catalogue Sheet Ent 1583

◆ Old/16 has DOB 1544 Waterford; Ent 1583; Prof 4 Vows; RIP 1599 in Spain

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Comberford or Comerford

DOB Waterford; Ent c 1583

He was BA Oxford c 1562. Wood, “Athen. Oxon” Vol I, p 200, ed 1721 says “Nicholas Comerford was born in the city of Waterford in Ireland; took his degree in Arts 1562, after he spent at least four years in this university pecking and hewing at Logic and Philosophy. Which degree been being completed by determination, he went into his own country, entered the sacred function, and had preferment there, but was turned out from it because of his religion. He wrote in English a pithy and learned treatise, very exquisitely penned, as one (Richard Stanihurst, “In Descript Hibern.” c 7) saith, entitled “Answers to certain questions propounded by the Citizens of Waterford”. Soon after he left his country for the sake of religion; he went to the University of Louvain, where he was promoted to the degree of DD 23/06/1576; and afterwards as ‘tis said, wrote and published diverse other things.” He died in Spain. (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)

Professor;

Peter Lombard addressed a Latin poem to him on his taking his DD (cf Foley’s Collectanea; his life in IbIg; Wood’s Athen. Oxon)

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online
Comerford (Comberford, Quemerford), Nicholas
by Anthony M. McCormack

Comerford (Comberford, Quemerford), Nicholas (c.1541/5–c.1599), Jesuit, was born in Waterford city, son of Patrick Comerford and his wife, who was a Walsh. He was educated at Peter White's renowned school in Kilkenny city before studying at Oxford for at least four years, graduating BA (20 February 1563). He returned to Waterford, where he was ordained a priest and granted church office, of which he was later deprived due to his catholic views. In September 1565 he entered the university of Louvain (then in the Spanish Netherlands) to study theology. Described as one of the most eminent lecturers there, he received from Louvain (23 October 1576) his DD degree, on which he was congratulated by his friend, the future archbishop of Armagh Peter Lombard (qv), in a poem entitled ‘Carmen heroicum’ (‘Heroic song’). By April 1577 he was at Waterford, where the royal authorities complained that he preached continually against the established religion, and marked him down as one of the leading catholic clergymen in the area.

Renewed religious persecution in Ireland probably compelled him to leave c.1580–81 and he then entered the Society of Jesus at Madrid. Thereafter, he lectured in a number of Spanish colleges, appearing at Bayona in 1589, and at Lisbon in 1590. That year his candidacy for the archbishopric of Cashel was promoted by a number of Irish catholic clergy, but nothing came of this. His life after 1590 is unknown but he is said to have died in Spain in 1599. He wrote a tract in English entitled Answers to certain questions propounded by the citizens of Waterford, a number of sermons, and a poem in Latin entitled ‘Carmina in laudem comitis Ormondiae’ (‘Songs in praise of the earl of Ormond’).

Charles Smith, Ancient and present state of the county and city of Waterford (1746), 360; W. Harris, The whole works of Sir James Ware (1764), ii, 96; DNB; E. Hogan, Distinguished Irishmen of the sixteenth century (1894), 71–8; Crone (2nd ed., [1937]); B. Jennings, ‘Irish students in the University of Louvain’, Measgra i gcuimhne Mhichíl Uí Chléirigh, ed. S. O'Brien (1944), 74–97

◆ Henry Foley - Records of the English province of The Society of Jesus Vol VII
COMBERFORD, or COMERFORD, NICHOLAS (Irish), entered the Society about 1583. (Father Hogan's Ihernia, p. 249.) He was a native of Waterford ; studied at Oxford. Wood, then. Oxon., vol. i. p. 200, ed. 1721, says: “Nicholas Comerford was born in the city of Waterford, in Ireland; took his degree in arts 1562, after he had spent at least four years in this University in pecking and hewing at logic and philosophy. Which degree being com pleted by determination, he went into his own country, entered the sacred function, and had preferment there, but was turned out from it because of his religion. He wrote in English a pithy and learned treatise, very exquisitely penned, as one (Richard Stani hurst, In Descript. Hibern. c. 7) saith, entitled, Answers to certain questions propounded by the Citizens of Waterford. Also divers sermons. Soon after he left his country for the sake of religion ; went to the University of Louvain, where he was promoted to the degree of D.D., June 23, 1576; and afterwards, as 'tis said, wrote and published divers other things." He died in Spain. (Oliver, as above).

◆ Memorials of the Irish Province SJ June 1902 1.6
A Brief Memoir of Father Alfred Murphy SJ - by Matthew Russell SJ

Father Nicholas Comerford SJ

In Spain, about the year 1599, died Father Nicholas Comerford, a native of Waterford in Ireland. He was the first of sixteen Waterford Jesuits of the name who lived between the years 1590 and 1640, and the first of the many celebrated natives of Waterford who joined the Soeiety of Jesus. Among the three thousand students who at one time frequented the lecture halls of the famous University of Louvain, the genius and learning of this city of Waterford shone with the brightest lustre. Having received his early training at the then well known school of Dr Peter White, Comerford went to Oxford, where he received his degree of Doctor of Divinity on the 23rd October, 1576. He then returned to Ireland, where his zealous labours in the ministry attracted the hostile notice of the Lord President of Munster, who spoke of him as “teaching against our religion”, and thereby “causing a number to despair”, or in other words, to be converted to Catholicity. The same high authority speaks of him as being, with Father Archer, afterwards of the Society, “the principal agent of the Pope”, and complains that “Popery is mainly supported by the students of Waterford educated at Louvain, by whom”, he adds, “the proud and undutiful inhabitants of this town are cankered in Popery”.

Father Comerford was ultimately obliged to yield to the stress of persecution, and take refuge on the Continent along with Father Archer. While abroad he entered the Society at Madrid. Brennan, in his Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, says that “he was one of the most eminent lecturers in Louvain . ... Wishing to combine the religious with the literary life, he entered the Society of Jesus. He was afterwards”, he adds, “sent to Spain, and he was there honour ably employed for many years, and obtained unbounded applause in some of the most celebrated colleges of that kingdom”. Cardinal Allen and other influential persons endeavoured, in 1589, to have him appointed to the Archbishopric of Cashel, but the humble religious succeeded in evading the proferred dignity. He wrote in English a learned discourse, entitled, An Answer to certain Questions propounded by the Citizens of Waterford, as well as a volume of sermons, and many learned tracts on philosophical and theological subjects.

◆ Rev. Edmund Hogan SJ : “Distinguished Irishmen of the Sixteenth Century” - London : Burns and Oates, Limited, New York, Cincinnati : Chicago, Benzinger Brothers, 1894 : Quarterly Series : Volume Ninety

