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Authority record
Corporate body

Society of Jesus

  • IE IJA
  • Corporate body
  • 1540-

The Society of Jesus was founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola and since then has grown from the original seven to 24, 400 members today who work out of 1,825 houses in 112 countries. In the intervening 455 years many Jesuits became renowned for their sanctity (41 Saints and 285 Blesseds), for their scholarship in every conceivable field, for their explorations and discoveries, but especially for their schools. The Society is governed by General Congregations, the supreme legislative authority which meets occasionally. The present Superior General is Father Arturo Sosa. Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish Basque soldier who underwent an extraordinary conversion while recuperating from a leg broken by a cannon ball in battle (see picture). He wrote down his experiences which he called his Spiritual Exercises and later he founded the Society of Jesus with the approval of Pope Paul III in 1540.

From the very beginning, the Society served the Church with outstanding men: Doctors of the Church in Europe as well as missionaries in Asia, India, Africa and the Americas. Men like Robert Bellarmine and Peter Canisius spearheaded the Counter Reformation in Europe, courageous men like Edmund Campion assisted the Catholics in England suffering under the terrible Elizabethan persecutions and missionaries like deNobili Claver, González, deBrito, Brebeuf, and Kino brought the Gospel to the ends of the earth. No other order has more martyrs for the Faith.

Ignatius Loyola had gathered around him an energetic band of well-educated men who desired nothing more than to help others find God in their lives. It was Ignatius’ original plan that they be roving missionaries such as Francis Xavier, who would preach and administer the sacraments wherever there was the hope of accomplishing the greater good. It soon became clear to Ignatius that colleges offered the greatest possible service to the church, by moral and religious instruction, by making devotional life accessible to the young and by teaching the Gospel message of service to others. From the very beginning these Jesuit schools became such an influential part of Catholic reform that this novel Jesuit enterprise was later called “a rebirth of the infant church”. The genius and innovation Ignatius brought to education came from his Spiritual Exercises whose object is to free a person from predispositions and biases, thus enabling free choices leading to happy, fulfilled lives.

Jesuits were always deeply involved in scholarship, in science and in exploration. By 1750, 30 of the world’s 130 astronomical observatories were run by Jesuit astronomers and 35 lunar craters have been named to honor Jesuit scientists. The so-called “Gregorian” Calendar was the work of the Jesuit Christopher Clavius, the “most influential teacher of the Renaissance”. Another Jesuit, Ferdinand Verbiest, determined the elusive Russo-Chinese border and until recent times no foreign name was as well known in China as the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, “Li-ma-teu”, whose story is told by Jonathan Spence in his 1984 best seller. China has recently erected a monument to the Jesuit scientists of the 17th century – in spite of the fact that since 1948 120 Jesuits languished in Chinese prisons. By the way, no other religious order has spent as many man-years in jail as the Jesuit order.

Jesuits were called the schoolmasters of Europe during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, not only because of their schools but also for their pre-eminence as scholars, scientists and the thousands of textbooks they composed. During their first two centuries the Jesuits were involved in an explosion of intellectual activity, and were engaged in over 740 schools.

Then suddenly these were all lost in 1773. Pope Clement XIV yielding to pressure from the Bourbon courts, fearing the loss of his Papal States, and anticipating that other European countries would follow the example of Henry VIII (who abandoned the Catholic Church and took his whole country with him), issued his brief Dominus ac Redemptor suppressing the Society of Jesus. This religious Society of 23,000 men dedicated to the service of the church was disbanded. The property of the Society’s many schools was either sold or made over into a state controlled system. The Society’s libraries were broken up and the books either burned, sold or snatched up by those who collaborated in the Suppression. As if unsure of himself the Pope promulgated the brief of suppression in an unusual manner which caused perplexing canonical difficulties. So when Catherine, Empress of Russia, rejected the brief outright and forbade its promulgation, 200 Jesuits continued to function in Russia.

That Jesuits take their special vow of obedience to the pope quite seriously is evident from their immediate compliance with distasteful papal edicts. Clement XIV’s Suppression is one example. Another occurred earlier in 1590 when Pope Sixtus V wanted to exclude Jesus from the official name of the Society. Jesuits immediately complied and offered alternate names but Sixtus died unexpectedly before his wish could be carried out. Included among these occasional papal intrusions in the Society’s governance was Pope John Paul II’s appointment of a delegate to govern the Society during Superior General Arrupe’s illness. So edified was he at the Society’s immediate compliance that the pope later lavished extraordinary praise on the Jesuit Order.

The Society was restored 41 years after the Suppression in 1814 by Pope Pius VII. Although many of the men had died by then, the memory of their educational triumphs had not, and the new Society was flooded with requests to take over new colleges: in France alone, for instance, 86 schools were offered to the Jesuits. Since 1814 the Society has experienced amazing growth and has since then surpassed the apostolic breadth of the early Society in its educational, intellectual, pastoral and missionary endeavors.

They form a Jesuit network, not that they are administered in the same way, but that they pursue the same goals and their success is evident in their graduates, men and women of vast and varied talent.

Clongowes Wood College

  • IE IJA/CLON
  • Corporate body
  • 1814-2018

Clongowes Wood College was bought by the Jesuits in 1814 at the cost of £16,000. In 1886, the Jesuit-run St. Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, county Offaly, was amalgamated with Clongowes Wood College. The school is dedicated to St. Aloysius of Gonzaga and is twinned with Portora Royal School, Enniskillen.

