The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
THE SEE OF ARDAGH IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
THE SACRED CONGREGATION OF RITES ON THE SIGNS OF MARTYRDOM IN THE CATACOMBS.
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN IRELAND.
"Christian is my name, Catholic my surname", said one ofthe early Fathers, when he wished to give an adequate descriptionof his religious belief. In the same way, the name andsurname of this publication sufficiently indicate its character andscope. First of all, it is Ecclesiastical, by reason of its subjectmatter, of the class which it addresses, and of the sanction underwhich it appears. Next, it is Irish, because, to the best of itshumble ability, it is intended to serve the Catholic Church ofour native country. Father Segneri tells us in one of his sermons,that in his day men used to flock to the religious housesin Italy, eagerly asking: "What news from Ireland?" Thosewere the stormy days of the latter half of the seventeenth century.How often, on such occasions, in the cool cloisters ofRoman colleges, where he had spent so much of his blamelesslife, was the name of Archbishop Plunket pronounced by theold friends to whom his worth was so well known! How manya listener went straight out from such conferences to pray for hisstricken brethren of the suffering Irish Church! At that timethe trials, the wounds, the sorrows, the triumphs, the hopes ofIrish Catholics were the subject of many a discourse, the anxiouscare of many a heart. To-day all this is changed in great part.No foreign preacher now-a-days would allude to his hearers'widespread interest about the Irish Church, as one of the signsof the times. And why? Not because—due allowance madefor changes—our country has become less interesting; for surelyour Catholicity, in the bloom of its second spring, is not less remarkablethan it was when torn and beaten to the ground bypersecution. And if fraternal love made our distant brethrenlook sorrowfully over the sea upon our Church when in ruins,[Pg 2]surely the same love would teach them not to turn away theireyes from us now that we are once more setting in fair order thestones that had been displaced. Brothers share each other'sjoys as well as each other's sorrows. The reason of the changeis, that Irish Catholic intelligence does not find its way abroad.There is much to be said about the Church in Ireland, there aremany anxious to hear it, but there is no messenger to bear thenews. It is not, perhaps, too much to say, that there is lessknown abroad about the state of the Irish Church in these daysof telegraph and railway, than there was when Dr. Plunket hadto borrow a name under cover of which to write to the internuncio,and when Irish news was not thought out of placeamong the Epistolae Indicæ et Japonicæ of the Jesuit Fathers.The Irish Ecclesiastical Record will endeavour to meetthis want.