Nicholas Comerford

FATHER WHITE received great help in his arduous undertaking from the presence and influence in Spain of his distinguished kinsman, Father Nicholas Quemerford or Comerford, S.J., who “was honourably employed and obtained unbounded applause in some of the most celebrated colleges of that kingdom”. (1) The Comerfords showed ardent attachment to the Faith in the sixteenth century. A wayside cross erected at Danganmore at that period bears the inscription : “Pray for the souls of Richard Comerford and of his wife Dame Johanna Saint-Leger”. In 1592, Richard Comerford of Waterford, Merchaunt, is reported to the Government for entertaining Sir Morren, a priest; and Belle Butler, wife unto Thomas Comerford of Waterford, Merchaunt (now in Spain), is denounced. for retaining Sir John White, priest. Nicholas was the son of Patrick Comerford, (2) of Waterford, and of his wife, a lady of the influential family of Walsh; he was uncle of Dr. Patrick Comerford, the distinguished Bishop of Waterford and Lismore; he was related to the best families of his native city, was the first of sixteen Waterford Jesuits of the name, who lived between the years 1590 and 1640; and he was the first of the many celebrated natives of Waterford who joined the Society of Jesus. He was educated at the school of Dr. Peter White, “from which”, says Stanihurst, “as from a Trojan horse, issued men of distinguished literary ability and learning - the Whites, Comerfords, Walshes, Wadings, Dormers, Shees, Garveys, Butlers, Stronges, and Lombards. (3) Out of this schoole have sprouted such proper ympes through the painfull diligence and the laboursome industry of a famous lettered man, Mr. Peter White, as generally the whole weale publike of Ireland, and especially the southerne parts of that island, are greatly thereby furthered. This gentleman's methode in trayning up youth was rare and singular, framing the education according to the scoler's veine. If he found him free, he would bridle hym, like a wyse Isocrates, from his booke : if he perceived hym to be dull, he would spur hym forwarde; if he understoode that he were the worse for beating, he would win him with rewardes; finally, by interlacing study with vacation, sorrow with mirth, payne with pleasure, sowernesse with sweetnesse, roughness with myldnesse, he had so good successe in schooling his pupils, as in good sooth I may boldly byde by it, that in the realme of Ireland was no Grammar School so good, in England, I am well assured, none better. And because it was my happy happe (God and my parents be thanked) to have been one of his crewe, I take it to stand with my duty, sith I may not stretche myne habilitie in requiting his good turnes, yet to manifeste my good will in remembrying his paines. And, certes, I acknowledge myselfe so much bounde and beholding to hym and his, as for his sake I reverence the meanest stone cemented in the walles of that famous schoole”. (4)
From White's school Comerford went to Oxford (where White himself had been some time Fellow of Oriel), and, according to Anthony Wood, “he there took his Degree of Arts in the year 1562, after he had spent at least four years in pecking and hewing at logic and philosophy. Which degree being completed by determination, he went into his own country, entered the sacred function, and had preferment there, but was turned out from it because of his religion. He wrote in English a pithy and learned treatise, very exquisitely penned, as one Richard Stanihurst saith, entitled Answers to Certain Questions Propounded by the Citizens of Waterford. He also wrote divers sermons. Soon after he left his country for the sake of religion, went to the University of Louvain, where he was promoted to the degree of Doctor of Divinity June 23, 1576, and afterwards, as it is said, wrote and published divers things”. (5)
Wood was mistaken with regard to the date, the 23rd of June, as we know from Foppens MS. History of Louvain (6) that Comerford went to that University in 1565, and became Doctor of Divinity, on October 23, 1576; on which occasion his fellow citizen, Peter Lombard, who ranked “Primus Universitatis”, composed and published a Latin poem entitled Carmen Heroicum in Doctoratum Nicolai Quemerfordii. Comerford came at once to the help of his countrymen; his presence was soon felt and was thus reported in 1577 by the Lord President of Munster : “Doctor Quemerford of Waterford is also of late come out of Louvain; he and all the rest taught all the way between Rye and Bristol against our religion, and caused a number to despair. There are a great number of students of this city of Waterford in Louvain, at the charge of their friends and fathers”. (7) The fame of Louvain spread over Europe, its lecture-halls were frequented at times by three thousand students, and Cardinal Bellarmine declared he had never perhaps seen anything equal to it as to numbers, learning, &c. (8) Among those thousands the genius and learning of the city of Waterford shone with the brightest lustre.
A people so gifted and enlightened as the in habitants of Waterford could neither be cajoled nor coerced into the embraces of heresy. This is fully recognized and deplored by the missionary Lord President of Munster, who continues in these terms : “James Archer of Kilkenny, Dr. Comerford of Waterford, and Chaunter Walsh are the principal agents of the Pope. Popery is mainly supported by the students of Waterford educated at Louvain, by whom the proud and undutiful inhabiters of this town are cankered in Popery, undutiful to Her Majesty, slandering the Gospel publicly, as well this side the sea as beyond in England, that they fear not God nor man, and hath their altars, painted images, and candlesticks in derision of the Gospel, every day in their synagogues - so detestable that they may be called the unruly newters rather than subjects. Masses infinite they have in their several churches every morning without any fear. I have spied them; for I chanced to arrive last Sunday at five of the clock in the morning and saw them resort out of the churches by heaps ; this is shameful in a reformed city”. This “shameful” conduct went on for twenty years longer, for Dr. Lyon, Protestant Bishop of Cork, reports to Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, in a letter dated July 6, 1596, “The Mayor of Waterford, which is a great lawyer, one Wadding, carieth the sword and rod (as I think he should do) for Her Majesty; but he nor his sheriffs never came to the church sithence he was mayor, nor sithence this reign, nor none of the citizens, men nor women, nor in any other towne or city throughout this province, which is lamentable to hear, but most lamentable to see; the Lord in His mercy amend it when it shall please His gracious goodness to look on them”. These canting knaves, Drury and Lyon,
Were of that saintly, murderous brood,
To carnage and the gospel given,
Who think through unbelievers' blood,
Lies their directest path to Heaven.
If Drury could have “spied”, and caught Comerford and Archer, he would have got themn hanged, drawn, and quartered, as two years previously he had served their brother in religion, Edmund O'Donnell, S.J. However, this cruel man, who reported the movements of Comerford, went a year afterwards to give an account of himself to God; having hanged Bishop O'Hely, he suddenly got sick and died, uttering blasphemies. (9).
Fathers Comerford and Archer escaped the clutches of Drury, perhaps through the kindness of Annie O'Meara, the wife of Magrath, the Queen's Archbishop of Cashel. Annie was in the habit of eliciting State secrets from his Grace, and of giving timely warning to priests when any danger was impending. Indeed the poor apostate friar aided her in the good work; for on June 26, 1582, he wrote to her from Greenwich : “I desire you now to cause the friends of Darby Creagh (Bishop of Cork) to send him out of the whole country, if they may; for there is such search to be made for him that, unless he be wise, he shall be taken. I desire you, also, to send away from your house all the priests you are in the habit of having there”. This unfortunate man and his wife were ultimately reconciled to the Church by Dr. O'Kearney, the Catholic Archbishop of Cashel.
Dr. Comerford and James Archer, after their departure from Ireland, entered the Society of Jesus; the latter at Rome in 1581, the former at Madrid. (10) The erudite Franciscan, Father Brennan, says in his Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, that Comerford “was one of the most eminent lecturers in Louvain. ... Wishing to combine the religious with the literary life, he entered the Society of Jesus. He was afterwards sent to Spain, and he was there honourably employed for many years, and obtained unbounded applause in some of the miost celebrated colleges of that kingdom”. He was at Bayona de Galicia, in Spain, in the year 1589, at Lisbon the year after, when he was by Cardinal Allen and divers others estates sent for from Rome to have the archbishoprick of Cashel”. (11)
After the year 1590, Father Comerford disappears from our view; he is not named in the Catalogue of Irish Jesuits of 1609, and is supposed to have gone to receive the reward of his labours in the year 1599. Sketches of his career are given in Stanihurst's Descriptio Hiberniae, Wood's Athene Oxonienses, Harris' Edition of Ware's Irish Writers, the Collectanea of Dr. Oliver and Brother Foley, S.J., Brennan's Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, Meehan's Memoirs of the Irish Hierarchy, the Ibernia Ignatiana, and in the National Biography. He wrote : a. Many learned tracts on philosophical and theological subjects. b. Sermons. c. Carmina in laudem Comitis Ormondia. d. An Answer to certaine Questions propounded by the Citizens of Waterford.
Father Comerford was the first of a long line of distinguished Waterford Jesuits, and as he and his immediate relatives worked with all their might for the preservation of Catholicity in their native city, their efforts were crowned with success. The Lord Chancellor, “in his speech upon his granting a seizure of the Liberties of Waterforde”, said, “The city of Waterforde hath performed many excellent and acceptable services to the Queen of England, insomuch that they deserved the posie of Urbs intacta manet. . . . But this citie which thus flourished, and the inhabitants and citizens thereof, whom I know to be equal, for all manner and breeding and sufficiencie, to any in the King's dominions, or in Europe; yet when they yielde their heart to foreign states (12) (which is the principal part of man), then they neglected their duty and fidelity, (12) so far forth ; as being directed by Popish priests and Jesuits, that they could not within their whole corporation find one man (14) to serve the King's majesty in the magistracy of Mayor, for want of conformity. (15) . . . And so I pronounce that a seizure be awarded of all their liberties”. This English document, from which I have given a few extracts, is in the Irish College of Salamanca, and has foot-notes appended to it, apparently by Father White, of which I also give a few instances.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
QUEMERFORD, NICHOLAS, of Waterford, educated at Oxford, where he took his degree of Arts in 1562. Anthony Wood, (according to Harris, p. 96. Writers of Ireland, but I cannot verify the passage) says, that after spending four years in that University he returned to Ireland and took Orders. Repairing to Louvain, he was promoted to the degree of D.D. 23rd of June, 1576, on which occasion his countryman Peter Lombard, who ranked “Primus Universitatis” wrote “Carmen Heroicum in, Doctoratum Nicholai Quemerfordi”. p. 219, vol. I. Athenae. Oxon. Afterwards he became a Jesuit and died in Spain. He wrote in English a Learned discourse intitled “Answers to certain Questions propounded by the citizens of Waterford” also “Sermons” and other works."

◆ Memorials of the Irish Province SJ January 1903 1.6

A Short History of Some Irish Jesuits : Joseph McDonnell SJ &
Short Memoirs of the Early Irish Jesuits Who Worked in Ireland Down to the Year 1840: Joseph McDonnell SJ (Pamphlet)

Father Nicholas Comerford SJ
In Spain, about the year 1599, died Father Nicholas Comerford, a native of Waterford in Ireland. He was the first of sixteen Waterford Jesuits of the name who lived between the years 1590 and 1640, and the first of the many celebrated natives of Waterford who joined the Soeiety of Jesus. Among the three thousand students who at one time frequented the lecture halls of the famous University of Louvain, the genius and learning of this city of Waterford shone with the brightest lustre. Having received his early training at the then well known school of Dr Peter White, Comerford went to Oxford, where he received his degree of Doctor of Divinity on the 23rd October, 1576. He then returned to Ireland, where his zealous labours in the ministry attracted the hostile notice of the Lord President of Munster, who spoke of him as “teaching against our religion”, and thereby “causing a number to despair”, or in other words, to be converted to Catholicity. The same high authority speaks of him as being, with Father Archer, afterwards of the Society, “the principal agent of the Pope”, and complains that “Popery is mainly supported by the students of Waterford educated at Louvain, by whom”, he adds, “the proud and undutiful inhabitants of this town are cankered in Popery”.

Father Comerford was ultimately obliged to yield to the stress of persecution, and take refuge on the Continent along with Father Archer. While abroad he entered the Society at Madrid. Brennan, in his Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, says that “he was one of the most eminent lecturers in Louvain . ... Wishing to combine the religious with the literary life, he entered the Society of Jesus. He was afterwards”, he adds, “sent to Spain, and he was there honour ably employed for many years, and obtained unbounded applause in some of the most celebrated colleges of that kingdom”. Cardinal Allen and other influential persons endeavoured, in 1589, to have him appointed to the Archbishopric of Cashel, but the humble religious succeeded in evading the proferred dignity. He wrote in English a learned discourse, entitled, An Answer to certain Questions propounded by the Citizens of Waterford, as well as a volume of sermons, and many learned tracts on philosophical and theological subjects.

