Irish College in Paris - Alumni and Rectors

Alumni and Rectors

In the three hundred years of its existence, the college has not been without a share in the ecclesiastical literature of Ireland. Among the rectors of the college have been Thomas Messingham, prothonotary Apostolic, author of the "Florilegium Insulæ Sanctorum" (Paris, 1624); Dr. Andrew Donlevy, author of an "Anglo-Irish Catechism" (Paris, 1742); Dr. Miley, author of "A History of the Papal States" (Dublin, 1852); Dr. Thomas McNamara, author of "Programmes of Sermons" (Dublin, 1880), "Encheiridion Clericorum" (1882), and several other similar works. Abbé Mageoghegan, Sylvester O'Hallaran, Martin Haverty, and probably Geoffrey Keating, all eminent Irish historians, were students of the college. Dean Kinane, a student and then a professor in the college, is widely known for his "Dove of the Tabernacle" and numerous other devotional works. More recently, the Rev. John MacGuinness, C. M., vice-rector, has published a full course of dogmatic theology. Amongst the rectors of the college were Dr. John Farley and Dr. John Baptist Walsh, in the eighteenth century, and Dr. MacSweeney and the Rev. Thomas MacNamara, in the nineteenth.