St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg

  • IE IJA/FM/TULL
  • Corporate body
  • 1818-1991

The Jesuits bought Tullabeg in 1818 (dedicated it to St Stanislaus) and opened a preparatory school for boys destined to go to Clongowes Wood College, Kildare. St Stanislaus College gradually developed as an educational rival to its sister school. It merged with Clongowes Wood College in 1886. Tullabeg then became a house of Jesuit formation: novitiate (1888-1930), juniorate (1895-1911), tertianship (1911-1927) and philosophate (1930-1962). In 1962, it was decided that the students of philosophy should be sent abroad for study. Tullabeg subsequently became a retreat house and was closed in May 1991.

Banagher Refugee Commitee

  • Corporate body
  • 1914-1918

The Committee had been established during World War I to support Belgian refugees with accommodation and financial assistance after the German invasion into Belgium.

Williams Group Tullamore Ltd.

  • Corporate body
  • 1966-1997

The Williams Group Tullamore Ltd. was formed as a holding company to control and co-ordinate the activities of the four existing companies, D. E. Williams Ltd., B. Daly and Co. Ltd., Keily & Co. Ltd., and the Irish Mist Liqueur Co. Ltd.

Tullamore Pipers' Band

  • Corporate body
  • 1911-

The Tullamore Pipers' Band or St. Colmcille's Pipers' Band was founded in 1911 with the help of the Tullamore branch of The Gaelic League. Founder members included Alo O'Brennan and others active in the nationalist movement. The new Tullamore Pipers Band received additional encouragement from national figures such as F.J. Bigger (1863-1926) and Alice Stopford Green (1847-1929). The band first performed in public on St Patrick’s Day 1912 and was presented by Bigger with its fine banner at a feis in Tullamore in August 1912. The band played at the foundation of the Volunteers in April 1914 and the Geashill Cattle Drive in November of that year. In the aftermath of the affray or incident in 1916 the instruments of the band in the loft in Market Square were badly damaged and compensation awarded later that year. There appears to have been a split in the band along political lines in 1916-17. This was brought to a close at the same time as the split in the GAA and the two bands, St Colmcille’s and St Enda’s amalgamated with a combined strength of about forty. Judging by the financial supporters of St Enda’s band it appears to have been sponsored by Sinn Féin and the new organisation claimed the credit for bringing the split to an end.

King's County Grand Jury

  • Corporate body
  • 1634-1898

The grand juries were among the most important organs of local administration at county level until the passing of the Local Government Act of 1898. Although originating in Norman times, the first mention of grand juries on Irish Statute books is in 1634. King’s County, which was shired in 1556, and like all other counties was used as a unit for the administration of justice, although over time, its administrative function increased and it became responsible for public works such as road construction and later for construction of infirmaries, bridewells and other institutions of local governance.

The jurors originally comprised ten in number but this was raised to twenty-three. Members of the grand jury were selected by the high sheriff from the leading property owners in the county, the order in which the jurors stood on the list being an indication of their social standing. The sheriff’s discretion in the nomination of the grand jury was total. The sheriff was a political appointment and it frequently happened that he filled the list with his friends and supporters. Catholics were prohibited from serving on grand juries until 1793 but even after this date, jury lists were predominately Protestant due to the concentration of property in Protestant hands.

Over time the administrative function increased. The 1634 and subsequent acts authorized the justices of the assizes with the consent of the grand jury to levy the costs of roads and bridges on the county or barony. This rate was called the county cess. By 1705 the grand juries were authorised to make presentments or propose works.

The grand juries met twice yearly at the Spring (or Lent) Assizes and the Summer Assizes. The King’s County Grand Jury held its assizes at Philipstown (Daingean) until 1835 when the administration of the county moved to Tullamore. The presentment sessions dealt with the expenses of each barony and then for the county-at-large. They were conducted by the justices of the peace and from 1833 included five to twelve cess payers.

The Local Government Act of 1898 abolished the administrative functions of the grand juries, these functions transferring to the newly formed county councils in 1899. The judicial functions ceased in 1924.

McGinn's Bakery

  • Corporate body
  • 1920-1996

The premises were first mentioned in a lease from Charles William Bury to John Shaw in 1790. It became a brewery in 1805 when Richard Deverell acquired the property. The ownership changed again, i.e. to George Wilkinson, a baker, in the 1850s.
Michael McGinn (1879-1973) bought the premises in 1920 from the widow Brophy under whose ownership a pub was run by the Keeney family. McGinn was from Mountmellick and managed a D. E. Williams grocery shop there before he bought the pub in Tullamore. He continued the pub trade and also operated a bakery and a grocery on the premises. The licence was transferred in 1967 to his son Philip McGinn who renovated the pub in 1978 and changed the grocery part to an off-licence in 1980.

Prince of Wales's Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians)

  • Corporate body
  • 1881-1922

The 100th (Prince of Wales's Royal Canadian) Regiment of Foot and 109th Regiment of Foot were amalgamated in July 1881 to form the Leinster Regiment as part of the Caldwell Reforms. Regiments were to consist of two regular battalions and three militia battalion. 1st Battalion formed from the 100th Regiment of Foot, 2nd Battalion from the 109th Regiment of Foot, 3rd Battalion from the King’s County Militia, 4th Battalion from the Queen’s County Militia and the 5th Battalion from the Royal Meath Militia. Birr Barracks, Crinkill became the depot for the regiment, where depot staff were permanently based. The Regiment took part in: Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War (1895-6), Second Anglo Boer War (1899-1902), First World War (1914-1919), Malabar Rebellion (1921). Disbanded at Windsor Castle on 12 June 1922, along with five other southern Irish Regiments.

Victoria Cross Receptions
• Lieutenant John Vincent Holland, 1916.
• Corporal John Cunningham, 1917.
• Private Martin Joseph Moffat, 1918.
• Sergeant John O’Neill, 1918.

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