http://comerfordfamily.blogspot.com/2007/12/comerford-profiles-3-revd-dr-nicholas.html
The Revd Dr Nicholas Comerford or Quemerford (ca 1541/1545-ca 1599) was a prominent Jesuit theologian from Waterford in the aftermath of the Reformation, and was the first of 16 members of the Comerford name who were Jesuits or members of the Society of Jesus in the half century between 1590 and 1640. He lived in Oxford, Waterford, Louvain and in Portugal and Spain, he spent some time living in Rome as the Pope’s guest, and at one time he was nominated as Archbishop of Cashel, although the nomination was blocked by the King of Spain and was never accepted by the Vatican.
Nicholas Comerford was born in Waterford ca 1541-1545, the son of Patrick Comerford and his wife, […] Walsh.[1] It is said that Nicholas was sent to school at Peter White’s famous academy in Kilkenny,[2] although he may have been too old to have been one of White’s pupils. White was educated at Oxford, and was a Fellow of Oriel College before returning to Waterford, where he was Dean of Waterford Cathedral until he was ejected for nonconformity. He then established his famous academy or school in Kilkenny in 1565, and his pupils there included the historian Richard Stanihurst (1547-1618), and later the Franciscan theologian and historian Luke Wadding (1588-1657), as well as other members of the White, Comerford, Walsh, Wadding and Lombard families from Waterford and Kilkenny.[3]
After school, Nicholas Comerford went on to Oxford. Although it is not known which college he was a student in – perhaps White’s Oriel or his professors’ Magdalen College –we know he spent at least four years “in pecking at logic and philosophy” and graduated BA on 20 February 1563.[4] During his time at Oxford (ca 1559-1563), his contemporaries included Edmund Campion (1540-1581), a friend of Stanihurst and later a Jesuit martyr, who was a student at Saint John’s College and graduated in 1564; and Richard Stanihurst, who went to Oxford from Kilkenny in 1563.
The Regius Professors of Divinity in Oxford during Nicholas Comerford’s time there as an undergraduate were Richard Smyth (1559) and Lawrence Humphrey (from 1560).
Smyth was Oxford University’s registrar when by royal appointment he became the university’s first Regius Professor of Divinity in 1536. He was principal of Saint Alban’s Hall (later incorporated into Merton College) and Divinity Reader at Magdalen College. He was reported to have renounced Catholicism and the authority of the Pope at Oxford on the accession of Edward VI, but accounts show him as a Catholic again soon after, and he was replaced as Regius Professor in 1548 by Peter Martyr. Smyth and Martyr held a public disputation in 1549, and Smyth was arrested soon afterwards and imprisoned for a short while. On his release, Smyth left Oxford to become Professor of Divinity at Louvain, but he returned to England on the accession of Mary, became Regius Professor once again (1554-1556 and 1559), a canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and a royal chaplain, and he took a leading role in the trials of Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer. Smyth was regius professor once again in 1559, but only briefly, and soon lost this position and all his benefices following Elizabeth’s succession to Mary in 1558. He was briefly imprisoned in Archbishop Matthew Parker’s house, and on his release fled to the continent. In Douai, Mary’s widower, Philip II of Spain, appointed him dean of Saint Peter’s Church and then in 1562 he became the first chancellor and Professor of Theology at the new Douai University.[5]
For most of Nicholas Comerford’s time at Oxford, however, the Regius Professor of Divinity was Lawrence Humphrey (ca 1527-1590), who had lived in Basel, Zurich, Frankfort and Geneva during Mary’s reign. There he made acquaintances with the leading Swiss reformers, and adopted their ecclesiastical. He returned to England on Elizabeth’s accession to the throne in 1558, and was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford in 1560. A year later, he was elected President of Magdalen College, despite the opposition of the fellows, and gradually converted the college into a stronghold of Puritanism. In 1580 he was made Dean of Winchester, and when he died on 1 February 1590 he was buried in the chapel of Magdalen College.[6]
After graduating from Oxford in 1563, Nicholas returned to Ireland, and was ordained priest in Waterford.[7] But he soon moved to Continental Europe on account of his religious views.[8] By 1564, he was in Louvain, where Richard Smyth had found refuge 15 years earlier. Nicholas Comerford’s brother, James Quemerford or Comerford of Waterford, a former chaplain to the Mayor of Waterford, wrote to Nicholas in Louvain on 14 August [1564], professing himself to be “of the old religion.” He was still in Louvain in 1565. [9]
But Nicholas was soon back in Ireland again. By 1569, he was chaplain to Sir Edmund Butler of Roscrea, Co Tipperary, and Cloughgrenan, Co Carlow, a younger brother of Thomas Butler, ‘Black Tom,’ the 10th Earl of Ormond. On 3 July 1569, Sir Edmund Butler wrote to the Lord Deputy, Henry Sydney, beseeching him “to allow the messenger whom I sent to you and them with two letters to return with answer, at least my chaplain, Sir Nicholas Comerforde.”[10]
Nicholas was Rector of Kilconnell in the Diocese of Cashel until about 1570, when the Dean and Chapter of Cashel wrote to Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, on 19 May 1570 nominating and presenting the Revd William Phelan as his successor.[11]
In 1571, the notorious pluralist, Miler Magrath, became Archbishop of Cashel. With this appointment, Ireland, and the Diocese of Cashel in particular, were now unsafe places for a man of Comerford’s Catholic convictions. He moved to the Continent, and by 1574, he was back in Louvain once again. The Catholic University of Leuven or Louvain was founded in Brabant, or present-day Belgium, in 1425, and its distinguished students included Desiderius Erasmus and Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens (Pope Adrian VI).
In Louvain, he was a contemporary of Peter Lombard of Waterford, later Archbishop of Armagh. When Nicholas Comerford received his doctorate in theology (DD) at the Catholic University of Louvain on 23 October 1576, the occasion was marked by a poem in Latin penned by his cousin Peter Lombard (1555-1625) from Waterford, who later became Professor of Theology at Louvain and then Archbishop of Armagh: Carmen heroicum in Doctoratum Nicolai Quemerfordi.[12]

In 1577, Nicholas was reported by the Lord President of Munster, Sir William Drury, as having recently come out of Louvain with the Kilkenny Jesuit James Archer and others, and had been preaching “all the way between Rye and Bristol against our religion.” Later, Drury spoke of him as one of “the principal agents of the Pope.”[13]
Nicholas returned to the Continent, and by 1578 it was reported that the chief Irish ecclesiastics then living in Rome on the bounty of the Pope included Dr Nicholas Comerford.[14] Gregory XIII was a liberal patron of the Society of Jesus and is best remembered for his reform of the calendar, giving his name to the Gregorian Calendar.

Later in 1578, Nicholas Comerford was living in Porto in Portugal, where he was said to be “of great authority among the Irish by reason alike of doctrine and of probity.”[15] Between 1578 and 1583, he joined the Jesuits or the Society of Jesus in Madrid, and was professed of the four vows.[16] He spent some time in Rome, later moved to Porto in Portugal, and then lectured in theology in a number of colleges in Spain and Portugal.

By 1589, he was living in Bayona in Spain. Christopher Arthur, a merchant from Limerick who was visiting Spain in 1589, reported to the Lord Deputy, Fitzwilliam, that among the Irish bishops in Spain, Dr Comerford of Waterford was living in Bayona de Galizia. [17]
By 1590 he was in Lisbon.[18] In January that year, Comerford was nominated by Cardinal William Allen (1532-1594) and others as Archbishop of Cashel in opposition to Miler Magrath, who was Archbishop of Cashel 1571-1622. Allen had been the Principal of Saint Mary Hall, Oxford, which was closely linked with Oriel College, while Nicholas Comerford was an undergraduate at Oxford, and Allen – like Comerford – moved to Leuven in the 1560s. However, the nomination did not receive the support it needed from King Philip II of Spain. Six years before Comerford’s nomination, Dermot O’Hurley, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel, had been hanged at Dublin Castle on 20 June 1584. However, the Spanish monarch did not want Comerford to leave Spain for Ireland, and instead, the king offered him any other post he might chose in Spain. As a consequence, Comerford’s nomination as Archbishop Cashel was not accepted in Rome, and the see remained vacant until 1603, when David Kearney was appointed in 1603; a Comerford was eventually appointed to Cashel in 1693, when Edward Comerford was appointed Archbishop of Cashel in succession to John Brenan.[19]

The failure to become Archbishop of Cashel marks the end of Nicholas Comerford’s ecclesiastical career. It is possible that he continued to live out his days in Spain, although there is no further mention of Nicholas Comerford in the Jesuit records after 1590, and he is reported to have died in Spain ca 1599.[20]

Nicholas Comerford was the author of Answers to certain questions propounded by the citizens of Waterford, said to have been “a learned and pithy treatise.” He also wrote a number of tracts on philosophy and theology, some of his sermons were published, and he was the author of a poem in Latin, Carmina in laudem comitis Ormondiae (Songs in praise of the Earl of Ormond).[21]

[1] Dictionary of National Biography, vol 4, p. 894 (where the date of birth is given as ca 1544); Hogan, Catalogue of Irish Jesuits (Dublin, 1880) p. 6, which also prefers ca 1544; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), vol 11, p. 866, where the date ca 1540 is preferred. More recently, Anthony M McCormack prefers ca 1541/1544; see Anthony M McCormack, ‘Comerford (Comberford, Quemerford), Nicholas,’ pp 715-716, in Dictionary of Irish Biography (eds James McGuire, James Quinn), vol 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2009).
[2] ODNB 11, p. 866; McCormack, p. 715.
[3] J. Browne, Transactions of the Kilkenny Arch. Soc., 1. (1849-51), 221-29; Richard Stanihurst, Description of Ireland, Chapter 7; Power, Brenan, p. 244; Dowling, Continuity Ossory, pp 247-249.
[4] Foster vol 1, p. 314, which gives the date 20 February 1562-63; Brenan, Ecclesiastical History, p. 443; DNB 4, p. 894, which gives the date 1562 for his BA; Hurley says he graduated at Oxford in 1562, see Patrick Hurley, ‘Memoir of Dr Patrick Comerford, OSA, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, 1629-1652,’ Irish Ecclesiastical Record, December 1887, p. 1083; ODNB 11 gives the date 1562(see p. 866); McCormack agrees with 20 February 1563 (see p. 715).
[5] J. Andreas Löwe, Richard Smyth and the Language of Orthodoxy: Re-imagining Tudor Catholic Polemicism (Studies in Mediaeval and Reformation Traditions: History, Culture, Religion, Ideas, 96; Leiden: Brill, 2003), passim; JP Spellman, ‘The Irish in Belgium,’ Irish Ecclesiastical Record, July 1886 (Dublin: 1886), p. 642.
[6] C.H. Cooper and T. Cooper, Athenae Cantabrigienses (Cambridge 1861), vol 2, pp 80 ff.
[7] DNB 4, p. 894; ODNB 11, p. 866; McCormack, p. 715.
[8] DNB 4, p. 894.
[9] Ronan, p. 114; Cal State Papers Irl 1601-1603, p. 663.
[10] Carew vol 1, p. 385.
[11] Ormond Deeds, 5, p. 185.
[12] Foster 1, p. 314; Spellman, pp 642-643; Hogan, Catalogue of Irish Jesuits, p. 6; ODNB 11, p. 866; McCormack, p. 715.
[13] ODNB 11, p. 866; Hogan (1894), p. 74.
[14] Ronan, p. 580.
[15] Ronan, p. 590.
[16] Hogan, Catalogue of Irish Jesuits, p. 6; DNB 4, p. 894; ODNB 11, p. 866.
[17] Cal State Papers Irl, vol 4 (Elizabeth 1588-1592), p. 136; ODNB 11, p. 866.
[18] ODNB, vol 11, p. 866.
[19] Cal State Papers Irl vol 4 (Elizabeth 1588-1592), p. 295.
[20] Hogan, Catalogue of Irish Jesuits, p. 6; Spellman, p. 663; DNB 4, p. 894; ODNB 11, p. 866; McCormack, p. 715.
[21] Brenan, Ecclesiastical History, p. 444; ODNB 11, p. 866; McCormack, p. 715.

◆ Menology of the Society of Jesus: The English Speaking Assistancy

October 12

Father Nicholas Comerford was the first of a long line of distinguishcd Waterford Jesuits, who worked with great fervour and energy for the preservation of Catholicity in their native city, and whose efforts were crowned with success. Father Nicholas was born in Waterford and began his education in the well-known school of Mr. Peter White. He went up afterwards to Oxford, and took his degree in 1562. Returning to his own country, he was ordained and advanced to some preferment, but was afterwards deprived of it on account of his religion. He then repaired to Louvain, where he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1577, his reappearance in Ireland drew the following comments from the Lord President of Munster “Dr. Comerford of Waterford is also of late come out of Louvain, he and the rest argued the whole way between Rye and Bristol against our religion, and caused doubt in several persons. There are a great many students of this city studying in Louvain, at the charge of their parents and friends”.

Fathers Comerford and Archer escaped the hands of Sir William Drury and, leaving Ireland, entered the Society; the former in Madrid, the latter at Rome. Father Comerford was employed in Spain for many years with great success and distinction in several Colleges, Bayonne in Galicia and Lisbon being among the number. His name occurs in the Irish State Papers, bearing date March 14th, 1589, as having been summoned from Rome by Cardinal Allen in order to be promoted to the archbishopric of Cashel, but
at this time he disappears from our view, and as he is not named in the Catalogue of 1609, he probably died about the same period.

Born: 24 April 1874, Honeymount, Roscrea, County Tipperary
Entered: 07 October 1891, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 1904, Petworth, Sussex, England
Final Vows: 02 February 1915, St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney, Australia
Died: 14 May 1940, Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

Younger Brother of Timothy Corcoran - RIP 1943

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1895 at St Aloysius, Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1903 at Petworth, Sussex (ANG) health
by 1904 in San Luigi, Napoli-Posilipo, Italy (NAP) studying
by 1905 at Petworth, Sussex (ANG) health
Came to Australia 1905

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
His parents were Irish, and whilst they left Australia to return to Ireland, he later joined the Society at St Stanislaus College Tullabeg.

His studies were in Dublin and Jersey, Channel Islands, and then he was sent to teach mathematics at Mungret College Limerick and Belvedere College Dublin. He then became ill and was sent to Petworth, Sussex, England where he made Theology studies. He was Ordained there in 1904 and then sent to Australia.
1904-1906 He arrived in Australia and was sent to the Norwood Parish
1906-1913 He was sent to St Ignatius College Riverview
1913-1914 He returned to Ireland and St Stanislaus College Tullabeg to make his Tertianship.
1915-1919 He came back to Australia and Riverview
1919-1940 He was appointed Novice Master and remained in that position at Xavier College Kew until his death in 1940. He was highly regarded by the Jesuits whom he trained.

When he was at Riverview he was given the task of Minister and so had responsibility for the wellbeing of the boarders. He was considered very adept in catching any boy who returned later after leave in the city, or in posting or receiving letters in an unorthodox way. He was known as the “Hawk”, but this name was given with the utmost respect for him, as the boys experienced him as a most charming man who went about his duties very quietly and thoroughly. They also liked his sermons.

His Novices appreciated his thirty days Retreat. He addressed them four times a day, sometimes speaking for an hour without the Novices losing interest. He spoke with considerable eloquence and feeling, slowly, pausing between sentences, and from time to time emphasising something dramatically. While Novice Master he hardly ever left the house. He lived for the Novices. His life was quietly and regularly ascetic. He went to bed around midnight at rose at 5.25am. He loved the garden, especially his dahlias.

His companionableness was memorable. The Novices enjoyed his company on their walks. He was unobtrusive and yet part of it, a most welcome presence. He was an unforgettable person, a wise and gentle director of souls. He taught a personal love of Jesus and was deeply loyal to the Society. he considered the rules for modesty to be among the great treasures of the Society, and gave the Novices true freedom of heart to make wise decisions.

He was a cheerful man, optimistic in outlook and easy to approach. People at once felt at home with him. He was experienced as a striking personality, a kind man with a sense of fun who spoke little about himself.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 15th Year No 3 1940
Obituary :
Father John Corcoran
1874 Born 24th, near Roscrea, Co. Tipperary Educated Clongowes
1891 Entered. Tullabeg 7th October
1892 Tullabeg, Novice
1893 Milltown, Junior
1894-1896 Jersey, Philosophy
1897-1900 Mungret, Doc
1901 Belvedere. Doc
1902 Petworth. Cur. Val
1903 Naples, Thel.
1904 Petworth, Cur. Val. Ordained 1904
1905 Norwood (Australia) Cur. Val
1906-1907 Riverview, Adj, proc, Doc. Stud. theol. mor.
1908-1912 Riverview, Minister, Adj. proc., etc.
1913 Tullabeg, Tertian
1914 Richmond (Australia), Oper
1915-1918 Riverview, Minister &c.; Doc. 17 an. mag
1919-1940 Mag. Nov. First at Loyola, Sydney; then at Victoria. For a time he was. in addition. Lect phil. in Univ., and for a great many years Cons. Miss. Sydney, as well as lending a hand in many other ways.

Fr Bernard O'Brien, one of Fr Corcoran's novices, kindly sent us the following :
Half the members of the Australian Vice-Province have done their noviceship under Fr Corcoran, and it seems strange to think that the noviceship is no longer under his kindly care.
His health was always weak, and his heart gave him trouble, he used to chuckle as he recalled how his ordination had been hastened for fear that he might die at any moment.
He could be extremely stern. He had no patience with deliberate wrong-doing, with irreverence or contempt of holy things. The novices sometimes' received electric shocks, as when after retreat points on sin that grew more and more heated he turned back from the door and burst out “There is no omnibus marked Jesuit for heaven”.
He kept himself, however, remarkably under control. Though at times the blood would rush to his face, he would say nothing at the moment, but sleep on the matter before acting, a practice he frequently recommended to his novices. Often nothing came of it at all, but the dead silence and the suspense of anticipation was a punishment severe enough to sober any culprit.
He became more and more kindly and sympathetic as time went on. “Gently Brother!” was a favourite remark of his.
He came to rely less and less on external regulations and reproofs, and to form his novices by personal contact and encouragement. In his first years he used to check all trace of slang, but later it became common to hear a novice who had received an order leave him with a cheery “Good-O Father!”
He gave and aroused great personal affection. The timid first probationer, whatever his age, was at once called by his Christian name and adopted among his “babies”. As the noviceship was usually small, he could give each novice individual attention. Even the candidates who left remained strongly attached to the Society.
Fr Corcoran was a man of strong emotion and imagination. He disliked giving the more abstract exercises of the long retreat, and was happiest when he came to the early life of Our Lord. He had made a thorough study of historical Palestine and one heard much about the Vale of Esdraelon and Little Hermon. Some of the other Fathers in the house were shocked to see coloured pictures of camels crossing the sandy desert appear at this time on the novices' notice board.
United with this imagination and emotion went a deep spiritual life. He may not have supplied very clear notions of Church and Society legislation, but he gave his novices strong draughts of the true Jesuit spirit : devotion to Our Lord, constant striving to give God greater glory and better service, love of the Passion and zeal for souls.
One Christmas he gave a remarkable series of points for meditation. He took as subjects the crib, the straw, the cave, the star and so on. The points began with homely remarks and simple reflections, but almost imperceptibly the objects described became symbols and we were on a high level of contemplation.
In his deep and gentle affection, his preference for the concrete and his high spirituality there was much to remind one of St. John, whose name he bore.

◆ The Clongownian, 1940

Obituary

Father John Corcoran SJ

Father Corcoran was born near Roscrea, in Tipperary, on the 24th of April, 1874. In October, 1891, soon after leaving Clongowes, he entered the Jesuit Novitiate at Tullabeg, where he had been preceded by his brother, Rev T Corcoran SJ, whose fame as an educationalist is world-wide. Ill-health. limited Father John's literary studies at Milltown Park to a single year, and from 1894 until 1897 he studied philosophy with the French Fathers at Jersey. The next five years were spent in teaching-four at Mungret, and one at Belvedere. His great understanding of boys, and his bright, genial sympathy made him a great favourite with all.

It was now time to study Theology (1902). His health had been seriously impaired by tuberculosis, which was to give rise to grave fears for a number of years, and Theology requires hard work and strength. But, to quote a phrase which Father Corcoran loved to repeat in later years, “difficulties are things to be overcome”, and at Petworth, in England, and at Naples, he overcame them sufficiently to be ordained priest in September, 1904.

The following year he was sent to Australia, and under its sunny skies he regained the health and strength required for his future work. After recuperating for a year at Norwood, he spent the years 1906-1913 on the staff of Riverview College.

In 1913 he returned to Tullabeg for his Tertianship; and twelve months later said a last good-bye to his native land, whose green fields and limpid streams lingered in his memory, and gave him “heartaches”, as he put it, even during his last years. After a year at Richmond, he once more became the Father Minister at Riverview, in 1915. In May, 1919, he was given the responsible position of Master of Novices at Loyola, Sydney, a position which he filled for the remaining twenty-one years of his life. Henceforth all his energies were to be devoted unsparingly to the religious formation of Jesuits. He used laughingly to speak of his novices as his “babes”, and he was in truth the spiritual father of the whole generation of post-war Jesuits in Australia.

His genial simplicity and kindness won the veneration and deep affection of all with whom he had to deal. He had the happy gift of making people feel at once at home with him; but perhaps his strong influence over others came mainly from his intense but child-like spirit of faith, which made him converse as familiarly with the Holy Family as with his novices, and which transformed the world for him into a temple of God. He was an enthusiastic gardener who loved weeding his flower beds, and tending his dahlias - but a gardener who could describe the garden as one of the best teachers of the spiritual life. It is often said that Christ's life was full of sorrow from the beginning; but, for Father Corcoran, “the rafters of the Holy House must often have rung with the sweet laughter of the Boy Christ” characteristic illustration of the joyful spontaneity of his own character and outlook.

He could be stern when occasion required; but those he trained treasure the memory of his remarkable gentleness - a trait which became more and more pronounced during the last years of his life. A prominent Jesuit remarked of him that he was an outstanding example of the transforming power of the Jesuit rule when it is lived and sincerely loved in all its fullness; and those who knew him during the latter part of his life were astonished at the constant mellowing of his sanctity. The Society of Jesus in Australia has suffered a great loss by his death, but he himself has surely passed to the happy state which he delighted to think of as “home”.

◆ Mungret Annual, 1939

Obituary

Father John Corcoran SJ

As we go to press a cablegram from Australia announces the death of Father Corcoran at the age of sixty six. Of these years forty-eight had been spent as a Jesuit. For the last twenty-two years he fulfilled the important office of Master of Novices and had given retreats to the clergy both in Australia and New Zealand. Father Corcoran's connection with Mungret was not very long - 1897-1901 - but the boys of these years never forgot the kindly scholastic who played with them and who prayed with them and who always found time to give them a word of encouragement in their trials. He was always ready to smooth out their difficulties and to lighten their load. He treasured to the end of his life, a kindly message from Florida that reached him through the “Annual” in 1907. It was as follows:

“If Father John Corcoran is still in this vale of tears, let him rest assured that the lads of 1900 loved him. In him we ever found a sincere sympathiser in our little troubles and I could not restrain my tears when I grasped his hand for the last time at Naples in 1902”.

Father Corcoran said that since the day of his ordination he never forgot these “boys” in his daily Mass. They are now priests and we ask them and indeed all Mungret priests, to pray for the repose of the kindly soul of Father John Corcoran. May he rest in peace,

Born: 17 January 1872, Honeymount, Roscrea, County Tipperary
Entered: 06 December 1890, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 01 August 1909, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 21 November 1938, St Ignatius, Leeson Street, Dublin
Died: 23 March 1943, St Vincent's Nursing Home, Dublin

part of the St Ignatius, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin community at the time of death

Older brother of John Corcoran - RIP 1940

Early education at Lisduff NS and Roscrea NS; St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg and Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1902 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Corcoran, Timothy
by Patrick Maume

Corcoran, Timothy (1872–1943), priest and educationist, was born 17 January 1872 at Honeymount, Dunkerrin, Co. Tipperary, eldest son of Thomas Corcoran, a large farmer, and Alice Corcoran (née Gleeson). His father was locally prominent in the Land League and GAA, and first chairman of Tipperary (North Riding) county council. Corcoran was educated at Lisduff and Roscrea national schools, Clongowes (whose history he later wrote), and the Jesuit novitiate at Tullabeg, which he entered in 1890. He taught classics and history at Clongowes 1894–1901, followed by studying philosophy and education at Milltown Park (first-class honours BA (RUI), 1903) and Louvain. His Belgian experience influenced his preference for European over British educational models, and his support (albeit limited) for recruitment in 1914. In 1909 he became first professor of education at UCD (1909–42). His teaching positions brought contact with the nationalist elite. Corcoran served on the Molony viceregal commission on intermediate education (1918–19) and advised the dáil commission on secondary education (1921–2) and national programme conferences on primary instruction (1920–21, 1925–6). He successfully advocated imposition of Irish-only teaching on primary schools whose pupils, like Corcoran, knew no Irish.

Corcoran saw education as inculcating received knowledge by memorisation and the authority of the teacher. He opposed ‘progressive’ teaching methods as pandering to corrupt and wilful human nature. He idealised medieval education, claiming it created a meritocratic elite, and denounced the reformation as an aristocratic takeover. Corcoran attacked John Henry Newman's (qv) views on university education, believing the disinterested pursuit of knowledge impossible, and holding that universities existed to transmit vocational skills. He generally rationalised existing educational practices, projected on to the medieval and Gaelic past.

Corcoran edited many classical and other texts for school use, serving as general editor of Browne & Nolan's intermediate textbook series. He published numerous text selections and educational pamphlets (some in Latin) in limited editions for UCD students. His major publications concerned the history of Irish education: Studies in the history of classical teaching, Irish and continental, 1500–1700 (Dublin, 1911); State policy in Irish education, A.D. 1536 to 1816. Exemplified in documents. . . with an introduction (Dublin, 1916); Education systems in Ireland form the close of the middle ages (Dublin, 1928); The Clongowes Record, 1814 to 1932. With introductory chapters on Irish Jesuit educators 1564 to 1813 (Dublin, [1932]); Some lists of catholic lay teachers and their illegal schools in the later penal times, with historical commentary (Dublin, 1932). He argued that eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century hedge-schools were slandered by British officialdom and superior to the national schools that replaced them, a thesis developed and modified by his pupil P. J. Dowling. Corcoran was a founding member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission. He wrote extensively for Studies (which he helped to found) and the Irish Monthly on educational and historical subjects. He has been accused of misrepresentation of evidence, and of supplying students with ‘cribs’ in examinations.

Despite early praise for the exploits of Clongownians in the British army, Corcoran soon moved to supporting Sinn Féin, and took a leading role in attempting to organise a ‘National Academy of Ireland’ in protest at the expulsion of Eoin MacNeill (qv) from the Royal Irish Academy after the 1916 rising. Corcoran opposed the treaty, and became one of the most extreme nationalist spokesmen of the 1920s through his contributions to the monthly Catholic Bulletin from the early 1920s until its cessation in 1939. The Catholic Bulletin (founded 1911) was noted for outspoken republicanism and long-winded and scurrilous abuse of opponents; it supported Fianna Fáil from 1926. It denounced the Cumann na nGaedheal government as culturally and economically subservient to protestant and West British interests. Corcoran wrote for the Bulletin under numerous pseudonyms (notably ‘Inis Cealtra’, ‘Conor Malone’ ‘J. A. Moran’, ‘Art Ua Meacair’, ‘Momoniensis’, ‘Dermot Curtin’, ‘Donal MacEgan’, and ‘Molua’), partly to avoid being held accountable by religious superiors. He used the Bulletin to carry on vendettas against academic opponents such as the UCD economics professor and advocate of free trade, George O'Brien (qv) (‘the Hamlet of Earlsfort Terrace. . . economist in chief to Green Grazierdom’). The weekly Irish Statesman edited by A E (qv) and sponsored by Horace Plunkett (qv) was particularly targeted for its criticism of literary censorship and compulsory Irish, its support of free trade, and its defence of the view that the Anglo-Irish tradition was a distinctive and legitimate element of Irish civilisation. Corcoran declared in numerous articles on ‘squalid ascendancy history’ that the mere existence of an Anglo-Irish protestant tradition implied a continued claim to ascendancy; only assimilation to catholic and Gaelic Irishness was acceptable. Protestants should be excluded from public positions that might endanger the faith of catholics. Protestant nationalists were wolves in sheep's clothing, catholic clerics of West British tendencies were enemies of faith and fatherland, and English catholics were hardly catholic at all (notably for their failure to establish an independent catholic university; Corcoran believed catholics should be forbidden to attend Oxford and Cambridge). Corcoran's views and language represent the extreme development of catholic and nationalist positions in nineteenth-century religious and political conflicts over land, education, and nationality.

From 1938 Corcoran developed arteriosclerosis and suffered from partial paralysis. He died from cardiac failure at St Vincent's Nursing Home, Dublin, on 23 March 1943.

Catholic Bulletin; D. H. Akenson, review of P. J. Dowling, The hedge schools of Ireland (paperback ed., 1968), IHS, xvi, no. 62 (Sept. 1968), 226–9; E. Brian Titley, Church, state, and the control of schooling in Ireland 1900–1944 (1983); Séamus Ó Riain, Dunkerrin: a parish in Ely O'Carroll (1988); Brian P. Murphy, ‘The canon of Irish cultural history; some questions’, Studies, lxxvii, no. 305 (spring 1988), 68–83; John Joseph O'Meara, The singing-masters (1990)

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 1st Year No 1 1925

Fr. Lambert McKenna is Chairman of a committee appointed by the Ministry of Education for the purpose of reporting on the National Programme of Primary Education. During the meetings of the Committee, very valuable evidence was given by Father T. Corcoran

Irish Province News 2nd Year No 3 1927

University Hall :
Fr Corcoran has added another to his remarkable series of works concerned with the history of education. In the preceding volume (Renovatio Litteraruml he gave, in their own admirable Latin, the educational theories of the sixteenth-century humanists. In this volume (Litters Renatael he describes, again in the language of the original documents, the realisation of these theories in the Ratio Studiorum of the Society. The work is invaluable for all the students of the history and practice of education.

Irish Province News 6th Year No 1 1931
Brussels Congress :
Fr. Rector (John Coyne) and Fr. J. O'Meara (Louvain) represented the College at the First International Congress of Catholic Secondary Education, held at Brussels July 28 . August 2. Fr, O'Meara read a paper on State Aid in Irish Secondary Education. Our Irish Jesuit Colleges were well represented in the Exhibition organised by Fr. Corcoran S. J.

Irish Province News 8th Year No 4 1933

Father T. Corcoran's labours in connection with the examinations for the Higher Diploma had scarcely concluded when he had to betake himself to Holland to preside at the second International Congress of Catholic Secondary Education. The meetings of the Congress took place at the Hague each day from 31st .July to 5th August.
Their Excellencies, the Bishops of Holland, were patrons of the Congress, which was attended by some 350 delegates representing the leading Catholic countries. Among the delegates were about 45 members of the Society from lands outside Holland. Prominent among the visitors were the Provincial of the Paris Province, with various Rectors and Prefects of Studies from our French Colleges. Père Yoes de la Brière, the Rectors of Brussels, Namur, Liege and other Belgian Colleges, Fathers Errandonea, Herrera and others from Spain, the French Oratorian Sabatier and various distinguished lay-men from Germany and Italy.
Cardinal Pacelli, in the name of the Holy Father, sent a long and cordial telegram of good wishes to the Congress , also the Nuncio Apostolic in Holland, who was prevented by serious illness from attending in person.
In the absence of the Nuncio the final allocution was delivered by the Bishop of Haarlem, after the Rector Magnificus of the University of Nijmegen and Father Corcoran, as President of the Congress had already spoken. Mr. J. O'Meara from Louvain Messrs. B. Lawler and C. Lonergan from Valkenburg acted as assistants to Father Corcoran at the Hague.
A splendid paper on “The Present Condition of Secondary Education in Ireland” was read by Dr. John McQuaid, the President of Blackrock College. All accounts agree in stating that the Congress was a brilliant success.
As the proceedings at the Hague coincided with the Biennial Conference of the World Federation of Education Associations, Father Corcoran was unable to be present at the functions in Dublin, but an important paper from his pen was read by Mrs McCarville, Lecturer in English in University College, Dublin. This paper expounded the Catholic philosophy of Education.

Irish Province News 10th Year No 1 1935

Works by Father Timothy Corcoran SJ

1. Studies in the History of Classical Education, Irish and Continental AS 1500-1700
2. Renovatio Litterarum - Academic Writers of the Renaissance, AD 1450-1600, A.D. 14,50-I6ro, with Documentary Exercises, illustrative of the views of Italian and French Humanists.
3. Renate Litterae - Latin Texts and Documentary Exercises exhibiting the Evolution of the Ratio Studiomm as regards Humanistic Education, A.D, 1540-1600
4. Plato : De Juvenyute Instituenda - Greek Texts, from Dialogues other than The Republic, with Introduction and Documented Exercises
5. Quintilianus Restitutiae Ltinis Preceptor - Latin Texts with Introduction and Exercises on Quintilan's influence on Renaissance Education
6. Newman's Theory of Liberal Education -The three Discourses on Liberal Knowledge, as in the text of the First Edition Dublin, 1852 , with Preface, Historical and Philosophical Introduction, and Documentary Exercises
7. Education Systems in Ireland A.D. 1500-1832 - Selected Texts. with Introduction
8. O’Connell and Catholic Education - Papers for the Centenary Year of Emancipation. With a Portrait hitherto unpublished (out of print)
9. Catholic Lay Teachers. Regional Lists, A.D. 1711-1824 - with Historical Commentary, Illustrations, and Three Maps
10. The Clongowes Record, A.D. 1814 to 1932 - With Introductory Chapters on Irish Jesuit Educators A.D. 1564-1813 with 40 pages of Illustrations outside the Text
11. Narrative Text, with Supplemental Documents for Professional Students of Education, issued separately.

Irish Province News 18th Year No 1 1943

Presentation to Fr. Corcoran :
The Chancellor of the National University, Mr. de Valera, the Minister of Education, Mr. Derris, and the Ceann Comhairle, Mr. Fahy, were among the large attendance at a ceremony at 86 St. Stephen's Green, on Saturday, 12th December, when Fr. Corcoran was presented with a portrait of himself by Sean Keating. R.H.A., on the occasion of his retirement from the Chair of Education at U.C.D., which he has held since 1909.
Senator Michael Hayes, making the presentation, said it had been his privilege to be a student, a colleague, and close friend of Fr. Corcoran, a friend who, like many another, owed much to his counsel and encouragement. He was being honoured that day as a professor, a guide, and an example to research students, a scholar and a clear sighted lover of Ireland. He had always been. careful, methodical, meticulous, accurate over a wide range of learning, punctual to an unusual degree, and redoubtable in argument. No professor could have been kinder, more considerate and more helpful to his students. The portrait by Sean Keating was a fitting tribute. The artist had caught the spirit of his sitter and had given a work worthy of his subject. On behalf of Fr. Corcoran he returned the most sincere thanks to his many old students, who had contributed to the Presentation.

Irish Province News 18th Year No 3 1943
Obituary :
Father Timothy Corcoran SJ (1872-1943)
Father Corcoran died at St. Vincent's Nursing Home, Dublin, on March 23rd, 1943. He had been ill for about a month and during the past year his general strength had been failing rapidly. He had resigned his post as Professor of Education in U.C.D. in September, 1942.
Father Corcoran was born at Honeymount, Roscrea, on 17th January, 1872. He went as a boy to Tullabeg in 1885 for the last year of the old school's separate existence, and was transferred to Clongowes in the following year. During the next four years he won high distinction as a prize-winner and medallist under the Intermediate System laying a wide foundation for his future studies in Classics, History and English Literature. He entered the novitiate at Tullabeg on 6th December, 1890. Within a few months his younger brother John (the future Master of Novices tor the Australian Mission and Vice-Province) followed him to Tullabeg. They were together in Tullabeg until 1894.
From his Juniorate Mr. Corcoran went direct to Clongowes, where he taught for seven consecutive years (1894-1901). These were the years when Clongowes was leading the country in the Intermediate prize-lists. under the stimulating direction of Father James Daly, and Mr. Corcoran was one of a small group of “the experts” whose abilities as teachers were mainly responsible for these successes Many Fathers of the Irish Province have vivid recollections of his classes in the old Junior. Middle and Senior Grades. When he died. Father Corcoran left behind him among his private papers a small note-book in which he had noted the name and class of every boy he had taught, with a note as to their later careers. The letters “S.J.” are common after many of these names. Others went to Medicine, the Bar or one or other of the professions at home or abroad. The notebook. was thus a miniature record of the careers of a very representative group of the alumni of Clongowes in the last years of the past century. Those who remembered Mr. Corcoran’s classes in his last two years (he returned to Clongowes from Louvain in 1904, and taught for two more years before his Theology at Milltown Park) will remember a tradition that he never “sent a boy up”, and indeed the legend round his name in those later years was sufficient to guarantee due awe and respect. But Father Corcoran, in later and more reminiscent years, would recall earlier days when he had won his control over difficult classes by the simple method of prescribing “twelve” at regular intervals to boys whose habitual record was always a justification for drastic action.
From 1904 Father Corcoran studied Philosophy at Louvain, taking his B.A. degree at the same time under the old Royal University. He was never a metaphysician, and Belgian Jesuits of later years. who had been his very much younger contemporaries at this time, remembered a solitary and imposing figure, who walked in stately majesty round the small garden reserved for the Philosophers, and seemed to take little interest in life's petty round. But Louvain has seldom had a more loyal past student than Father Corcoran. On more than one occasion he contrived to secure his own nomination as the National University's representative at the public functions which have marked the various stages of Louvain's recent history, and he collected an unusually fine series of old and modern works on the University’s history. A student of Louvain who came to Ireland could always count on Father Corcoran's s support for any scheme which involved full recognition of his studies abroad. Indeed he used to boast he had persuaded the National University to give Louvain a recognition which was denied to Oxford and Cambridge.
After his nine years at Clongowes, Father Corcoran went to Milltown Park for three years, in the old “short course” of pre-Codex days. Even during his course at Milltown he was marked out as the probable holder of a chair in the new University.
Father Corcoran had applied for the post of Professor of the Theory and Practice of Education (then a relatively new subject in the more modern Universities), and he was appointed as the first Professor of this subject during the winter of 1908-9. He had taken his B.A.. with first place and first-class Hons. in History in 1903, and his Higher Diploma in Education in 1906, with a special gold medal. He was also University medallist in Latin verse and English verse. Apart from his long years of experience in the Honours classes at Clongowes and his exceptional gift of methodical teaching Father Corcoran had a quite unusual gift for map-making in illustration of his class-work. When he was being considered as a candidate for the Chair of Education he organised an exhibit of these maps, and tales are still told of the assistance given him by his friends at Milltown Park in that first venture.
There is no space here to record the many achievements which have made Father Corcoran's long tenure of this post (1909-42) one of the memorable phases in the life of University College, Dublin. It seems hard to believe that the difficulty at first was to get any student at all. Ever willing to oblige fellow-Jesuit Farther Darlington - who had himself retired from the University in 1909 - wrote round to suggest a course in Education to past students of the College. A small group was got together, and Mr. Eamonn De Valera’s name is claimed as his first student. Professor W. J . Williams, who was later to succeed him in the chair, was another of the same group. When Father Corcoran retired in 1942 the annual classes were seldom less than a hundred and were often very much more numerous. Public tributes have been paid by many of his past students not only to Father Corcoran’s gifts as a teacher and organiser, but also to his unfailing willingness to help any student whose need of help was brought to his notice. For more than thirty years Father Corcoran made a special study of the history of Catholic education, with special reference to Ireland and to the tradition of the Jesuit schools. His “Studies in the History of Classical Education” (1911) won him the degree of D.Litt. - it is a study of the Irish Jesuit Father William Bathe's “Janus Linguarum”. The publication of his “State Policy in Irish Education” (1916) established Father Corcoran’s reputation for pioneer work in a new field of Irish historical study. The book is now very rare, for the whole stock was burnt in Easter Week, but Father Corcoran used most of the materials in this book as a basis for his lectures on Irish educational history and he could justly claim that he had stimulated more than one good student to produce work on similar lines under his direction. The Clongowes Record appeared in 1932, and was in large part a study of the old Jesuit Ratio Studiorum as applied in pre-Intermediate days at Clongowes. Soon afterwards one of Father Corcoran's ablest students Father Allan P. Farrell, published an important work on the history of the early Ratio Studiorum (The Jesuit Code of Liberal Education) which he had originally prepared as a thesis for the Ph.D. degree under Father Corcoran’s personal direction at University College, Dublin. Father Farrell’s book is generally counted the ablest work that has yet appeared on this important phase of early Jesuit history. For many years Father Corcoran also issued, for private use in his own class-room, a series of important volumes on various aspects of educational theory and history which have had a very great influence on educational thought and policy in this country. “Renovatio Litterarum” (1925) and “Renatae Litterae” (1926) dealt with the main aspects of Renaissance thought and the origins of Christian humanism in education. His volume on “Education Systems in Ireland” (1928) repeated a good deal of what was in the earlier volume, now inaccessible on “State Policy in Irish Education”. A volume on “Newman’s Theory of Liberal Education” (1929) is a highly controversial account of the ideas set forth by Newman when he was asked by the Irish Bishops to organise Catholic University in this country. There were also volumes on Plato, Quintilian, the Irish School-teachers in Penal Days etc. In 1938 Rev. Fr. General promoted him to solemn profession of four Vows in recognition of his “Eximium Scribendi talentum”.
Father Corcoran's work on behalf of Catholic education was revised abroad as well as at home. At home he was an influential and very active member of all the various Educational Commissions which have marked out the new tendencies of educational policy in this country since 1909. He attended Catholic Educational Congresses at Brussels and Amsterdam in the years before the war, and was elected President of the Amsterdam Congress. Our late Father General was anxious to have the benefit of his advice and experience when he was working on a scheme for the reorganisation of studies in the Juniorates of the whole Society, and arrangements had been made to enable Father Corcoran to spend some months in Rome during the academic year 1938-9. But the imminent danger of war caused a postponement of this scheme, and Father Corcoran never saw Rome. His own health was beginning to fail about this time, and it became more and more evident that the strain of continuing his work for the large classes in U.C.D. was beyond his powers. But Father Corcoran was not easily induced to surrender to any sign of physical weakness, and the illness of his colleague, Mr. W. J. Williams, threw extra work upon him at a time when he himself was obviously in need of assistance. The last two or three years of his active work were thus a painful struggle against a breakdown that all who saw him knew could not long be delayed. A paralytic stroke, shortly before Christmas 1941 ended his teaching days, but he did not formally resign his position as Professor until the following September.
Meanwhile a committee had been formed among his past-students to present him with a portrait-sketch by Mr. Sean Keating, as a token of their high regard for his long years of service. The presentation of this portrait was almost the last public function which he attended in the University, though he continued to the end to take an active interest in all its doings. He was particularly proud of the success of the new Graduates Club in 85 and 86 Stephen's Green, towards which he himself had contributed much useful work as a member of the Senate and Finance Committee of the University. His death was the occasion of many touching tributes from past students, men and women, who recalled his stimulating influence as a teacher and his personal interest on their behalf through so many years. A characteristic sign of Father Corcoran's personal kindness towards those who helped him in his work is the fact that the Hall-porters in the College felt his death as the loss of a personal friend. He had never failed to thank them in person for anything they had done, and his almost miraculous punctuality had made their task easier in a world where punctuality is not always guaranteed! R.l.P.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Timothy Corcoran SJ 1872-1943
Fr Timothy Corcoran will always be remembered, both inside and outside the Society as the great authority in educational matters. He was Professor of Education and University College from 1909-1942. His published works include “Studies in the History of Classical Education” and “State Policy in Irish Education”.

Born in Roscrea on January 7th 1872, he was educated at Tullabeg and Clongowes. Brilliant as a boy in Classics, History and English Literature, he pursued and taught the same subjects as a Jesuit with equally brilliant success. It could be impossible to give an adequate account of the extent of Fr Corcoran’s influence on University life and on his contemporaries and on current affairs. He was intensely interested in all things Irish, especially our Irish games, and was proud to be the promoter of such in College.

His manner by some was considered brusque, and he certainly did not suffer fools gladly, yet he was capable of arousing almost fanatical admiration in his pupils. “If I had my way, there would be a public statue of Fr Corcoran in University College”, said one of his illustrious pupils, many of whom became the leaders of the Nation.

In 1938, by solemn decree of His Paternity Fr Ledóchowski, he was promoted to the solemn profession of four vows, in recognition of his “eximus talentaum scribendi”.

He died at St Vincent’s Nursing Home on March 23rd 1943

◆ The Clongownian, 1943

Obituary

Father Timothy Corcoran SJ

Two years ago, 1941, on the occasion of the celebration of his Golden Jubilee in the Society of Jesus, an appreciation of the late Fr Corcoran appeared in the pages of “The Clongownian”, together with a list of his published works. To this we refer those of our readers who may wish to know him in his later, more public and more important sphere of activity. Here we merely give the impressions and recollections of one who was a member of the first Senior Grade Class taught by Fr Corcoran in Clongowes, and who has known himn intimately ever since. But we preface it by a tribute from a distinguished Professor of Education, who was for several years associated with Fr Corcoran as extern examiner in Pedagogics.

Dear Fr Barrett,

Would you be good enough to express to the members of your Society my sorrow at the death of Professor Corcoran and to extend to then my sympathy in the loss the Society of Jesus in particular, and the cause of Education in general, has thereby sustained? I considered it a great privilege to be associated with him in examining the Clongowes Wood candidates for their Certificate.

Yours sincerely,

Robert R Rusk, MA, Professor of Education,
Glasgow.

My acquaintance with the late Fr Corcoran began in 1895, when, after a year or so teaching some elementary class while studying for his own BA degree, he postponed academic honours to begin a full time dedication to what was to be a very remarkable pedagogic, career, He became Master of Rhetoric; and took over from Fr John Keane, then Mr Keane, a Poetry or Middle Grade which had annexed six out of the thirty-six exhibitions awarded to that Grade. There was already in Senior Grade one pupil, Matt Kennedy, and perhaps another, who had been kept back a year in. the hopes of brighter laurels.

Further, John Houlihan had come in from Fermoy where he had already shone in previous tests. So that, all things considered, a great teacher had worthy material to work upon. The class was also strengthened (and dignified) by the presence of two youths, even then distinguished and destined to far higher distinctions in later life - Pierce Kent and Joe Cahill - who were reading for Honours Matriculation and sat in splendid isolation at the back of the room.

Everyone who knew Mr Corcoran, as he then was, or the later Dr Corcoran, will easily understand that he would lay himself out to train his team to the last ounce and would reckon with confidence on proportionate results. Later I was to learn that he made no secret of his high expectations, predicting almost in detail what prizes his various pupils were to win. It was an unfortunate instance of counting the chickens before the shells broke. The great class “flopped” rather badly and had to be content with one exhibition near the tail of the list, some book prizes and retained exhibitions.

I have never been able to explain how the anticlimax came about. True, two of the best of the possible “starters”, Tom Kettle and Peter Byrne, were “scratched” and reserved for the 1897 Derby, in which they led the field and carried off the Blue Riband, as it was then called that is, first place in Senior Grade and the gold medals in English and Classics, with some composition prizes. But the rest, including such outstanding talents as Arthur Clery, failed to run true to form. And thus one of the greatest of all teachers in the history of Irish secondary education began with what looked like a rebuff from fate. Yet, if so, the fault did not lie with him, and the fiasco was to be amply atoned for by the exceptional success which crowned Fr Corcoran's occupation of “the Chair” of Rhetoric-nine years in all.

The fault was not his ; nor, as far as I can recall, was it ours. We not only studied hard but we really “knew our lines”, and why we did not do more credit to our master I have never been able to discover. Years later I was able, in a chance rencontre with the Results List of 1896, to see that, if the later and much better arrangement of Groups had then been in vogue, the Clongowes “string” would have justified the stable and trainer by a quite brilliant performance. Sed disaliter visum. I was later, as successor to Fr Corcoran, to learn that, while examination results followed anticipations very closely as a rule, the most paradoxical and scarcely intelligible surprises would be caused by the Results Book, underlining the warning of “The Biglow Papers”: “Don't never prophesy unless you know”.

Mr Corcoran was also very popular with his class, though personally I felt slightly more regard for Mr Keane and Mr William Byrne, who, though differing much from him and from one another in their methods, inspired a great respect into all reasonably disposed pupils. In later life Fr Corcoran was liable to alternations of mood that led to much misunderstanding. Unless you knew him well and made allowance for this fact, you ran risk of being seriously offended by a manner that at times appeared charged with studied rudeness. He was my friend from our first encounter till his lamented death. His advice, his help, his sympathy, his immense industry, were at my service (as at that of many more) whenever I cared to call upon them. And when the genial mood was upon him, he would drag me off, if needs were, to his room, set me down in an arm-chair and retail with boyish zest, yet complete lack of malice, all the gossip of the University or the Village (meaning Dublin). On other, much rarer, occasions, he would greet me with a Judge Jeffrey's voice and the scowl of a Cataline (immortalised by Cicero), as if I were a negro bell-boy breaking in upon the busy hours of the President of Harvard. At first I was hurt. But I soon learned how to deal with the situation. I would just say : “Please reserve your ogre's mask for your Higher Dip class-room, to overawe the giddy graduettes into silence. I see behind it”. Then the mask would drop, like an April cloud passing from the face of the sun and it was odds that I would be kept till I was late for my next: appointment.

It would be idle to pretend that this trait in his character was not a defect without serious consequences. Not everybody saw behind the mask, and many never had the opportunity of correcting the impression made by even one exhibition of what seemed arrogance and bad forin. I have heard him described as “a bear with a toothache”,; and felt at once that the indictment was intelligible, yet radically and terribly unjust. Fr Corcoran was temperamental. He was also a man of strong prejudices and decided views, always based upon solid learning and ripe reflection. But so far from being arrogant, I think his brusquerie was the obverse of his shyness, a sort of protective pigmentation of the soul within.

But all this has relation only to later life. In those distant and nostalgic days when first I knew him, I cannot recall a single instance of sternness even, not to speak of harshness. Fr John Byrne SJ, who was also a member of the class, has vivid recollection of one - only one - occasion when he barked out : “ Keep silence, Kent; you're always talking”. This may, of course, be true, but I cannot recall it; nor can the victim of it, Pierce himself.

The fact, of course, was that Mr Corcoran exercised an easy, natural and inevitable ascendancy over his pupils. Corridor gossip invested him with a halo for scholarly attainment. Had he not won a gold medal, no less for both Latin and English Verse from the University? True, he looked the least poetic of men; but against the testimony of two gold medals, what did that matter? Shakespeare never acquired even one! (Gracious! but it is good to be young and simple of heart. O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint!)

Hence the question of asserting his authority never arose, and he regarded corporal punish ment as a confession of failure on the teacher's part, at least in general. But there was much more than this negative side to things. Mr Corcoran was a born teacher. He had the authentic vocation and was wholly devoted to his task. He was interesting because he was interested, not merely in Intermediate results, which he had too much good sense. to despise, but which he felt might be left to take care of themselves if the teaching was well done, And even under the handicap of a system which put a positive premium on cramming, his principles were justified by the pragmatic argument of success. Only in one respect did he seem slightly wanting. As professor of Latin, Greek, English, History and Geography, he had three-quarters of the whole cultural training of the curriculum to impart. And in the conveying of knowledge he was as nearly perfect as one can hope for in a defective world. But out of a certain shrinking from self-revelation, as I conjecture, he refrained from pointing out the literary beauty of the classics, and even smiled semi-approvingly upon the “Nil admirari” attitude which the school-boy loves. In encouraging us to think for ourselves, as he certainly did, he showed indulgence when we thought foolishly and very immaturely. He left us to grow up. Perhaps, also, he was himself slightly lacking, despite the two gold medals, in æsthetic feeling and enthusiasm for the merely artistic as such. His great motto was the “Rem tene, verba sequentur” of grim old Cato. His own style was always clear, vigorous and impeccably correct. But all the charms of all the muses hardly flowered in a lonely word. And, indeed, he would have blushed at the idea of turning florist at all. He would, on occasions, read for us an exceptionally good leading article from some of the greater newspapers, and point out how, with an economy of language, it combined lucidity, directness, persuasive force. All the rest in his eyes was little more than trimmings about which serious people scarcely bothered.

It is evident at once that in all this there was much wisdom and good sense; and that in seeking to discipline our Celtic exuberance in language he was essentially right. Yet it is also clear that great literature and great art, like great music, contain a certain intangible element which makes an emotional appeal, and which may all the less be ignored because it is the very index of inspiration. Mr Keane, though he laboured to drive the texts into our heads as assiduously as Mr Corcoran, or more so, did not neglect at times to touch upon literary merits. His immediate reward was, of course, derision, Yet our scepticism was less sure of itself, and, even while we scoffed, we feared that the De Falsa Legatione might be a fine speech after all, and the Medea have a meaning: It is a pity, and a handicap, that schoolboys find themselves forced to read, in a strange tongue, of “old, unhappy, far-off. things and battles long ago”, without any interest in the events or sympathy with the characters, I or any consciousness that the Odyssey, for example, is a more thrilling boy's tale than Robinson Crusoe, and the Iliad a finer historical romance than Ivenhoe, not to speak of Henty or “Deadwood Dick”. If they could be persuaded to take the fact on faith at first, they might be encouraged in their struggle with the linguistic difficulties. And it is the duty of a teacher to instil, as far as he can, a love as well as a knowledge of the old masterpieces that have proved their universality of appeal. by outliving-all the passing fads and fashions of centuries.

Mr Corcoran remained master of Rhetoric for eight years after I left. Then he passed, on to very much higher pursuits and more: important activities. But I never “sat at his feet” again. Instead, I was called upon, in 1907, to try to fill his shoes, or, perhaps one might say, seven-league boots, in Senior Grade (not immediately, for one or two others had intervened), and inherited his array of beautiful maps and the high standard he had set. I felt like David donning Saul's armour ; and sought all the hints I could get as to how to use the panoply. Everything he knew or had was at my disposition. No man of his generation was so prodigal of time and labour in assisting others. He worked, of coursey with the ease and speed of a perfect machine well-oiled. For all that, it was a source of perpetual astonishment that he could meet a simple request with reams of beautifully written sheets or polygraphs containing every thing you could wish to know.

Outside class, Mr Corcoran mingled little with the boys. In our games he took no interest at all; but, as President of the Higher Line Debate, he was brought into some contact with a circle wider than his own class. And he was always easy of approach to those who wished to consult him, for though never familiar, or piously avuncular, he was singularly affable, friendly and considerate. He never nagged or scolded, and was ideally patient even with poor achievement, if he felt it was not the result of laziness or indifference. The whole year passed without an unpleasant incident of any kind, and the work was well done in spite of the paradoxical outcome in the public examinations.

Just prior to these, and during them, he unbent considerably, and did a lot of informal coaching, which he could make very pleasant. Gathering us surreptitiously under the hideous bust of Demosthenes, which then stood symbolically 'in the classroom, he would produce from one of the presses, a large box of strawberries-purloined, we used to suspect, from the garden-and he would try to give Matthew Arnold's “sweetness and light” motto a very literal application. All things considered, he was already in those early days a model schoolmaster.

If this were meant to be a critical appreciation of his whole career, I would not be the person to undertake it, nor “The Clongownian” the medium for its presentation, It would raise larger issues which would call for elaborate examination. No man of his generation has exercised more influence upon the whole educational policy of the Saorstat or Eire. No single professor in the National University has stamped his personality more upon it. The chair he held made that inevitable. But his indefatigable industry, his profound knowledge of his subject, his decided views and tenacity in the propagation of them, in a word, his all-round competence, made him certainly one of the moulders of the young university, and through it the chief shaper of the teaching body that in both primary and secondary schools is now responsible for the education of the country.

This makes it inevitable that much will be heard about his policy in the days to come ; but the final judgment must wait till time lifts many à curtain not yet within reach of the scene-shifter. I have merely endeavoured. to give a thumb-nail sketch of him in his first year as a teacher, and will only add that I think he never altered in one thing: he remained constant to the Scholastic principle : “Prima et maxime sancta professoris lex discipulorum utilitas esto”. As a consequence he enjoyed their confidence more than any other of his colleagues, as his perpetual re-election by Convocation proved. This confidence he always merited and finally repaid, full measure pressed down and running over, in the magical transformation of 86 St. Stephen's Green. There his spirit can say: “Non omnis moriar”, or, “Monumentum si quaeris, circumspice”. I know Latin tags are anathema to the stylists of to-day. But they slip irresistibly from the pen when I think of him who first gave them a meaning for me, and who stood stoutly to the end for the Classics in a world losing humanity because it has thrown the Humanities out of doors, with other even more precious things.

P J Gannon SJ

Born: 26 September 1820, Roscrea, County Tipperary
Entered: 26 July 1849, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Ordained: 1856
Final vows: 25 March 1865
Died: 11 January 1873, St Louis College, St Louis, MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 02 April 1897, Mall House, The Mall, Roscrea, County Tipperary
Entered: 31 August 1914, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1928, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1932, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 22 December 1980, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Parents now live at The Terrace, Borrisokane, County Tipperary. Father is a doctor in Bossirokane.

Eldest of four brothers and three sisters.

Early education at the Convent of Mercy Borrisokane and then Cloughjordan National School. In 1910 he went to Mungret College SJ (1910-1914)

by 1923 in Australia - Regency at Riverview, Sydney, Xavier College, Kew and Studley Hall, Kew

by 1923 in Australia - Regency at Riverview, Sydney, Xavier College, Kew and Studley Hall, Kew

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Mark Quigley entered the Society in 1914 at Tullamore, and in 1921 arrived at Riverview for regency, teaching and assisting the prefect of discipline. In late 1923 he moved to Xavier College where he was hall prefect, and as he had a brilliant singing voice, he looked after the choir. After a year he was sent to Burke Hall again teaching as well as assistant prefect of discipline. During his priestly life he worked mainly at Gardiner Street, engaged in pastoral ministry.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 56th Year No 1 1981

Gardiner Street
A week after Dermot Durnin’s death, we are still stunned by the fact. He and his quick wit will be missed very much, not only by his brethren here but also, grievously, by his “ladies” in St Monica’s. He had built up such a cheery relationship with every one of them and used to give them so much of his time that the news was really shattering and has left them still bewildered. At least they must have been comforted by the send-off we gave him: 65 priests concelebrated the Mass in a crowded church. One of the congregation remarked that the ceremony was “heavenly”. (One of the community was overheard wondering aloud if Dermot was digging his friend Pearse O’Higgins in the ribs and begging him to “tell that one again”.) His totally Christian attitude towards death, an attitude of joyful anticipation, prevents us from grudging him his reward, though this doesn't diminish our sense of loss.

On 22nd December, Fr Mark Quigley slipped away from us to make his way to Heaven: requiescat in pace! It was typical of him that his departure was so quiet and peaceful as to be almost unnoticed. When he did not get up that morning, it was found that he was only half-conscious and had the appearance of approaching death. The doctor confirmed that he had only a few hours to live. Many of the community visited him during the morning and prayed with him and for him. Though he could not speak clearly, when asked if he would like the prayers for the dying to be said, by nodding his head he acknowledged his awareness of imminent death. Just about half an hour before he died, he succeeded in pulling his crucifix up to his lips and kissing it. Three of us were with him when he breathed his last gentle breath, without the slightest sound or struggle.
Go ndéanaí Dia trócaire ar a anam mín mánla.

Irish Province News 56th Year No 2 1981

Obituary

Fr Mark Quigley (1897-1914-1980)

Fr Mark Quigley died at St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, Dublin, on 22nd December 1980, in his 84th year, His death was neither sudden nor unexpected. For over a week before he took to his bed he was feeling sick, very confused in mind, and looking poorly, He was well prepared for death. The Superior, Fr Dan Dargan, along with some of the community was reciting the Prayers for the Dying, and Fr Mark had kissed his vow-crucifix when he quietly yielded up his soul to his Saviour, whom he had served for 66 years in the Society of Jesus.
Fr Mark was a Tipperaryman and was always ready to make friends with people of Tipperary extraction. He was born in Roscrea (11th April 1897) but spent most of his childhood in Cloughjordan and Borrisokane. He was educated at Mungret College and entered the novitiate at Tullabeg on 31st August 1914, one of a group of twelve novices who came to be known as the Twelve Apostles. Along with him from Mungret College came Joseph McCullough, Fred Paye and Charles Devine. World War I was only a month old, and his vow-day (1st September 1916) came in an exciting year, an era of resurgence, when the Twelve made their commitment to the King of kings.
After the noviceship there followed a year of Home Juniorate as was then the custom, a year which Fr Bodkin used to describe as one of much high thinking and plain living. The season, Christmas 1916 to Easter 1917, was bitterly cold. The Grand Canal was frozen over for a long period and deep snow covered ground for several months. The only available fuel was turf, and rather damp turf at that. The 1914-18 war entailed sacrifices; hence the regime was spartan. On a visit to Tullabeg Fr T V Nolan, then Provincial, arranged that the novices and Juniors - “big growing men” - should as far as possible be exempt from the food restrictions published in the newspapers. On the intellectual side of life the Juniors were fortunate in having the splendid services of Mr Harry Johnston, SJ, who taught Greek, Latin and English.
After his Home Juniorate Mark moved to Rathfarnham Castle to do First Arts. In 1918 came a threat of conscription being extended to Ireland, so to make sure that as clerics they would be exempt from military service, all who had taken their vows received minor Orders. After his year in Rathfarnham, Mark spent three years at philosophy. A section of the buildings at Milltown Park was assigned as the philosophate, and with the Irish philosophers recalled from abroad, his community numbered 22 philosophers and 21 theologians. In 1921 (the Anglo-Irish truce just having been agreed) the Status brought something of a surprise, if not consternation, for Mark when he found himself among the scholastics assigned to sail for the Australian missions. The five-week sea journey was particularly trying for Mark, He was so reserved and retiring nature that he kept very much to himself or at least to the company of the Jesuits aboard the ship. Although he was a good athlete and had a splendid tenor voice, he refrained from mixing with the hundreds of passengers in their social entertainments. At the first port in Australia, a letter which had been sent by the Superior of the Mission, Fr W. Lockington, allotted the scholastics of the group to various colleges. Mark was to go to Riverview College, Sydney, as teacher, with charge of the junior cadets. This was a new trial for him. The Australian boys were difficult to control, and he discovered that - “take one consideration with another - a prefect’s lot is not a happy one!”
In 1923 Mark was moved to Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne - one of the public schools. He was appointed teacher and hall prefect. Into this great hall, at class break, there would flow a sea of boys - some hundreds of them. Mark had friends among the boys, and they admired his gentle tolerance. Perhaps the happiest time of his regency was his fourth year when, still in Melbourne, he was assigned to the preparatory school. He had a fellow-Tipperaryman, Fr James O'Dwyer, in the community, and they had much in common to talk about. In 1925 the Irish Provincial recalled Mark for theology in Milltown Park, where he was ordained (31st July 1928). For tertianship he was sent to St Beuno's, north Wales.
It was very appropriate that Fr Mark and should die at St Francis Xavier's,Dublin, where he had worked for nearly 45 years. Except for three years in the Crescent, Limerick, two in Clongowes and one in Mungret, as a priest all his activity was associated with Gardiner street. Over the years he directed different Sodalities of our Lady and Conferences of St Vincent de Paul, including one for Irish-speakers. Fr Mark was a competent speaker of Irish and for many years celebrated Sunday Mass in Irish. For a number of years he was Minister, But his church choir, composed of men and boys, which he conducted for 26 years (1935-61), was perhaps his most successful achievement. To support him Fr Mark had the distinguished organist Mr Joseph O’Brien: they became close the friends. The choir became an undoubted attraction at the Sunday Mass. On Christmas mornings the faithful, coming to hear the choir's rendering of Christmas carols, used to flock in, so that the church was already thronged by 6.30. During Holy Week the choir created an atmosphere of reverence and suspense, especially during the Seven Words from the Cross on Good Friday, when the congregation remained for the three hours. Perhaps the climax of the choral year came on Easter mornings when the window-curtains were withdrawn, revealing the light, the illuminated canvas of the risen Christ over the high altar was unveiled, the organ thundered, and the choir sang Resurrexit, sicut dixit. To maintain this choir over the years Fr Quigley had to recruit new members, visit the homes of prospective candidates, train new voices and hold frequent practices.
To these labours must be added his work in the church as preacher and confessor. He took his turn on call (domi, ie, the twenty-four-hour tour of duty 2.30 pm to 2.30 pm - ready for all comers). He visited the sick members of the sodalities. In the neighbourhood he was a respected and familiar figure. To the secular priests he was well-known, and in his own quiet way he made many friends amongst them.
It is true to say that Fr Mark's health began to fail in the last five years of his life. With his weakening eyesight he could not read with any comfort, and as for walking, even with the aid of a stick, he felt insecure if he ventured out on the streets. His memory, which in former times was most remarkable and reliable, showed signs of failure. Gradually he had to withdraw from many of the church activities. At times he had periods of depression and a feeling of loneliness. He was by nature a shy and most sensitive man,
His requiem Mass took place on Christmas eve, a very busy day for professional and businessmen and secular priests. The attendance was impressive but not what it would have been had it occurred on a less busy day. Even relatives and priests from Tipperary were unable to be present and had to be content with sending telegrams of sympathy and regret at not being able to travel.
To those in the Society and outside it he will always be remembered as the quiet man with a marvellous memory for faces and facts: a mine of information about people he had met. In community recreation, if he heard someone assert something which he knew was incorrect, he remained silent, or if asked might reveal the truth with amazing details. In death he made no protest, but quietly, as became the man, yielded up his gentle soul to his Creator.